The future of Wi-Fi is tied in many ways to the future of “5G.” Although there is no clear definition of 5G, one thing is clear: Some of the key trends currently driving developments in the Wi-Fi ecosystem will be fundamental to the creation and growth of 5G.
The Next Generation Mobile Networks Alliance in March published a white paper summarizing what industry stakeholders are thinking about in terms of the core goals of 5G. Essentially, the vision for 5G is to create networks that:
- Provide far greater throughput, lower latency and higher connection density;
- Can cope with a wide range of use cases and business models, a high degree of flexibility and scalability by design;
- Leverages foundational shifts in cost and energy efficiency;
- Offers the end user a consistent customer experience achieved across time and service footprint; and
- Is a truly global 5G ecosystem, free of fragmentation and open for innovations.
In the beginning, there was analog
The evolution of wireless networks can be described as an ongoing effort to fix the flaws of the previous technology. The first generation of mobile network technology emerged in the 1980s using analog. In the 1990s, GSM was introduced to fix the security flaws of analog telephony. Then 3G came along to fix GSM’s lack of mobile data. After that, 4G arrived to increase data speeds and make consuming data more of a pleasant experience.
Today, we are in need of a new technology that must meet a long and growing list of data demands – enter 5G.
Learning from the Wi-Fi community
Those involved in the 5G effort stand to learn a great deal from the Wi-Fi community. That’s because they share a variety of challenges, which include creating a unifying access layer for an enormous number of device types and protocols, as well as meeting the current and future demands of the “Internet of Things.”
Wi-Fi, because of its open ecosystem, is a flexible platform that can easily adapt to new devices and use cases. Additionally, it has the capability to unify an incredibly diverse ecosystem; these essential qualities enable Wi-Fi to drive the market.
One of the fundamental challenges for 5G is to find a more flexible way to use the limited number of spectrums. Fortunately, the Wi-Fi community already has knowledge in this area, with real world experience from the 60 gigahertz and WiGig efforts. Also, the Wi-Fi community has a long history of dealing with increased reliance on spectrum sharing.
The contributions of the Wi-Fi community don’t stop there. Its understanding of how to manage densification, virtualization, ultra-low latency and expansions of multiple-input/multiple-output smart antennas can help speed up the development and implementation of 5G.
5G and IoT
Until recently, mobile communication has been focused on human-controlled devices. The primary concern was providing speed and capacity for our smartphones, laptops and tablets. Now, we are beginning to focus more heavily on autonomous devices and machines, and how they communicate with each other. This means that the road to 5G will help us develop and manage IoT.
A significant challenge is getting the mobile industry involved in the standardization process. We are entering an era in which consumers expect to have a satisfying customer experience with wearables, household appliances and their cars. On the business side, companies in the automotive, energy, health care, industrial and retail markets will expect their devices to be fast, low-cost, secure, manageable, reliable, interoperable and scalable.
Clearly, the broadening of the ecosystem will accelerate with the evolution of the IoT. An ever-growing universe of use cases will continue to drive the development of both 5G and Wi-Fi.
Adlane Fellah, is managing director of WiFi360. Prior to founding the company, the only content marketing agency serving the Wi-Fi industry, Fellah was the founder of Maravedis, a leading analyst firm in the broadband wireless industry. He has authored various landmark reports on LTE, 4G, WiMAX, broadband wireless and voice over IP. He is regularly asked to speak at leading wireless events and to contribute to various influential portals and magazines such as Telephony Magazine, 4G & WiMAX Trends, Fierce Wireless and WiMAX.com, to name a few. Fellah has been a member of the program advisory board for the 4G World conference since 2004 and an active member of World Communications Association International and the European Broadband Wireless Association. Prior to founding Maravedis, Fellah held various positions at Harris Corporation in charge of market intelligence and business development. Fellah is passionate about best practices of marketing and technology.
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