Austin, TX and Washington, D.C. – September 9, 2022 – Wi-Fi Alliance® welcomes today’s action by the United States Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) to revise the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) that authorize the release of certain technology in the context of standards setting and development in standards organizations. The revised rule allows all Wi-Fi Alliance members to fully collaborate within our organization on the vital work of advancing Wi-Fi® globally. Industry-wide collaboration among nearly 900 Wi-Fi Alliance global member companies is essential to the success of Wi-Fi, which billions of users rely on each day.
Wi-Fi Alliance thanks the United States Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security for providing important clarification and enabling Wi-Fi Alliance members to fully engage in our activities.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 70,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
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Austin, TX and Washington, D.C. – August 12, 2022 – Wi-Fi Alliance® welcomes today’s D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to uphold the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) 5.9 GHz Order. This is an important victory for America’s technological leadership, economy, and consumers who rely on Wi-Fi® connectivity now more than ever. This decision removes the regulatory uncertainty surrounding use of the 5.9 GHz band, enabling Wi-Fi Alliance members to expedite delivery of urgently needed Wi-Fi solutions.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 70,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
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Wi-Fi inherent strengths and extensive portfolio drive its leading role in IoT
Austin, TX – July 14, 2022 – Global ubiquity and prominence in delivering the internet make Wi-Fi® an obvious choice for connecting Internet of Things (IoT) devices in both residential and industrial environments. Wi-Fi is uniquely suited to support IoT products and applications with its wide-ranging capabilities and proliferation as a global standard. Wi-Fi will play a role in almost every IoT environment, either alone or alongside more specialized protocols or technologies.
“Wi-Fi has been delivering the “internet” in Internet of Things to more applications, more use cases, and more environments than any other IoT technology option,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance®. “The IoT is meant to enrich people’s lives, and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED solutions deliver the quality, reliability, and security that enable the IoT’s full potential.”
“Wi-Fi addresses the needs of various device types and use cases in the IoT market,” said Phil Solis, research director, IDC. “Wi-Fi can deliver a wide range of data rates and ranges at varying price points because there are an abundance of Wi-Fi chips supporting different levels of complexity and several unlicensed spectrum bands from sub-1 GHz to 6 GHz. It is this diversity in chips designs that allow Wi-Fi to meet the broadest array of IoT product and network requirements.”
Wi-Fi Alliance outlines eight Wi-Fi competencies that should be considered when selecting an IoT technology:
Wi-Fi’s extensive portfolio addresses IoT use cases that support high throughput and low latency applications, such as AR/VR, and long range, low power requirements for asset tracking applications or rural irrigation systems. Wi-Fi Alliance certifications, including Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow™, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect™, and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED QoS Management™ deliver capabilities to meet unique IoT requirements across residential, industrial, and other IoT environments. The enormous potential of the IoT market has resulted in devices brought to market without sufficient testing, delivering a less-than-optimal user experience. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED devices meet high quality standards for the latest security, interoperability, and a range of application-specific protocols to deliver a good experience for users and network operators.
“Wi-Fi 6 is ideal for connecting the smart home, and a notable benefit for IoT is a feature called Target Wake Time (TWT), helping ensure that client devices can save power and extend their battery life—a critical advantage for IoT devices. Wi-Fi 6 uses a combination of technologies—including OFDMA and 1024 QAM modulation—to improve spectral efficiency, boost speed and support many devices in a confined area, which is now an important consideration in the home where many appliances and other IoT devices are connected to the home hub and several users may be consuming high quality video, gaming, or AR/VR at the same time,” said Adlane Fellah, senior analyst, Maravedis Research. “Wi-Fi 6 can now also support many of the requirements for industrial use cases, with enhancements to latency, determinism and power efficiency. In a smart factory, Wi-Fi might deliver the optimal cost/performance for high bandwidth cameras that power augmented reality services and Wi-Fi HaLow might be optimal for machinery monitoring, which needs very low power and low bandwidth.”
