Since its introduction in 2019, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 has seen rapid adoption, surpassing 50% market-share in three years compared to four years for Wi-Fi 5. This accelerated adoption is driven by demand for Wi-Fi performance in phones, tablets, PCs, the Internet of Things (IoT), service-provider deployments, and dense public areas to deliver better experiences.
Wi-Fi 6 extension into 6 GHz has further attributed to increasing demand, and Wi-Fi 6E has seen unprecedented interest among regulatory bodies worldwide, as well as strong adoption in products and in service-provider and enterprise deployments. More than 2.3 billion Wi-Fi 6 products and 350 million Wi-Fi 6E products are expected to enter the market in 2022, and more than 15% of all Wi-Fi 6 shipments will also be Wi-Fi 6E this year.
Product vendors and enterprises are driving the transition to Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E today, and strong momentum in three particular areas underscores the need to consider these technologies in product plans and deployment decisions.
- Product momentum
Hundreds of devices now support Wi-Fi 6E, including laptops, consumer and enterprise access points, smartphones and smart televisions. By 2025, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are expected to surpass 80% market-share and dominate the smartphone market, Demand for Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E continues to grow as the supply chain comes back into balance after the pandemic, with technologies poised for accelerated product adoption.
- Deployment momentum
Recognizing the growth in number of home-connected devices and need for quality networks, service providers are bringing speed and capacity improvements through Wi-Fi 6E gateways to ensure subscribers can rely on Wi-Fi as a foundational component of their digital lives. Key reasons for end-users to deploy Wi-Fi 6E are: greater support for downlink and uplink speeds, reducing network saturation, and improving remote-work and home-entertainment network experiences. Successful trials demonstrating Wi-Fi 6E have delivered fast connection speeds with low latencies. Now, healthcare facilities and education campuses are investing in low-latency, high-capacity Wi-Fi 6E networks to deliver mission-critical, high-bandwidth applications and services.
- Regulatory momentum
In 2020, the US opened the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi. Since then, over 60 countries have or are considering making the band available for Wi-Fi. By making the full band available, countries are looking to harness the full potential of Wi-Fi 6E, noting that Wi-Fi is “crucial” to their citizens. Some countries have made the upper and lower 6 GHz band (5925-7125 MHz) available for Wi-Fi 6E; while other countries have opened the lower part of the band (5925-6425 MHz). While their efforts are being applauded, Wi-Fi 6E and future generations will best deliver their full potential by using the entire 1200 MHz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band.