London – July 10, 2019: In preparation for the impending release of next-generation Wi-Fi technology later this year, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) today released a new white paper that provides deployment guidelines for a number of possible scenarios utilizing Wi-Fi 6 technology. With today’s white paper release, operators, enterprises and cities now have the tools needed to embrace and deploy Wi-Fi 6 when it’s released later this year.
Globally, dependence upon Wi-Fi continues to grow exponentially, driven by a number of factors:
- The number of Wi-Fi devices in the world – 9 billion – now outnumbers the 7.6 billion people on the planet.
- Global enterprises this year will generate more than 33 billion exabytes of IP traffic. By 2022, that number will grow to more than 63 billion exabytes of IP traffic, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent.
- Wi-Fi is the primary access technology in most broadband households, with 76 percent of US households using Wi-Fi as the primary broadband connection.
As this newest white paper from WBA illustrates, savvy deployment of Wi-Fi 6 can mitigate some of the growing pains that Wi-Fi is experiencing, while ensuring that operators, enterprises and vendors meet important service-level agreements (SLAs). As such, the work released today proposes guidelines to ensure SLAs around bandwidth, throughput, latency, traffic prioritization and numerous other factors.
The paper also provides guidelines for RF planning and design, with consideration given to factors like band steering, MU-MIMO and adjusting for high-density deployments that demand increased capacity. Additionally, today’s release addresses ways that Wi-Fi 6 deployments can provide seamless mobility and backward compatibility with previous Wi-Fi generation technology.
“Since its inception 20 years ago, Wi-Fi has become a fundamental expectation for consumers and enterprises alike,” said Tiago Rodrigues, General Manager, WBA. “This latest white paper comes at a crucial time; not only is global demand for Wi-Fi continuing unabated, but operators worldwide are ramping up 5G networks, and governmental authorities around the world are preparing to open 6GHz spectrum to Wi-Fi traffic. Today’s announcement illustrates the dedication of the WBA and its member companies to providing timely, expert direction to ensure that Wi-Fi deployments successfully accommodate all of these global factors.”
To that end, the paper provides a number of deployment scenarios for Wi-Fi 6, including public venues, stadiums, residential and multi-dwelling units, the Internet of Things (IoT) and enterprise WLANs. Today’s release was developed in conjunction with WBA’s Next Gen Wi-Fi Work Group develop, including operator representatives from Boingo Wireless, BT and Charter Communications, as well as vendor representatives from Broadcom, Cisco and CommScope.
About the Wireless Broadband Alliance
Founded in 2003, the vision of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) is to drive seamless, interoperable service experiences via Wi-Fi within the global wireless ecosystem. WBA’s mission is to enable collaboration between service providers, technology companies and organizations to achieve that vision. WBA undertakes programs and activities to address business and technical issues, as well as opportunities, for member companies.
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US Media Inquiries
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wba@sonuspr.com
Several industry experts weighed in about the importance of Wi-Fi 6 deployment guidelines:
“Technologies like Wi-Fi 6 and PasspointTM are steering unlicensed networks into the 5G era, meeting high performance expectations across speed, latency, reliability, security and traffic management. To realize digital transformations for both people and things, we’ll need Wi-Fi and its ability to carry the bulk of data traffic with unparalleled efficiencies.”
“Wi-Fi 6 is a generational upgrade in connectivity technology that results in higher wireless capacity, faster speeds, more range and longer battery life. Consumers, Service Providers, and Enterprises are rapidly adopting Wi-Fi 6 as it delivers clear benefits such as high wireless capacity along with the lowest cost and energy per bit.”
“Wi-Fi 6 brings consumers and businesses alike exactly what they are looking for – faster, more responsive, and more reliable connectivity. As we join the ecosystem to deliver Wi-Fi 6 technology optimized for new user experiences, it will continue to open up new possibilities for immersive experiences and wireless transformations in the home and workplace.”
“As Accuris Networks works with Mobile and Broadband operators around the world, the need for high capacity Wi-Fi continues to be a major driver. Wi-Fi 6 addresses a number of critical requirements being driven by user experience and service delivery demands including connecting to more devices simultaneously, interference management, and reduced power consumption which dramatically improves the battery life for mobile and IoT devices. Accuris is excited to work with our Wi-Fi equipment partners to realize these benefits to further improve Enterprise and IoT applications over Wi-Fi.”
“Wi-Fi is a social empowerment tool for country like India with 600 thousand Villages. Wi-Fi 6 is revolutionary in sense that it supports both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz band, brings improvement for outdoor deployment and OFDMA are very essential features to deploy the Wi-Fi networks in our villages. India has opened 605 MHz spectrum in 5 GHz band which is a very bold move to create a sustainable Wi-Fi ecosystem and realize Digital India.”
“Investment is driven by market opportunities, Wi-Fi-cellular aggregation, customer retention and new business opportunities such as IoT. SK Telecom has been engaging Wi-Fi 6 services that can provide reliable predictable services to customers anytime/anywhere and delivering new capabilities and business model.”
“Enterprises (hotels, travel hubs, retail and others) can use Wi-Fi 6 to build carrier-grade infrastructure that will complement 5G. Deploying Wi-Fi 6 alongside Hotspot 2.0 /NGH allows venue owners to control their entire user experience. This next generation of Wi-Fi will also allow these venues to negotiate mobile data offload access to their infrastructure on equal terms with cellular operators.”
“The 6th generation of Wi-Fi has ushered in higher data rates, increased capacity, and lower latency which will give a fillip to increased Wi-Fi adoption and new business models for enterprises and service providers globally. HSC is excited that the next generation of wireless technologies (Wi-Fi 6 and 5G) are focussed on delivering improved performance within new and existing networks. This will give impetus to new opportunities to achieve greater connectivity and interoperability. We are happy to say that HSC has been providing solutions for frictionless onboarding and seamless roaming between different wireless networks to enable devices to securely and automatically connect from one network to another.”
