Wireless Broadband Alliance: Wi-Fi 6/6E adoption will reach 83% by 2022

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A key finding from the latest cross-industry survey by the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), a global industry organization dedicated to improving Wi-Fi standards and services, is that 83% of service providers, device manufacturers and enterprises around the world will deploy Wi-Fi 6/6E or plan to do so by the end of 2022.

The findings, published by the WBA as part of the WBA 2022 Annual Industry Report, highlight how 6 GHz spectrum will enable Wi-Fi to support more users and new use cases, such as time-sensitive networking (TSN) for Industry 4.0 applications.

58% of WBA survey respondents said 6 GHz is “critical or very important to their strategy.” WBA believes this outlook reflects global harmonization and rapid growth in device choice, as follows:

• 41 countries, accounting for 54% of the world's GDP, have authorized the use of 6GHz.
• More than 338 million Wi-Fi 6E devices will enter the market this year.
• By 2022, nearly 20% of Wi-Fi 6 device shipments will support 6 GHz.

The new report includes updates on various technologies, amendments and initiatives, including 5G convergence and Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be). Wi-Fi 7, also known as Extreme High Throughput (EHT), is expected to support up to 30 Gbps of throughput, about three times faster than Wi-Fi 6. WBA expects Wi-Fi 7 devices to debut in the market in 2025.

The report also quantifies the global momentum of WBA OpenRoaming, which enables users to automatically and securely connect to millions of Wi-Fi networks worldwide without the need for logins, registrations or passwords. Survey respondents indicated that roaming is the second most important Wi-Fi capability for business success, especially for smart city environments.

WBA added that 40% of respondents said they have already implemented Passpoint/OpenRoaming, such as Adventist Health hospital campuses in the U.S., or plan to do so by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, survey data showed that 70% of respondents who participate in a city-wide public Wi-Fi network, or who plan to build one, will support city-wide roaming, joining several cities in Europe that have already implemented it.

OpenRoaming version 2 was released in June and defines significant new capabilities, including support for SLAs through QoS layers to guarantee a "Silver" HD streaming experience on OpenRoaming networks. Silver service is already available in 95% of the OpenRoaming ecosystem. "Service providers, device manufacturers and enterprises around the world are finding Wi-Fi to be more valuable than ever before," said Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of WBA.

Rodrigues added: “Despite all the uncertainty caused by the pandemic, 56% of respondents said they are more confident about investing in Wi-Fi than they were a year ago. This confidence is also reflected in the number of WBA members involved in various projects – a 15% increase compared to 2020 – and a record 20 projects in development or already underway. One example is their strong interest in the convergence of 5G and Wi-Fi 6, including how mobile operators can leverage Wi-Fi as part of their 5G strategy to maximize coverage and capacity.”

In addition to reviewing 2021, the new report also explains emerging trends and business models in key vertical markets such as retail, aviation, hospitality, smart transportation, healthcare and general industry. In addition, it also depicts the progress of technology trends and developments, including standard evolution, OpenRoaming, Mesh Wi-Fi and mobile edge computing.