Emerging opportunities including Internet of Things (IoT), big data and the shift towards 5G is driving the demand for next generation Wi-Fi, according to a new report, with research showing more than half of operators are planning to deploy so-called ‘carrier-grade’ Wi-Fi network architecture.

Wireless Broadband Alliance’s (WBA) annual Wi-Fi industry report (in partnership with Maravedis-Rethink), From 2016 to 5G, found that 57 per cent of operators now have firm timelines in place for carrier grade network architecture, while Wi-Fi as a strategic platform is being used “by an increasing variety of service providers, including pure plays, aggregators, MNOs, MSO and vertical market players”.

The WBA, in collaboration with 20 large operators and vendors, also provided a definition of the term carrier grade Wi-Fi, which sets standards relating to the capabilities the network needs to have, ranging from security, quality of service, high availability, strong coverage and data rates, to integration with operators’ OSS/BSS platforms and their other networks.

WBA said it had seen an increase in “operator confidence” for carrier grade Wi-Fi, which had consequently seen a surge in deployments over the past year.

Two-thirds of respondents to the survey said that they felt more confident about deploying carrier-grade Wi-Fi than they had 12 months ago – a figure which is up from 56 per cent in the 2014 study and 43 per cent back in 2012.

“Within five years there will be as much as a 70 per cent rise in the number of carrier grade public Wi-Fi hotspots deployed, vastly outnumbering current ‘best effort’,” said Shrikant Shenwai, CEO at WBA.

Another key takeaway from the report showed that 80 per cent of respondents have planned deployments in the areas of M2M/IoT by 2020, while 56 per cent are looking at converged services.

JR Wilson, chairman at WBA, believes the increased shift in network architecture comes down to the fact that “billions of people and things become increasingly connected,” meaning “combining unlicenced and licenced services has become imperative”.

As part of the association’s 2020 vision, WBA said it will now look to harness its experience of “creating seamlessly interconnected wireless services in new and emerging areas, and apply it to these markets”.

5G
5G in particular will be a key focus point for WBA going forward, with the report indicating that many of the key trends that drove Wi-Fi ecosystem development – including coexistence with other networks, a unifying access layer for devices and requirements for IoT – will “all be fundamental to the evolution of 5G”.

The goals towards developing 5G, according to WBA, will largely be based on the same principals as Wi-Fi, which has been developed as a flexible platform, readily adapted to new devices.

The report also claims that one of the main challenges in the 5G effort will be to devise a flexible way to use spectrum, “where the Wi-Fi community can contribute real world understanding”.

The survey, which was carried out during Q3 2015, covered 212 total respondents, with 38 per cent from the operator community. Other groups involved included Wi-Fi equipment and device vendors, with the majority of results coming from North America (40 per cent).