Now as ubiquitous as the internet itself, WiFi is no longer simply a convenience. This technology has become an essential part of the global digital infrastructure and a driving force in the digital economy. As the Wi-Fi Alliance noted in a recent report, the pandemic showed that WiFi is far more than an economic engine—it’s critical to economic resilience.
How the changing connectivity landscape and next-generation WiFi trends will impact CSPs
Telecom Advisory Services estimates that 54% of the workforce will be hybrid
54%
For Communications Service Providers (CSPs), this is a pivotal moment. WiFi-powered innovation accelerated during the pandemic and will maintain momentum as the technology continues to evolve. WiFi’s role in CSPs’ portfolios will grow, but seizing new opportunities requires more competitive strategies.
These tech trends are taking hold just as WiFi 6 builds momentum in the market. Capable of supporting more advanced, bandwidth-intensive use cases such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), WiFi 6 is expected to bring drastic changes, both for consumers and enterprises. While this is exciting, it also presents a challenge for CSPs because they need to ensure their service delivery can support these use cases without adversely affecting the quality of experience for subscribers.
The pandemic already began altering the WiFi connectivity landscape. But the combination of three factors—the changing consumer behaviors, WiFi 6 adoption, and the expectation that regulators will allocate more WiFi spectrum—has the potential to elevate the role of WiFi to levels never seen before. And CSPs need to be ready.
The combination of these three factors has the potential to elevate the role of WiFi to levels never seen before
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Capable of supporting more advanced, bandwidth-intensive use cases such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), WiFi 6 is expected to bring drastic changes, both for consumers and enterprises.
Enabling digital resilience, boosting innovation
Amid the widespread disruption of the past year and a half, WiFi has emerged as “the economic hero,” in the words of Wi-Fi Alliance. WiFi was instrumental to mitigating the disruption to people’s lives and to the economy—and critical to digital resilience.
As consumers had to work, shop, learn, entertain, and even receive health care from home, WiFi became the conduit for all essential activities. Businesses, too, relied on WiFi for continuity of operations, supporting not only remote employees but also digitization of operations and production.
Remarkably, many businesses also used the pandemic as a springboard for accelerating the implementation of technology such as automation, robotics, and Internet of Things (IoT). Enabling a wide range of processes, from purchasing to inventory management, all these technologies rely on WiFi.
Some industry experts anticipate that even with the broad adoption of 5G, WiFi 6 will remain the preferred technology for indoor connectivity. This is due, in part, to the lower cost of WiFi.
The strengths that the technology brought during a crisis have increased WiFi’s economic value much faster than expected. Estimated at $3.3 trillion in 2021, the global economic value of WiFi is estimated to increase to $4.9 trillion by 2025, according to the report by Wi-Fi Alliance. This equates to 150% growth in the value between 2018 ($1.96 trillion) and 2025.
Many factors are contributing to the growing economic value of WiFi—WiFi 6, the 6 GHz spectrum, emerging technologies, and the growing WiFi ecosystem (e.g., equipment manufacturers and WiFi-related service providers). As these trends grow, it won’t be a surprise if the value of WiFi increases, once again, faster than anticipated.
Estimated increase of WiFi’s global economic value
$4.9
trillion
2025
$3.3
trillion
2021
150%
This equates to 150% growth in the value between 2018 ($1.96 trillion) and 2025
The changing WiFi
connectivity landscape
Post-COVID life—the way consumers live, learn, work, and play—is unlikely to ever return to the old “normal.” For example, international consulting firm Telecom Advisory Services estimates that 54% of the workforce will be hybrid, working from home at least part of the time. The pandemic also accelerated digital transformation for many businesses, and consumers will not be giving up on the newfound digital experiences that resulted from that transformation.
1
Changing consumer behaviors
2
WiFi 6 adoption
3
The expectation that regulators will allocate more WiFi spectrum
WiFi-powered innovation and future tech trends
Some of the potential of the new WiFi technology hinges on access to the 1200 MHz and 6 GHz band (WiFi 6E). Many countries have already made great strides in that direction. The US, for example, approved the 6 GHz spectrum to unlicensed WiFi in April 2020 (in what some have called a historic and monumental decision)—and by December 2020, FCC had already authorized the first WiFi 6E device.
April 2020
The US approved the 6 GHz spectrum to unlicensed WiFi
December 2020
FCC authorized the first WiFi 6E device
While these developments are still in the early stages, the 6 GHz spectrum and future WiFi generations will deliver another wave of AR/VR innovation, IoT expansion, increase in video streaming, and more.
