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Ericsson | A practitioners’ guide to accelerate 5G for business in 2020
Chapter 7: Wireless network options
Wireless business connectivity: what are the options? Wireless connectivity plays a central role in increasing businesses’ agility, and choosing between 4G, 5G, and Wi-Fi 6 is becoming more tricky as mobile technologies evolve. Here, we explore the different options available to businesses, and key things to take into account during decision making. Over the last decade, wireless-first technologies have gained widespread adoption. During this time, wireless business connectivity has been used for connecting with customers and for making operations more agile, and generally relied on: • Two wireless technologies, 4G LTE and Wi-Fi 4/5, playing different roles in supporting professional users • A universal connectivity model with all services treated equally and delivered over the top of a broadband connection • Universal 4G coverage, indoors and outdoors, with Wi-Fi focused on hotspots indoors • 4G as the primary access for smartphones, with an offload of data traffic to Wi-Fi in homes and offices • Wi-Fi used as the primary access for laptops and tablets with integrated 4G adopted by road-warriors travelling extensively for business • 4G offered with bucket-based and unlimited data plans. Free Wi-Fi for end users in public environments, subsidized by adjacent businesses, and provided as a managed IT service at business premises.
Entering a wireless-only market
The introduction of 5G and Wi-Fi 6, and the evolution of 4G, are moving us beyond wireless-first and into a wireless-only market. New spectrum bands enable performance gaps to be eliminated in wired networks, making wireless-only a realistic aspiration. We also need to rethink where we use cellular connectivity and Wi-Fi beyond the indoor/outdoor demarcation line. Finally, these developments also allow us to explore business model innovation beyond universal connectivity with traffic-based charges or free services.
Businesses benefit from understanding how these technologies can be used differently from before — and by challenging simplistic views that “generation” six is better than five and four. Also, they must also move away from the assumption that the choice is between generations, rather than finding the optimal combination.
The evolution of Wi-Fi connectivity for business purposes
Wi-Fi is the workhorse for offloading high volumes of low-value data traffic from smartphones with no/low requirements tied to performance. This use case today takes place in both offices and homes. Smartphone providers have supported this evolution by introducing Wi-Fi 6 support early on 5G smartphones. Before the pandemic outbreak, we had a clear separation of connectivity models for laptops and tablets at home and in offices - based on managed local Wi-Fi networks in offices and selfsupported residential wireless LANs at home. This model worked well when working from the office was the norm. A long, slow and partial return of information workers to offices will force businesses to rethink their connectivity strategies based on two central themes: • What should drive office upgrades from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 when a substantial reduction of staff in offices slows down Wi-Fi traffic growth? • How shall businesses support a growing share of the workforce working remotely in homes and alternative work locations?