“Wi-Fi plays a crucial role in enabling industrial IoT use cases and helping companies achieve desired business outcomes in this important market sector. At Aruba, as part of Aruba ESP, we are working with our customers and our partner ecosystem to ensure secure, seamless IoT connectivity to enable hyper-aware facilities. By building GPS and Wi-Fi Location capabilities into our wireless technology, our wireless access points are equipped to automatically locate themselves and provide highly accurate indoor positioning — empowering wayfinding, asset tracking, and people tracking use cases in industrial IoT environments.” – Chuck Lukaszewski, VP and Wireless CTO at Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company
“With the introduction of Smart Homes, Smart Cities, and the increase in monitoring of manufacturing facilities, Wi-Fi offers the best solution to communicate with the IoT devices that make these possible. Wi-Fi provides the range required for effective service to IoT devices while maintaining privacy and security, and it is already in use within these ecosystems. Features such as Wi-Fi Easy Connect, Wi-Fi EasyMesh and WPA3 support simple and secure deployment. Coupled with Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E, the increase in useable spectrum results in a longer life cycle and a more productive experience.” – Luther Smith, Distinguished Technologist and Director of Wireless at CableLabs
“Wi-Fi has been fundamental to IoT devices in residential environments, providing a foundation to power Wi-Fi devices and also provide backhaul for battery operated devices using other low power technologies. CommScope backhauls billions of IoT devices with Wi-Fi gateways, access points and extender solutions across cable, optical and fixed wireless access connected homes. With the imminent deployment of the Matter IoT solution and the incorporation of Wi-Fi as a primary protocol for connected IoT devices, we expect to see even more relevance for the specific IoT features added to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi 2 MHz channels, which was a new Wi-Fi 6 capability added to extend the reach of Wi-Fi narrow band Smart Home solutions.” – Charles Cheevers, CTO of CommScope Home Networks
“As IoT is becoming instrumental in digital transformation, we see the possibilities that result from innovating at the intersection of Wi-Fi and IoT. Ruckus Networks enables our customers to leverage their existing wired and Wi-Fi infrastructure to deliver new IoT technologies securely and economically across enterprise and industrial markets. Specifically, the global adoption of Wi-Fi has allowed Ruckus Networks to accelerate the delivery and adoption of IoT solutions such as environmental controls, industrial automation and enhanced security to name a few examples.”– Bart Giordano, SVP and GM of Ruckus Networks, CommScope
“With the mass connections of IoT devices, Wi-Fi is evolving to deliver built-in controlling capabilities to various environments. Wi-Fi capabilities now support a wider range of products, many of which require more advanced management platforms to control and ensure the highest level of performance.” – Mr. Ashish Keshari, Senior Manager of R&D at GX Group
“Wi-Fi is everywhere; it allows direct connections to the internet and provides reliable and robust connectivity for IoT applications, which require a range of data rates, and offers a low power profile for battery-operated devices. Over the last 20 years, Wi-Fi has evolved greatly, advancing through Wi-Fi 4, 5 and now, 6 and 6E, improving performance and customer experience with each advancement. Infineon is committed to delivering high-performance Wi-Fi for industrial and consumer IoT applications.” –Sivaram Trikutam, Vice President of Wi-Fi Product Line at Infineon
“Leveraging the broad scope of Wi-Fi as a solution for IoT, including Wi-Fi 6 and the new 6GHz spectrum, our technology enables everything from low speed, long range devices in 2.4GHz to high speed, low latency devices in both 5 and 6GHz all at low power. We look forward to continuing to work alongside the Wi-Fi Alliance to further expand capabilities in the IoT space.” Rahul Patel, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Connectivity, Cloud and Networking at Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.
“As one of the most widely used IoT connectivity technologies, Wi-Fi gives a solid foundation to begin building IoT deployments. As a leader in pure-play IoT, we believe in leveraging multiple protocols like Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Thread, and more to meet the needs of our customers and Wi-Fi plays a critical role in how we integrate them together.” – said Mitch Klein, Director of Alliances Strategy at Silicon Labs, Inc.
“Wi-Fi is a ubiquitous technology that continues to create opportunities for innovation within the internet of connected things. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED program provides interoperability assurance, which enables connectivity leaders – such as Texas Instruments – to offer reliable and secure Wi-Fi solutions for industrial and residential applications, whether that’s in smart buildings, smart grid infrastructure, or medical applications.” – Marian Kost, Vice President and General Manager of Connectivity at Texas Instruments
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 70,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
Today’s Wi-Fi® seeing unprecedented demand, growth underscored by Wi-Fi Alliance® members
Austin, Texas – May 11, 2022 – Since its introduction in 2019, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ has seen rapid adoption, surpassing 50 percent market share in three years compared to four years for Wi-Fi 5. This accelerated adoption is driven by demand for high performance Wi-Fi® in phones, tablets, and PCs, and advanced features and capabilities are bringing new opportunities for 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 percent of all Wi-Fi 6 shipments will also be Wi-Fi 6E this year1.
In 2022, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 added enhancements to best deliver advanced use cases. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are optimally equipped to meet today’s connectivity demands and allow a steady rate of new product and service innovation.
“Wi-Fi 6E is widely available and here today and Wi-Fi Alliance® members are seeing strong demand that will continue for years to come,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO of Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi Alliance has certified more than 400 Wi-Fi 6E devices, equating to hundreds of thousands of interoperable Wi-Fi devices that are already delivering a high-quality user experience.”
