Wireless Broadband Alliance: 5G should not be viewed in a narrow sense and can coexist harmoniously with Wi-Fi 6

Tiago Rodrigues, who took over as CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) in September, said that in the coming months, the focus of the WBA will include ensuring that Wi-Fi 6 and 5G become good friends, rather than allowing any kind of friction or other comparisons between the two. Tiago Rodrigues joined the WBA in 2004 and was one of the drivers of the deployment of Hotspot 2.0 and SIM authentication on Wi-Fi.

WBA's operator members include AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo and Comcast, while technology provider members include Nokia, Google, Facebook and Qualcomm.

One of the reasons why the industry is so interested in the harmony of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G has to do with the increasing convergence between 5G and Wi-Fi 6. A lot of information about 5G has led people to believe that 5G is the best technology ever. However, Tiago Rodrigues said that in some cases, 5G is not the better choice for internal enterprise coverage.

[[282744]]

“5G should not be viewed just as 5G NR technology, but rather as a transition platform into which other types of technologies can be integrated,” he said.

For example, he said, no one would use Wi-Fi to cover the highway. It is not designed to provide mobility at 70 miles per hour, which is the scenario where 5G can provide coverage. But in the indoor coverage scenario of a 20-story hotel or office building, 5G may not be the ideal technology choice due to cost and equipment complexity. Fundamentally, he said, "we should not look at 5G narrowly."

In the United States, CBRS is sometimes better than Wi-Fi, and it may become a dedicated band for deploying private LTE. But Tiago Rodrigues said he believes that Wi-Fi will still be part of it. With so many options, the decision-making of IT managers or CIOs is becoming more and more complicated. They need to determine their requirements and goals to choose the best solution, whether it is 5G slicing provided by operators or other products.

WBA and Huawei recently announced a Wi-Fi pilot project involving a series of Wi-Fi 6 validation tests at the University of Mondragon in Spain, where they are investigating innovative Wi-Fi 5 use cases. The pilot aims to lay the foundation for immersive education methods (such as VR and AR) that will change the way teachers and students interact on campus. Likewise, it is expected that the trial will include testing of live webcasting and distance education using Wi-Fi 6 technology.

Earlier this year, WBA completed a Wi-Fi 6 and IoT trial with Mettis Aerospace, a UK-based designer and manufacturer that supplies parts to the aerospace and defense industries. Mettis Aerospace reportedly decided to adopt Wi-Fi 6 technology because of its backward compatibility with a wide range of devices and its long lifespan. The company’s machines are often required to last for decades, and Wi-Fi meets the requirements, including in the area of ​​security.

Tiago Rodrigues said the United States continues to work to find more spectrum for unlicensed spectrum technologies such as Wi-Fi, and the situation in other countries is roughly the same.