One trend that CSPs should be preparing for right now is the self-optimizing, adaptive home of the future. Simply having smart home conveniences is no longer satisfying for consumers. In the near future, consumers of all ages will be expecting a truly smart home—one that learns from their living patterns and behaviors and adapts to their lifestyles.
As another example, consider the metaverse, one of the hottest ideas that’s making its way from enthusiastic consumer discussions into the business space. A virtual world that mixes digital technologies like VR, videoconferencing, gaming, live-streaming, cryptocurrency, and others, the metaverse is only a fantasy at the moment. What stops it from moving forward is, in large part, the lack of superfast, low-latency connectivity.
If the metaverse does take a leap forward as WiFi speeds and reliability improve, it has the potential to bring millions of people together into a digital world that they can access from anywhere, and not just to play. Shopping, team meetings, concerts—the potential for experiences is unlimited, which explains why technology giants like Facebook and Microsoft want to move the concept of the metaverse forward. The commercial potential is huge.
While this idea is years—and leaps and bounds—away, it’s an illustration of what’s to come. Our future will become more and more connected, and WiFi’s social and economic benefits will grow exponentially.
CSPs can take advantage of all these exciting developments by delivering new services to subscribers, such as smart home and IoT services. As all the new WiFi-powered innovation makes it into customers’ homes, managed WiFi will also see high demand. Already, people want to take better control of their home WiFi experience—and this will increasingly become an expectation as their connectivity needs evolve.
But the old business models weren’t designed for these kinds of opportunities. With competition in the space fiercer than ever, only CSPs that are agile and innovative will succeed. Traditional solutions that are based on hardware simply can’t keep up with the fast-paced changes in the digital economy. And they don’t scale to the level that these changes require.
Benefiting from the digital economy boom
For an industry that’s so critical to digital resilience and to the economy, CSPs have been surprisingly slow to transform. For example, the cloud, among other technologies, has long been driving transformation across numerous sectors, yet CSPs are only just now realizing its transformative potential.
Unlike service delivery that’s based on hardware and software, the cloud enables fast time to market and the ability to roll out services quickly to millions of customers. And that’s just for starters.
With cloud-based service delivery platforms, CSPs can continuously add new services with simple software coding, drastically cutting costs.
Whether the connected future brings us exciting new adventures like the metaverse or simply better digital experiences with the technologies we already have, CSPs can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.
Other WiFi industry players are moving fast to benefit from the digital boom—it’s time for CSPs to do the same. They need to implement forward-thinking ideas and lead some of the innovation instead of trying to catch up with it.
What's next?
Learn how to take advantage of the agility and scalability of the cloud, combined with Plume’s interoperable, hardware- and vendor-agnostic platform.
Plume’s cloud-based service-delivery platform can help CSPs to benefit from the changing connectivity landscape and next-generation WiFi trends.
Post-COVID life—the way consumers live, learn, work, and play—is unlikely to ever return to the old “normal.” For example, international consulting firm Telecom Advisory Services estimates that 54% of the workforce will be hybrid, working from home at least part of the time. The pandemic also accelerated digital transformation for many businesses, and consumers will not be giving up on the newfound digital experiences that resulted from that transformation.
These tech trends are taking hold just as WiFi 6 builds momentum in the market. Capable of supporting more advanced, bandwidth-intensive use cases such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), WiFi 6 is expected to bring drastic changes, both for consumers and enterprises. While this is exciting, it also presents a challenge for CSPs because they need to ensure their service delivery can support these use cases without adversely affecting the quality of experience for subscribers.
1
Changing consumer behaviors
2
WiFi 6 adoption
3
The expectation that regulators will allocate more WiFi spectrum
CSPs can take advantage of all these exciting developments by delivering new services to subscribers, such as smart home and IoT services. As all the new WiFi-powered innovation makes it into customers’ homes, managed WiFi will also see high demand. Already, people want to take better control of their home WiFi experience—and this will increasingly become an expectation as their connectivity needs evolve.
But the old business models weren’t designed for these kinds of opportunities. With competition in the space fiercer than ever, only CSPs that are agile and innovative will succeed. Traditional solutions that are based on hardware simply can’t keep up with the fast-paced changes in the digital economy. And they don’t scale to the level that these changes require.
For an industry that’s so critical to digital resilience and to the economy, CSPs have been surprisingly slow to transform. For example, the cloud, among other technologies, has long been driving transformation across numerous sectors, yet CSPs are only just now realizing its transformative potential.
Unlike service delivery that’s based on hardware and software, the cloud enables fast time to market and the ability to roll out services quickly to millions of customers. And that’s just for starters.
Download the guide
Download the guide
Download the guide
Download the guide
Download the guide
Download the guide