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
There are now hundreds of devices supporting Wi-Fi 6E, with more than 70 laptop models, dozens of consumer and enterprise access points, smartphones – including marquee devices like Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and Plus – and smart televisions. By 2025, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E are expected to surpass 80 percent market share and dominate the smartphone market2. Companies are seeing unprecedented demand for Wi-Fi 6E products, which is having positive impacts on their business, and the expanded capacity and wider channels are bringing benefits to users and enterprises. Other companies are meeting significant shipment milestones, noting that customers and carrier partners are ramping up Wi-Fi 6E today. With growing demand for Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E and a supply chain coming back into balance after the pandemic, the technologies are poised for accelerated product adoption.
Deployment momentum
Several recent announcements demonstrate the momentum by service providers around the world to make Wi-Fi 6E available to their customers. Recognizing the growth in number of home-connected devices and need for high-quality networks, service providers are bringing speed and capacity improvements through Wi-Fi 6E gateways to ensure subscribers can rely on today’s Wi-Fi as a foundational component of their digital lives. Among the reasons for deploying Wi-Fi 6E for customers include greater support for downlink and uplink speeds, reducing network saturation and improving the remote work and home entertainment network experience. Successful trials demonstrating Wi-Fi 6E’s tremendous potential have delivered fast connection speeds with low latencies, and 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
Two years ago, the U.S. opened the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi. Since then, more than 60 countries across Americas, EMEA, and APAC have or are considering making the band available for Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi 6E ecosystem is expanding fast, and Wi-Fi 6E certification helps ensure worldwide interoperability for devices no matter where they are deployed. Several countries, including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates have made the upper and lower 6 GHz band (5925-7125 MHz) available for Wi-Fi 6E. By making the full band available, countries such as Saudi Arabia are looking to harness the full potential of Wi-Fi 6E, noting that Wi-Fi is “crucial” to their citizens. Other countries have opened the lower part of the band (5925-6425 MHz) and their efforts are being applauded, but 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.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 70,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
Follow Wi-Fi Alliance:
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Top certifiers demonstrate commitment to Wi-Fi® quality
Austin, Texas – March 23, 2022 – Wi-Fi Alliance® honors members who have demonstrated their commitment to Wi-Fi® quality, interoperability, and security by achieving the most Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ products in 2021. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED is a recognized brand for consumer, enterprise, and operator products meeting strict industry-agreed standards. Achieving product certification demonstrates a company’s commitment to high quality Wi-Fi and good user experience.
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products undergo rigorous testing to validate interoperability with other certified products, giving users confidence that Wi-Fi devices work well together. The list of 2021 Wi-Fi CERTIFIED leaders include:
“Wi-Fi Alliance members drive Wi-Fi adoption with their commitment to Wi-Fi CERTIFIED, which ensures the growing variety of Wi-Fi devices continues to work well together,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance. “We commend the Wi-Fi Alliance members earning the ‘Top Certifier’ distinction for their commitment to quality products that advance the Wi-Fi experience for all users.”
Wi-Fi device shipments reached more than four billion in 2021, and with nearly 18 billion devices in use today1, Wi-Fi is relied on to provide quality connectivity across all possible environments. With the number of devices and applications growing each year, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED identifies Wi-Fi products providing the most consistent and reliable experience. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED gives companies three flexible testing options – including QuickTrack, the newest certification path introduced in 2021 – to ensure Wi-Fi Alliance members can deliver the highest quality Wi-Fi with their Wi-Fi CERTIFIED products. Users should look for the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED logo when making purchase decisions or view the Wi-Fi Alliance Product Finder for certified devices.
Please watch our video to learn more about the value of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 70,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
Follow Wi-Fi Alliance:
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wi-fi.org/signal
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Media Contact:
Michelle Panico
Highwire PR for Wi-Fi Alliance
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More than 18 billion devices in use, 4.4 billion shipping in 2022
Austin, TX – January 20, 2022 – Wi-Fi® users demand more efficient, reliable, and secure connectivity in 2022. 6 GHz regulatory approvals, remote-hybrid work scenarios, and complex connectivity systems in home, enterprise, and Internet of Things (IoT) environments will only continue to drive demand for high capacity, low latency Wi-Fi. In 2022, nearly 18 billion Wi-Fi devices will be in use, and more than 4.4 billion devices will ship this year.1 As Wi-Fi momentum mounts, Wi-Fi Alliance® looks ahead at four Wi-Fi trends expected in 2022.
Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E further adoption in homes and enterprises
Wi-Fi 6 reached 50 percent market adoption more quickly than previous Wi-Fi generations, fueled by demand for high quality Wi-Fi and more efficient, reliable connectivity in phones, tablets, and access points (AP). Additionally, enhanced performance, low latency, and greater power efficiencies allow Wi-Fi 6 to satisfy diverse needs of IoT in unrivaled ways. Increasing availability of 6 GHz worldwide coupled with Wi-Fi 6E interoperability certification created the foundation for a diverse Wi-Fi 6E ecosystem, as more than 350 million Wi-Fi 6E devices will enter the market in 2022.2 In 2022, Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E will become more commonplace in daily life, both in homes and enterprises. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E solutions for PCs and notebooks and mesh systems have already been introduced, and we expect many more home networking, automotive, IoT, and augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR) solutions supporting Wi-Fi 6 to make their way into users’ hands. Wi-Fi 6E access points will be deployed in home networks to meet the needs of bandwidth intensive, latency sensitive applications, and more service providers will recognize the tremendous speed and capacity benefits Wi-Fi 6E delivers to customers by making Wi-Fi 6E home gateways and access points part of their subscription plans.
Wi-Fi Alliance advances AFC framework
Global momentum for Wi-Fi 6E increases daily, and there is a sustained impetus to make the full 1200 MHz of spectrum in 6 GHz available for Wi-Fi in more countries. In 2022, Wi-Fi Alliance will continue to lead development of the Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) framework to ensure a diverse ecosystem of AFC service providers necessary to maximize adoption of outdoor and standard power Wi-Fi 6E in regions requiring AFC. The AFC system, already adopted into the 6 GHz regulatory framework in Canada and U.S., is also being considered by regulators in other countries. Wi-Fi Alliance has already announced the release of specifications and test plans for AFC system implementation, and more than a dozen potential AFC service providers have expressed interest to the Federal Communications Commission. This year, expect Wi-Fi Alliance to continue to maximize the adoption of standard power and outdoor Wi-Fi 6E and accelerate delivery of Wi-Fi 6E benefits.
Wi-Fi meets diverse IoT requirements
The global smart home market will reach more than $53 billion in 20223, fueled by consumer desire for connected appliances, security systems, and smart speakers that help save energy, time, and money. As companies invest trillions of dollars in IoT and consumers add more connected devices to their homes, Wi-Fi will further transform the smart home market in 2022. Wi-Fi has long been the technology of choice for IoT, and an expanded Wi-Fi IoT portfolio can now better meet diverse smart home connectivity needs. Wi-Fi 6 reinforces Wi-Fi is a premier option for IoT; Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E include features such as orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) that can improve performance in dense environments while target wake time (TWT) reduces battery consumption and makes Wi-Fi an ideal solution for sensor-based devices. Recently introduced Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow™ delivers long range, low power Wi-Fi and enables a variety of new, power-efficient use cases for residential IoT and IIoT environments, as well as retail, agriculture, healthcare, smart home, and smart city markets. All Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ devices require strong WPA3™ security, with the highest protections for IoT environments.
Wi-Fi networks reach new optimization levels
The growing number of devices and users relying on video conferencing, voice-over-IP services, X Reality (XR) applications, and high definition (UHD) streaming at home and in enterprise networks have placed additional strain on both network managers and service providers. The additional data traffic and advanced applications used on today’s Wi-Fi networks require a new level of network optimization. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED portfolio of network optimization technologies has seen numerous advancements, resulting in Wi-Fi with greater mobility, enhanced network efficiency, and improved network visibility and management in home and enterprise networks in 2022. Optimizations including Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect™ and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED EasyMesh™ now deliver more secure, smart, and efficient Wi-Fi home networks. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Optimized Connectivity™ improves mobility when roaming within and across Wi-Fi networks and between Wi-Fi and cellular networks. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED QoS Management™ brings robust service delivery and high quality Wi-Fi experiences, while Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Data Elements™ helps service providers and network managers better manage complex Wi-Fi networks. In 2022 we will also see more Wi-Fi deployments by service providers in dense, city and public areas that support Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Passpoint®, a foundation of OpenRoaming framework, which raise the bar for speed, security, and reliability.
For more insight into 2022 Wi-Fi trends from Wi-Fi Alliance members, and to watch 2022 Wi-Fi trends videos from AirTies, Aruba, ASSIA, Boingo, Broadcom Inc., CommScope, Extreme Networks, HFCL Limited, Intel Corporation, NetExperience, onsemi, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., please visit: https://bit.ly/2022WiFiTrends
1 IDC Research, 2022
2 IDC Research, 2022
3 Statista, 2021
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 70,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
Follow Wi-Fi Alliance:
wi-fi.org/beacon
wi-fi.org/signal
facebook.com/wificertified
twitter.com/wifialliance
linkedin.com/company/wi-fi-alliance
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Support for uplink capacity and greater power management benefit dense enterprise and IoT deployments
Austin, Texas – January 5, 2022 – With adoption of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ growing steadily, Wi-Fi Alliance® is evolving Wi-Fi 6 certification to meet increasing demands from today’s Wi-Fi® use cases. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 is now available, bringing new features that support increasing device and traffic density to deliver greater performance and power management with Wi-Fi devices and applications. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 adds support for uplink multi-user multiple input, multiple output (multi-user MIMO) to deliver smoother streaming services and video conferencing, faster uploads, and more reliable gaming. Additionally, three power management features improve Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 power efficiency, benefitting enterprise, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. New features apply across all bands supported by Wi-Fi 6 – 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz – bringing capacity, efficiency, coverage and performance benefits to residential, enterprise, and large public networks. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 delivers the best experience with advanced applications, while providing strong WPA3™ security and promoting interoperability between Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ devices.
