Why the time to act on Wi-Fi is NOW

Now that the deafening 5G marketing noise has subsided a bit it is finally time to think and think clearly about the future of wireless.

Yes - I know, we're on to CBRS, and LoRa, and umpteen other new wireless standards that are being pushed incessantly - but here's what most people forget: New standards (including 5G) are exceedingly difficult to introduce when the overall wireless market is slight negative to single-digit growth.

In other words: If you want to keep growing in wireless you have to apply something that already exists (but evolves), something that's going to work well in a mature wireless market (I wrote about it here at length) where there's really no new 'killer app' but a host of things that need to be done more efficiently alongside working on a long-tail of new use cases.

And Wi-Fi is the perfect technology for that, of course. The best illustration of what we're about to get with the new Wi-Fi 6 is this: A bigger box of tools to deal with existing opportunities plus a long-tail of new use cases (or a bigger Swiss Army Knife, if you like).

The second part of the story is of course the vast new opportunity that exists in embracing the upcoming 6 GHz band - which will be pure Wi-Fi 6 territory. OFDMA-based Wi-Fi 6 operating without legacy on 6 GHz bands will be largely indistinguishable from a well planned, high-quality cellular service - but at a fraction of the cost. And it will of course still be supported by the vast Wi-Fi carrier & enterprise ecosystem, all license free.

Let me break this down further in point form:

• There's a reason why Wi-Fi carries such a huge proportion of Internet traffic and the reason is this: It's the only truly capital efficient wireless technology out there. Wi-Fi 6 is going to boost this trend even more because it performs better in every way (at an even lower price per bit).
• To take the next big evolutionary step in Wi-Fi (to Wi-Fi 6) all you really have to do is change your AP (or router) - you don't have to replace all kinds of other core network infrastructure (although you may need more capacity of course). That alone will get you positioned for growth & opportunity.
• Be creative! Your job now (and mine too) is to find out what the big new Swiss Army Knife of Wi-Fi 6 can do for us - and that includes things like extended range and target wakeup time (for IoT), extreme high-density, reviving the case for outdoor FWA with Wi-Fi 6, and addressing a host of specialised cases for industry, sports & entertainment, the home, MDUs, you name it.
• Make sure you at least try to understand the implications of new 6 GHz band - because it's a huge deal. It's not only about 'more of the same use cases with more bandwidth'. It will spawn radical changes in wireless architecture for the home & enterprise, for example. The companies and individuals who understand this now & plan accordingly will be the wireless winners of the future.

We've thus far only scraped the surface of speculation on what the next ten years of Wi-Fi 6 + 6 GHz will bring. For a lot more qualified information - information that will be business critical for your next ten years in wireless - join us for Wi-Fi NOW International in London on November 12-14.

See you there.

/Claus.