Deployment guidelines for Wi-Fi 6 technology from WBA

The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has released a white paper that provides guidelines for the deployment of Wi-Fi 6 technology.
wi-fi-investmentOperators, enterprises and cities will have the tools to deploy Wi-Fi 6 when it’s released later this year.

The number of Wi-Fi devices in the world has reached 9 billion. 76 percent of US households are using Wi-Fi as the primary broadband connection.

Enterprises this year will generate more than 33 billion exabytes of IP traffic in 2019 and more than 63 billion exabytes of IP traffic by 2022.

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.

Wi-Fi 6 deployments can provide mobility and backward compatibility with previous Wi-Fi generation technology.

The paper 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.

Derek Peterson, CTO at Boingo Wireless and co-chair of WBA, said: “Technologies like Wi-Fi 6 and PasspointTM are steering unlicensed networks into the 5G era, meeting high performance expectations across speed, latency, reliability, security and traffic management.”

Youngseok Oh, manager at SK Telecom, said: “SK Telecom has been engaging in Wi-Fi 6 services that provide reliable, predictable services to customers anytime and anywhere, while also delivering new capabilities and business models.”

Finbarr Coghlan, CTO of Accuris Networks, said Wi-Fi 6 addresses a number of critical requirements being driven by user experience and service delivery demands, including connecting to more devices simultaneously, interference management and reduced power consumption, which dramatically improves battery life for mobile and IoT devices.

Chris Bruce, managing director, GlobalReach Technology, said the deployment of Wi-Fi 6 alongside Hotspot 2.0 /NGH allows venue owners to control their entire user experience.