“Wi-Fi delivers advanced capabilities that have driven tremendous global innovation, paving the way for massive growth in Wi-Fi applications that users rely on every day,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance. “Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 furthers Wi-Fi’s evolution to address today’s market needs, and supports more high-performance Wi-Fi scenarios with greater capacity, efficiency, and reliability.”
Wi-Fi uplink performance
Nearly two billion Wi-Fi 6 devices will enter the market in 20221, and today’s Wi-Fi supports increased device density, more bandwidth-hungry applications, and surges in uplink data demand in residential and enterprise environments. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 adds support for uplink multi-user MIMO, enabling devices to upload content concurrently to an access point (AP). Wi-Fi networks are supporting more upstream activity, with users frequently uploading work documents and videos to social media sites, and the trend toward greater uplink data consumption will further increase as more IoT devices send data via Wi-Fi to the cloud.
Uplink multi-user MIMO improves network performance and reduces latency while video conferencing, uploading documents, and any other mission-critical applications that require greater uplink capacity. Wi-Fi 6 deployments are increasing worldwide in large office buildings, public arenas, education campuses, high rise dwellings, and mass transportation hubs, and advanced Wi-Fi 6 capabilities drive innovation in the countless applications that rely on Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 delivers comprehensive multi-user MIMO implementation to deliver strong Wi-Fi performance even in challenging environments with many Wi-Fi devices.
Wi-Fi power management
Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 includes new features that bring power management improvements for devices in enterprise and IoT deployments. New low power and sleep mode enhancements – including broadcast target wake time (TWT), extended sleep time, and dynamic multi-user spatial multiplexing power save (SMPS)– enable power optimization of multiple battery powered devices. This trio of features allow multiple devices to receive extended sleep periods, allow for specific “wake up” times for transmitting data, and enable dynamic shut off of redundant receive chains to optimize power consumption in Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 networks. Power management features benefit smart home, smart city, and Industrial IoT (IIoT) environments, and enable Wi-Fi to further its role in delivering IoT applications.
“Wi-Fi 6 adoption has outpaced previous Wi-Fi generations, driven by demand for better Wi-Fi connectivity in phones, tablets, PCs and access points to support high-performance, low latency uses in both residential and enterprise environments. Technological advancements continue to bring speed and efficiency benefits to a wide number of users and use cases, most importantly, in areas with high densities of users or client devices connecting and transferring large amounts of data,” said Phil Solis, Research Director at IDC. “Reduction in chipset costs and advancements in Wi-Fi 6 power management will also help shift the IoT space to more broadly adopt Wi-Fi 6 in the coming years.”
Industry support for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2
“Today’s service providers want Wi-Fi 6 as part of a managed Wi-Fi solution to deliver the best possible connected home experience for consumers. It’s clear that the number of connected devices is increasing at an accelerated rate, and trends such as the ‘enterprization’ of the home, UHD video, telemedicine, and online gaming are all placing more demands on home networks. Wi-Fi 6 can address these demands, and Airties offers an extensive Wi-Fi 6 portfolio, powered by Airties Edge software for Wi-Fi 6 gateways and extenders.” – Metin Taskin, CTO, Airties
“Broadcom is pleased to have its Wi-Fi 6E access point and client device reference designs included in the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 test bed. The wide proliferation of Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E devices is already creating new experiences for the consumer. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 certification program, which we are happy to be a part of, is designed to carry this momentum forward.” – Vijay Nagarajan, Vice President of Marketing for the Wireless Communications and Connectivity Division, Broadcom
“The breadth of new features that Wi-Fi offers consumers requires constant updates and sometimes staged releases to get products to the market. We applaud Wi-Fi Alliance for continuing to drive this phased process and the latest introduction of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2, bringing powerful new features like uplink multi-user MIMO to Wi-Fi 6.” – Charles Cheevers, CTO, Home Networks, CommScope
“Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 was a game changer for IoT applications and Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 extends these innovations even further. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 enhancements for TWT, uplink multi-user MIMO, and Extended Sleep Time allow for long-life battery-operated devices that also provide the added range for not only whole home coverage but whole property coverage including outdoor cameras, lighting, energy management systems, and sensors. Infineon’s AIROC™ Wi-Fi family of products support Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 features, which coupled with advanced range and robustness improvement capabilities, improved power management, and a comprehensive security framework, delivers cutting edge solutions for IoT applications.” – Sivaram Trikutam, Senior Director, IoT Compute and Wireless, Infineon
