Wi-Fi 6 & Cellular: Enabling the Hyper-Connected Enterprise Future
Learn how, when aligned with Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, IoT organizations can access the most appropriate connectivity for their deployments.
Wi-Fi is in the middle of a period of renewed excitement and interest. Innovations in IoT have seen increased adoption of the technology to support everything from factory robots to vending machines and the increased throughput offered by Wi-Fi 6 and, later, Wi-Fi 7 is demonstrating how the technology can be applicable to a raft of use cases. In some situations, this makes Wi-Fi a more appealing connectivity option than cellular as it brings the same wire-free benefits but at a lower cost.
The central point about Wi-Fi 7 is that it offers an extremely high throughput utilizing the 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz frequency bands. The move to Wi-Fi 7 will see a substantial uplift in overall capacity alongside decreased latency and faster speeds. It represents a significant change over Wi-Fi 6, which itself offers fast connectivity. The specification suggests that Wi-Fi 7 will deliver a maximum speed of 46Gbps to a single client, which puts the already-fast 9.6Gbps offered by Wi-Fi 6 in the shade. However, Wi-Fi 7 specifications will not be finalized until 2024 and the technology is still under development.
This leaves the real world with Wi-Fi 6, which is no bad thing since the technology offers excellent options for connecting devices with relatively low latency, fast speed, high device density, and a future upgrade path. In many respects, Wi-Fi 6 has set the stage for Wi-Fi 7 because it has created market recognition that Wi-Fi is an excellent option for many deployment scenarios. Wi-Fi 6 is more than sufficient to support innovative use cases such as automated guided vehicles, industrial robots, and many other applications. In indoor locations such as stadiums, large venues, offices, and hotels, Wi-Fi 6 has attractive attributes. In addition, the technology is being utilized in the automotive industry to enable applications such as infotainment, monitoring, maintenance, and upgrades by the manufacturer alongside greater personalization of vehicle features.
Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing, connected vehicles, and infotainment industries are all looking to utilize Wi-Fi 6 and 5G. It’s therefore important to assess both technologies in parallel and recognize that each has compelling characteristics to bring to enterprises. This is set to see both technologies co-exist with each having a significant role to play in the future of wireless and unlike past generations of wireless, it’s not an either/or decision.
Download this White Paper and learn how, when aligned with Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, IoT organizations can access the most appropriate connectivity for their deployments with confidence the technology interoperates smoothly for the long term.
