The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) recently released an introductory report on 6G’s potential transformative role, calling for greater collaboration between stakeholders as well as detailing five key vision points to achieve ubiquitous connectivity.
Wi-Fi and cellular are the two most adopted wireless broadband technologies in the world, available in billions of devices and used daily by billions of users all around the world. To date, both technologies have been evolving from the standards point of view, on independent paths, resulting in separate technical standards, architectures, and industry ecosystems.
While the cellular standards organisations have made efforts to integrate these systems and positive progress has been made, with converged solutions like Wi-Fi Calling or SIM-based seamless Wi-Fi authentication, broader real-world adoption and implementation have lagged behind for reasons that include the need to harmonise fragmented user experiences, complexity of non-3GPP access methods, costs related to implementation complexity, and the need to learn from previous cellular generations.
The WBA’s vision for 6G includes:
- Ubiquitous connectivity for all: Advocate for a wireless ecosystem where wireless networks collaborate rather than compete. This environment ensures uninterrupted experiences for users, regardless of the environment, urban, rural or indoors
- Practical solutions for industry challenges: 6G should prioritise resolving industry pain points such as fragmented user experiences, costly network implementations, and inconsistent coverage. Realistic, scalable models that leverage Wi-Fi and cellular, and other wireless technologies, to address these issues effectively
- Cost and operational efficiency: Operators must balance increasing data demands with operational/energy efficiency to ensure sustainability. Wi-Fi’s cost-effectiveness can complement 6G to reduce CAPEX, operational costs and network densification, particularly indoors
- Targeted applications for impact: Unlike 5G’s broad focus, 6G should concentrate on practical verticals like healthcare, smart cities, and industrial automation. These areas benefit most from reliable, low-latency, and seamless connectivity
- Global collaboration and standardisation: Importance of industry-wide collaboration, aligning Wi-Fi, cellular, among other technologies advancements through standards bodies like 3GPP, GSMA, IEEE, IETF, WBA and the Wi-Fi Alliance to avoid fragmentation and ensure interoperability
The WBA also released three recommendations to address industry fragmentation and contribute to successful outcomes for 6G:
- Balance between service requirements and technology-driven solutions: A key consideration is whether 6G benefits from a customer-led approach rather than technology-led convergence efforts. While equipment manufacturers, cellular and Wi-Fi vendors, drive many innovations in their respective technologies, operators may be better positioned to take a holistic, technology-agnostic view of customer needs and their own challenges. Operators can bring balance to the ecosystem by ensuring that their solutions are designed with customer challenges and real-world use cases in mind, avoiding a technology-driven approach that may overlook cross-network requirements. The ecosystem needs a balanced approach where operators lead in defining end-user requirements while vendors contribute with specialised technology
- Strategic role of the Wi-Fi in IMT-2030 and 6G development: Industry alignment will be critical in the 6G standards process by ensuring that convergence, particularly involving relevant access technologies like Wi-Fi, plays a key role in how 6G meets customer needs. This includes promoting multi-stakeholder engagement to align technical specifications with real-world user needs and ensuring that 6G development focuses on interoperability between access technologies
- Supporting innovation labs for 6G: The industry should support the creation of an ‘Innovation Lab’ for 6G convergence to foster real-world convergence use cases, such as ATSSS, and support vendor Proof of Concept (PoC) and prototype development. The objective of these labs would be to validate vendor innovations and produce viable industry solutions that address fragmentation, benefiting both operators and end customers. These efforts will ensure vendors across Wi-Fi, cellular, and other networks can prototype solutions that work seamlessly together
The WBA will be promoting actionable steps to drive broad industry alignment:
- Advocate for simplified, cross-network policies that focus on the end user experience
- Develop frameworks for seamless identity management and access steering
- Promote affordable and scalable solutions like Federated Roaming (e.g. OpenRoaming) and neutral host models for network densification
- Leverage AI to optimise network selection and reduce operational overhead
- Establish innovation labs for real-world testing and vendor collaboration
“Collaboration between cellular, Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies stakeholders, including operators, vendors, and vertical industry players, is crucial for the success of 6G. By centering its vision on densification, capacity, efficiency, and collaboration, the WBA aims to make 6G not just a technological leap but a practical solution for global connectivity challenges,” concluded Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance.
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