“We would like to thank Wi-Fi Alliance for enabling the industry to ramp new Wi-Fi technologies through certification programs which help ensure device interoperability, and we are delighted to have the Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX210 product be part of their latest test bed. New Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 features like uplink MU-MIMO, coupled with new high-speed channels in the 6 GHz spectrum for Wi-Fi 6E, will help networks scale in their ability to deliver faster, more responsive Wi-Fi experiences as the number of devices continues to exponentially grow.” – Eric A. McLaughlin, VP of Client Computing Group, and GM of the Wireless Solutions Group, Intel Corporation
“With the demand for greater responsiveness and performance required by new disruptive, untethered real-time immersive experiences, Wi-Fi Alliance certification is crucial to ensure robust interoperability and rapid adoption of Wi-Fi 6 Release 2 devices. We’re honored that our WAV600-2 product family was selected as an access point test bed device for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 and that MaxLinear chipsets will empower the next generation of broadband platforms for multi-gigabit video, gaming, and other demanding low-latency services launching this year.” – Doron Tal, Vice President, Broadband Access, MaxLinear
“The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 program brings a number of improvements to high density wireless networks. We will see tangible advancements in uplink performance, power and enhanced range, unlocking new applications and use cases for residential, industrial and enterprise users. As part of the test bed of chipsets for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2, MediaTek’s Filogic family provides fast, reliable and an always connected solution to help drive the Wi-Fi industry forward as we all rely on connected devices more than ever before.” – Alan Hsu, Corporate Vice President & General Manager of MediaTek’s Intelligent Connectivity business
“As one of the first companies to be certified for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2 and to be included in Wi-Fi Alliance’s interoperability test bed, NXP continues to play a leading role in helping Wi-Fi Alliance innovate and drive the adoption of Wi-Fi 6. With Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2, Wi-Fi Alliance is proactively meeting the growing performance demands of advanced IoT applications that require significantly greater capacity and increased power efficiency both today and tomorrow.” – Larry Olivas, VP and GM of Wireless Connectivity Solutions, NXP Semiconductors
“There is a fundamental shift in how we work and play, with effective connectivity becoming critical for seamless transitions between our physical and virtual worlds. onsemi congratulates Wi-Fi Alliance’s timely introduction of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2. This further helps improve the end user experience via uplink MU-MIMO and power efficiency optimizations, expanding opportunities for smoother and more reliable video, gaming and IoT applications.” – Irvind Ghai, vice president of product marketing, Wireless Connectivity and Signal Processing Division, onsemi
“To ensure productive and reliable connectivity while working, playing, and learning remotely, the demand for a better approach to uplink data has never been greater. Uplink MU-MIMO, a key feature of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6 Release 2, is designed to deliver in every environment. Qualcomm’s end-to-end solutions enable customers to deliver networking, IoT and mobile products that meet the moment, while deploying leading technology.” – Rahul Patel, SVP & GM, Connectivity & Networking, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc
1 IDC Research, 2021
Secure, interoperable Wi-Fi expands connectivity for more IoT applications
Austin, TX – November 2, 2021 – Wi-Fi Alliance® introduces Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow™ – the certification program for products incorporating IEEE 802.11ah technology – to expand Wi-Fi® applications for the Internet of Things (IoT). Wi-Fi HaLow™ operates in the sub-1 GHz band, enabling long range and low power connectivity, while providing a robust connection in challenging Wi-Fi environments. Wi-Fi HaLow will enable a variety of new, power-efficient use cases for IoT and Industrial IoT (IIoT) environments, as well as retail, agriculture, healthcare, smart home, and smart city markets.
Wi-Fi HaLow enables low power connectivity necessary for applications including sensors, personal wearable devices, and utility meters that require multi-year battery operation. Wi-Fi HaLow supports applications such as streaming compressed video from security cameras, even in challenging environments where the ability to penetrate walls or other barriers to provide a robust connection is an important consideration. In agriculture or logistics monitoring applications where long range is a priority, Wi-Fi HaLow delivers data at ranges exceeding one kilometer. Wi-Fi HaLow adopts existing Wi-Fi protocols to deliver many of the benefits that consumers have come to expect from Wi-Fi, including multi-vendor interoperability, strong WPA3™ security, easy setup, and seamless integration into IP networks.
“Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow further extends Wi-Fi’s leading role in IoT to address a new range of secure and interoperable use cases that require longer range and lower power. Wi-Fi HaLow is a compelling addition to the Wi-Fi portfolio, making the full range of Wi-Fi capabilities an unmatched connectivity offering,” said Edgar Figueroa, president and CEO, Wi-Fi Alliance. “There are growing opportunities to streamline connectivity in the growing IoT market, and Wi-Fi HaLow builds on a universally trusted Wi-Fi foundation to pave the way for emerging IoT applications to benefit homes, businesses, and industries.”
Wi-Fi’s expanding IoT portfolio
IoT connected devices in use worldwide are projected to exceed 30 billion units by 2025, more than doubling from 13.8 billion in 2021.1 The smart home IoT use case is a rapidly growing market, and more than 29 percent of businesses also use IoT technology to streamline processes and increase efficiency.2 Wi-Fi Alliance has a strong portfolio of technologies delivering low power, high performance, and secure Wi-Fi for a wide variety of IoT environments. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 6™ is a strong complement to Wi-Fi HaLow for commercial, industrial, and residential IoT applications requiring fast data rates and low latency, such as AR/VR, home security systems with high-resolution video feeds, medical telemetry monitoring, and remote surgery. Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Easy Connect™ reduces the complexity of connecting devices to Wi-Fi networks, including the many IoT devices with little to no user interface, while simultaneously incorporating the highest security standards. All Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ devices support WPA3, providing cutting edge security protocols to protect sensitive data and provide strong protections to users.
“Wi-Fi HaLow devices such as security cameras and tablets are being used in industrial environments today, and we expect devices to soon make their way to smart home environments allowing consumers to take advantage of its longer range and lower power for applications such as battery powered cameras, video baby monitors, and other smart home products,” said Phil Solis, research director at IDC. “Companies have been working on Wi-Fi HaLow chipsets for years and we expect shipments to break 10 million in 2022, with adoption expanding from industrial to include smart home, smart city, and retail markets.”
Member companies providing interoperability test bed devices that are among the first Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow products include Methods2Business, Morse Micro, and Newracom.
Industry support for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow:
“Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow is the best choice for sensor communication and video feeds in RF challenged environments, such as manufacturing floors, construction sites, and commercial buildings. Operating in the ISM sub-GHz band, Wi-Fi HaLow brings exciting new features and Wi-Fi Alliance certification is of key importance to the IoT marketplace. Wi-Fi HaLow delivers longer range (more than 1 kilometer), higher throughput, large scale station deployments due to grouping and scheduling, lower latency, and long battery lifetime. Additionally, as part of the Wi-Fi family, Wi-Fi HaLow capitalizes on existing Wi-Fi infrastructure and robust end-to-end security, with multicast, and broadcast capabilities that allows for field software upgradability.” – Michael “Mac” McNamara, CEO, Adapt-IP
“Methods2Business is proud to play an active role in the availability of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow. Our company is excited to be one of the Wi-Fi HaLow certification test bed providers. Wi-Fi Alliance is delivering great value to the industry, enabling us to develop one of the first certified, interoperable, Wi-Fi HaLow products. Our customers believe that Wi-Fi HaLow will play a substantial role in the revolution of Industrial IoT and IoT for the Smart Home. It will serve these rapidly emerging markets with its unique advantages of a longer range (more than a kilometer) Wi-Fi with ultra-low power consumption and high security standards.” – Marleen Boonen, CEO & Founder, Methods2Business
“The ground-breaking potential of extending the already transformative characteristics of Wi-Fi into the sub-1 GHz band is hard to overstate, and we applaud Wi-Fi Alliance’s leadership in unleashing a new era of long range, low power and high-capacity Wi-Fi HaLow experiences for consumers. As a leading Wi-Fi HaLow innovator, we have invested heavily in R&D to ensure the market is ready with SoCs and modules that deliver unmatched benefits unlike any Wi-Fi or LPWAN technology available today. The addition of sub-1 GHz Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow to the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED portfolio will be a game changer for consumers and enterprises, from smart home, building automation, smart city, and industrial markets – and everything in between.”
