The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has released a technical paper that provides deployment guidelines for a number of possible scenarios utilizing Wi-Fi 6 technology. In preparation for the impending release of next-generation Wi-Fi technology later this year, operators, enterprises and cities can now have the tools needed to embrace and deploy Wi-Fi 6 when it’s released later this year through the help of the technical paper.
Globally, dependence upon Wi-Fi continues to grow exponentially, driven by a number of factors, including:
- The number of Wi-Fi devices in the world – 9 billion – now outnumbers the 7.6 billion people on the planet.
- Global enterprises this year will generate more than 33 billion exabytes of IP traffic. By 2022, that number will grow to more than 63 billion exabytes of IP traffic, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23 percent.
- Wi-Fi is the primary access technology in most broadband households, with 76 percent of US households using Wi-Fi as the primary broadband connection.
This new white paper from WBA illustrates how savvy deployment of Wi-Fi 6 can mitigate some of the growing pains that Wi-Fi is experiencing, while ensuring that operators, enterprises and vendors meet important service-level agreements (SLAs). As such, the work released, proposes guidelines to ensure SLAs around bandwidth, throughput, latency, traffic prioritization and numerous other factors.
The paper also provides guidelines for RF planning and design, with consideration given to factors like band steering, MU-MIMO and adjusting for high-density deployments that demand increased capacity. Additionally, the release addresses ways that Wi-Fi 6 deployments can provide seamless mobility and backward compatibility with previous Wi-Fi generation technology.
The paper also provides a number of deployment scenarios for Wi-Fi 6, including public venues, stadiums, residential and multi-dwelling units, the Internet of Things (IoT) and enterprise WLANs. The release was developed in conjunction with WBA’s Next Gen Wi-Fi Work Group develop, including operator representatives from Boingo Wireless, BT and Charter Communications, as well as vendor representatives from Broadcom, Cisco and CommScope.
Click here to download the full paper.
