By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
A rush of new Wi-Fi standards and capabilities in the course of a few years sometimes means that not every Wi-Fi network everywhere is ready for a sweeping generational upgrade – even as next gen solutions are already being rolled out. Behind the scenes Cisco is working to make sure that system capabilities – including standards – line up in order to deliver the low latency and mission critical performance customers expect from 6 GHz Wi-Fi.
Is the world of enterprise Wi-Fi ready to take a generational leap forward in technology with Wi-Fi 7? Most vendors have already announced new kit or are ready to pounce on the opportunity to spin out marketing talk promising better performance. But not all pieces are yet in place for the industry to make the jump without also risking disruption, Cisco says.
“Wi-Fi is not best effort anymore. Our enterprise clients rely on us to solve real problems, and they are looking for solutions as opposed to new generations of technology. We’re big contributors to the development of new standards and our mission is to innovate even beyond the standard when necessary. That’s why we need to take a measured and meticulous approach to new products,” says Yogesh Paliwal, Director of Product Management at Cisco.
He also says that the Wi-Fi industry is now mature, which means that plenty of verticals have been using Wi-Fi for resilience, latency, and performance-sensitive applications for years. “Before pushing for generational upgrades, we need to make sure standards are implemented in the right way. For us that means working with key clients, partners, and standardisation bodies to make sure Wi-Fi is ready for another 25 years of success,” Yogesh Paliwal says.
For example: Until recently, 6 GHz clients have not been capable of reporting their LPI and standard power capabilities to the AP. “This may sound like something minor but it is incredibly important in order for enterprises to reap the full benefit of standard power Wi-Fi and AFC, which is now available. In the short term we’re solving this and many other challenges through working with partners – including the industry’s largest device and chipset makers – while pushing for standards to be updated asap,” he says.
Working beyond the standards & with partners
Yogesh Paliwal cites Cisco’s collaboration with Apple as an example of working with partners to drive the industry forward. The joint effort initially produced the Fastlane+ solution to boost connectivity performance between Cisco Wi-Fi 6 APs and Apple clients.
A large part of the Fastlane+ has since developed into the feature Stream Classification Service (SCS) with QoS Characteristics Element, which is today a part of the Wi-Fi 7 standard. Another example is Cisco’s creation of OpenRoaming to enable seamless and secure Wi-Fi onboarding and roaming. It has since been handed over and incorporated into the work of the Wireless Broadband Alliance for standardisation and wider industry adoption, Yogesh Paliwal says.
Solving for low latency and guaranteed delivery
As a guiding principle – and as vendor with a huge customer base – it’s important to understand what the goal is, Yogesh Paliwal says. “Ultimately, we’re here to solve for use cases requiring low latency and guaranteed delivery because this is what many of our customers are looking for in next generation systems. It is very important for enterprises to transition to a mature 6 GHz solution and much less important to rush on to the next generation before all the pieces are ready,” he says.
For VR gaming pioneers Zero Latency Cisco has been instrumental in delivering reliable Wi-Fi, which has enabled the replacement tethered VR headsets (previously relying on cumbersome compute backpacks) with direct-to-the-headset connectivity and remote rendering using a Wi-Fi 6E solution. “This is a testament to 6 GHz Wi-Fi’s ability to support remote rendering for multiple players at Zero Latency’s gaming arenas,” Yogesh Paliwal says.
Mission critical wireless solutions for industry are already here
And Cisco is already delivering mission critical wireless solutions for industry. Cisco URWB (Ultra Reliable Wireless Backhaul) uses standard Wi-Fi hardware and specialised software to deliver make-before-break handover and roaming for clients moving at high speed. Cisco says that while Wi-Fi 7’s standard MLO does not solve for guaranteed roaming in its current version (since multiple links connect only to the same AP) URWB is designed to do exactly that today. Guaranteed roaming in standard Wi-Fi may only become available in a future Wi-Fi release perhaps four or five years from now, he says.
“URWB is a wireless backhaul technology designed for seamless immediate handoff and zero latency to connect for example moving transport infrastructure and host of other industrial use cases. Among others we’ve helped a major theme park in making sure their wireless ride controls run at extremely high availability and near-zero latency,” Yogesh Paliwal says.
Cisco conducted private demonstrations of Wi-Fi 7 at Cisco Live in Las Vegas earlier this month including examples of integrations between Wi-Fi and ultra-reliable wireless technology. Cisco continues to drive wireless standards development forward among other things by contributing to the work of the of both the Wi-Fi Alliance and the Wireless Broadband Alliance.
/Claus.
