Wi-Fi has been with us for decades. It remains one of the most important and valuable technologies in the wireless world. Most technologies have a limited life span. (You remember the fax machine and iPod, right?) But Wi-Fi never seems to go away. In fact, it keeps evolving. It gets faster and better, and the future looks bright. But it also needs a facelift; it needs to communicate with the market better about all of its new ideas and innovation.
It is a tired analogy, actually, but a potent one, still: that Apple’s iPhone series and Google’s Android system have been with us for almost two decades, and their makers flood the market with new ideas and excitement with every release. Their original devices, from way back in the ‘noughties’, are far-cries from their modern equivalents. Clearly, and of course; but there are lessons in there for Wi-Fi, all the same.
Wi-Fi needs to reinvigorate itself as a technology in the minds of users. Mostly, it is just an image problem. Because despite all the innovations with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7, it remains a technology that appears to most users as tired and old. Which it is not; Wi-Fi in 2024/25 is a powerhouse networking technology, and the most popular wireless data transport system in the world. But private wireless is sexier in the enterprise space, it seems.
And modish technologies like AI and even IoT (despite over-inflated analyst expectations and drawn-out market come-down) capture more attention from the media. Plain old broadband gets more column inches, I’d say. Fixed wireless access (FWA) rocks – if you believe the hype. So what about Wi-Fi? It gets lost in the noise – even while it is an essential workhorse complement to all of these other technologies.
Marketing minds and marketing money should put this right – and learn from all the new hype created about private 5G and AI. It won’t be cheap, but it should be said – out loud. Because Wi-Fi remains one of the most important and successful technologies ever created. And its future is bright, because it is getting always-better. Which is why its popularity has never slowed, never crested, never slipped. Like the iPhone; like Android. Yadda yadda.
It is why it hasn’t gone the way of cable TV – or whatever dead tech was once full of life and promise. It is why it never will. Because no other technology is quite like it. Private wireless is a competitive threat, everyone said – once upon a time, a couple of years back, when the industry was trying to smoke-out prospective enterprise customers with a whole lot of guff (and some well-directed truths) about the potential of private wireless.
These private wireless vendors are impressive, for sure; their customer references, deployments, workloads are genuinely transformative. But they all – or mostly – run in parallel with existing and developing Wi-Fi estates. In the end, these technologies are complementary. Wi-Fi is here to stay – in case it needs saying. It keeps getting better – faster, more reliable, more robust, more secure. It supports more and new applications.
But, as above, it has a PR problem. Because no one talks about it like it will change the world. All of these other technologies will ‘change the world’ – we are told, time and again. They won’t; but that is the message. Wi-Fi won’t either, but there is no discussion about it either. It is not considered novel or earth-shaking. Not like AI, which is entirely different; and not like private 5G, which is really just another useful networking technology.
So, yes; listen up, all you marketing peeps, and analysts and media types. Wi-Fi is wicked (wonderful), and its story should be better told.