– Michael De Nil, co-founder and CEO, Morse Micro
“We are incredibly excited to witness Wi-Fi Alliance’s announcement of the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow program. Today marks a significant milestone for Newracom, Wi-Fi Alliance, and the industry as a whole. With long range, lower power consumption and massive deployment capabilities, Wi-Fi HaLow extends the inherent goodness of Wi-Fi to accelerate the next generation Internet of Things applications.” – Zac Freeman, Vice President, Newracom
“Palma Ceia SemiDesign salutes Wi-Fi Alliance on the launch of the Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow program. This launch represents years of work by members of Wi-Fi Alliance to achieve a truly testable and compliant standard. Wi-Fi HaLow will provide users with a unique combination of range, throughput, network density, and power efficiency with WPA3 security. Palma Ceia will deliver Wi-Fi HaLow solutions and network support services to consumer and industrial clients. We look forward to the positive impact Wi-Fi HaLow and the collection of Wi-Fi CERTIFIED HaLow products will have on the IoT market and the expanded user applications that will benefit from Wi-Fi HaLow’s outcome-based network deployments.” – Kevin Walsh, Vice President of Strategic Marketing, Palma Ceia SemiDesign
For more information, please visit our website and download our technology overview, program paper, and highlights sheet.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 65,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
Wi-Fi QoS Management™ helps provide consistent service quality across Wi-Fi and 5G
Austin, TX – October 21, 2021 – Wi-Fi CERTIFIED QoS Management™ is a certification program from Wi-Fi Alliance® that allows more granular Quality of Service (QoS) management in home, public, and enterprise environments to further improve the user experience with latency-sensitive, real-time applications, and to help ensure consistent QoS treatment across Wi-Fi® and 5G networks. Standardized mechanisms in Wi-Fi QoS Management™ allow for differentiated traffic prioritization between Wi-Fi and cellular networks to deliver an enhanced user experience with applications requiring low latency and low jitter. Wi-Fi QoS Management enhances voice-over-IP, videoconferencing, interactive gaming, X Reality (XR), Internet of Things (IoT) and healthcare monitoring.
“Wi-Fi has a powerful role today in delivering essential use cases in home and enterprise environments,” said Kevin Robinson, SVP of Marketing, Wi-Fi Alliance. “There is unprecedented growth of real-time, bidirectional communication applications over Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi QoS Management delivers deterministic connectivity that allows enterprises, service providers, and users to enjoy latency-sensitive applications even in dense or challenging environments. Additionally, as more 5G networks are deployed, Wi-Fi QoS Management will help ensure consistent traffic management across Wi-Fi and cellular networks.”
Wi-Fi QoS Management includes four core features including:
Hybrid workforces are becoming increasingly more common and have given renewed importance to collaboration technologies which rely on high quality Wi-Fi to deliver the best user experience with tools including video conferencing or voice-over-IP. Additionally, XR technologies are poised to bridge gaps between real and virtual worlds by improving education, onboarding, healthcare, and other advanced use cases with richer experiences. Consistent QoS treatment policies are necessary to meet the demands of these advanced use cases – most of which require data traffic to traverse multiple networks – including Wi-Fi, wired, and cellular. Wi-Fi QoS Management provides mechanisms that allow client applications to request QoS treatment, and for network managers to implement QoS policies. These mechanisms allow user devices and access points to perform differentiated prioritization, depending on the type of traffic. The result is robust service delivery and higher quality Wi-Fi, including better experiences with real-time and immersive applications, and reduced latency and jitter when online gaming or accessing interactive cloud and edge services.
For more information, please visit our website and download our technology overview and/or highlights sheet.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 65,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
Austin, Texas and Washington, D.C. – October 19, 2021 – Wi-Fi Alliance® continues to advance development of the Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC) system that maximizes spectrum access in the 6 GHz frequency band. Wi-Fi Alliance is announcing the release of an additional element necessary for AFC system implementation: the AFC System Compliance Test Plan. Wi-Fi Alliance development efforts on this innovative AFC system aim to ensure worldwide adoption, interoperability, security, and reliability expected of Wi-Fi®.
Wi-Fi 6E leverages the 6 GHz band to unleash capacity, speed, and reduced latency benefits. The AFC system, already adopted into 6 GHz regulatory framework in Canada and U.S., is also being considered by regulators in other countries. Development of this AFC system framework demonstrates the commitment by Wi-Fi Alliance to maximizing 6 GHz spectrum opportunity and accelerating delivery of Wi-Fi 6E benefits.
AFC documents now available from Wi-Fi Alliance include:
For more information on countries enabling Wi-Fi 6E, please visit: https://www.wi-fi.org/countries-enabling-wi-fi-6e. To download the full package of Wi-Fi Alliance AFC documents, please visit: https://www.wi-fi.org/file/afc-specification-and-test-plans.
About Wi-Fi Alliance® | www.wi-fi.org
Wi-Fi Alliance® is the worldwide network of companies that brings you Wi-Fi®. Members of our collaboration forum come together from across the Wi-Fi ecosystem with the shared vision to connect everyone and everything, everywhere, while providing the best possible user experience. Since 2000, Wi-Fi Alliance has completed more than 65,000 Wi-Fi certifications. The Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ seal of approval designates products with proven interoperability, backward compatibility, and the highest industry-standard security protections in place. Today, Wi-Fi carries more than half of the internet’s traffic in an ever-expanding variety of applications. Wi-Fi Alliance continues to drive the adoption and evolution of Wi-Fi, which billions of people rely on every day.
