Technology
Next generation Wi-Fi 6: the future of wireless connectivity
SOURCE: WIFI ALLIANCE
The growing expectations on Wi-Fi performance, coverage, security, support for new use cases, applications and devices require a step forward in the evolution of Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi 6 increases data rates and capacity, optimizes transmission in congested environments and extends support to new devices and use cases.
WiFi 6 Certified includes a range of new features , many of which will strengthen the ability to use wireless communications for enterprise connectivity solutions.
WI-FI IS THE WORLD’S PREDOMINANT WIRELESS technology. It serves more users, connects more devices, and carries more traffic than all other wireless technologies combined. Today, we expect to find Wi-Fi connectivity in virtually all mobile devices and in most indoor environments. Wi-Fi now has a nearly 100 percent attach rate in smartphones and laptops, and adoption is quickly expanding to innovative consumer electronic devices, Internet of Things (IoT), and vehicles. Users choose to use a Wi-Fi connection when one is available even if there is no obvious cost benefit to them, and as a result, a majority of wireless data traffic goes over Wi-Fi. Globally, Wi-Fi carries more than half of all data traffic. In Japan, Wi-Fi carries 83 percent of smartphone traffic and in Germany, Wi-Fi carries more than 87 percent of all smartphone traffic.
Success of WiFi
Wi-Fi access has become synonymous with broadband access. Nearly all broadband homes
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have one Wi-Fi access point (AP) or a mesh Wi-Fi network. Cities provide free public Wi-Fi to deliver broadband access to their citizens to bridge the digital divide and provide services. It is virtually impossible to find an airport or a hotel that does not offer Wi-Fi access to visitors and guests. Within the home, Wi-Fi is the preferred connectivity method that goes beyond broadband connectivity to smartphones and laptops: most new smart home devices utilize only Wi-Fi and depend on it for setup, authentication, and operation. The success of Wi-Fi rests on a solid foundation established over the last 20 years, reinforced by its excellence at meeting the needs and expectations of users today, providing continuity with backwards compatibility, and propelled by a fast-paced and robust technological evolution. Wi-Fi started as a disruptive technology that demonstrated the value and benefits of wireless Ethernet. As the first wireless access technology that used unlicensed spectrum on a wide scale, Wi-Fi has empowered individual
users, enterprises, and service providers to deliver use cases and establish new business models in ways they could not with licensed spectrum. Most notably with hotspots, Wi-Fi so successfully established the concept of broadband access as a service or as an amenity that now many see this as a requirement. In turn, hotspots opened the way for standalone Wi-Fi service providers and enriched the offerings of existing enterprises. Over the last two decades, Wi-Fi networks created a distributed connectivity fabric that enables Wi-Fi to carry the vast majority of wireless traffic and provide broadband connectivity where it is needed the most: in homes, inside buildings, and in dense outdoor areas. Wi-Fi has done this while making very efficient use of available unlicensed spectrum. On the device side, Wi-Fi first unexpectedly presented the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) model and showed smartphone users the potential of wireless broadband at a time when 3G cellular networks were not ready to match the Wi-Fi user experience. Furthermore,
in d u s t r ial et h er ne t b o o k
11.2019
