By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Twenty-five years after its inception, the massive success of Wi-Fi is a testament to the value of a decentralised wireless standard. The next many years of Wi-Fi success will depend on Wi-Fi being able to deliver an excellent user experience and not least recognition by policy-makers that Wi-Fi spectrum is as important as roads, fibre, and other essential infrastructure, says Kevin Robinson, President & CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance. In particular more Wi-Fi spectrum for Europe is one of the most important medium-term goals, he says.
In September this year it will be 25 years since the name ‘Wi-Fi’ was officially unveiled. Remarkably, Wi-Fi has been an astounding success virtually from the get go and the technology is today stronger and more popular than ever with tens of billions of devices in operation. What is perhaps even more remarkable is that Wi-Fi’s approach to mass market adoption continues to be the antithesis of many of its licensed spectrum brethren.
“Wi-Fi has benefitted enormously from being decentralised in nature, meaning it continues to be comparatively easy for companies or complementary ecosystems to innovate and create value on top of the Wi-Fi platform. Even if starting in the proverbial garage, a company can rapidly launch a product to satisfy an unmet market need, as we witnessed in the early days of IoT. Or enterprises can deploy networks designed to meet unique needs, as we see in the countless private networks that support critical business operations globally,” says Kevin Robinson, President & CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance.
“At Wi-Fi Alliance, we’re very conscious of facilitating industry growth with a light touch on certification, striking an appropriate balance that ensures Wi-Fi meets expectations without discouraging certification participation through overly burdensome testing,” Kevin Robinson says.
Wi-Fi continues to play a critical role in anything from massive rollout of next generation home broadband CPEs to something as niche as delivering wireless connectivity on the International Space Station and NASA’s new Orion space capsule. “The Wi-Fi ecosystem is enormously broad and varied, and even narrow applications benefit from Wi-Fi’s massive scale and market success,” he says.
In addition to continuing to push for the availability of more Wi-Fi spectrum globally, the future of Wi-Fi will depend on delivering an excellent connectivity experience. “Consistency of experience is essential, and insufficient emphasis on testing and certification presents a real risk to the success of the industry at large. Thankfully, we’re seeing the opposite. The Wi-Fi Alliance membership base is growing and certification activity is up substantially in 2024, clear indications that industry takes product quality extremely seriously,” he says.
On the spectrum side, Wi-Fi Alliance is particularly focused on Europe. “Wi-Fi’s central role in delivering gigabit connectivity continues to grow with extensive fibre deployments, but available spectrum capacity lags other developed countries. We are concerned that without Wi-Fi access to the upper-6 GHz band, European consumers and enterprises will not realise the full benefits of the latest and future generations of Wi-Fi technology,” he says.
As it happens the Wi-Fi spectrum situation in Europe is more dire than most European policymakers perhaps realise. A study just released by Plum Consulting and commissioned by Wi-Fi Alliance found that there’s not nearly enough current Wi-Fi spectrum to meet the EU’s 2030 gigabit connectivity goal. The study concludes that 1 Gbps connectivity will only be available to 50-60% of dense residential buildings at current spectrum allocations, while close to 100% 1 Gbps coverage would be possible if the top half of the 6 GHz band were made available to Wi-Fi.
This year’s Wi-Fi World Congress Europe – featuring Kevin Robinson as speaker – is colocated with Dynamic Spectrum Alliance Summit and will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, on September 23-25. More spectrum for Europe will be one of the combined event’s most important themes. For more see here.
New study: Wi-Fi Spectrum Requirements
A new study by Plum Consulting and commissioned by the Wi-Fi Alliance concludes that Europe’s 1 Gbps per household by 2030 goal is unreachable under current Wi-Fi spectrum limits. The upper 6 GHz band allocated to Wi-Fi will be required for Europe to reach its broadband goal, the study says. Download the study here.
/Claus.
