The Wireless Broadband Alliance has reported what it describes as a significant improvement in Wi-Fi performance following a series of field trials showing how standardised Quality of Service mechanisms can lead to latency reductions of up to 70%.
The industry group says the results illustrate how to deliver more reliable connectivity for applications such as Cloud gaming, video conferencing, and live streaming.
The tests, carried out by Airties, Charter Communications, Intel, Meta, and Zebra, found measurable QoS gains across all scenarios. According to the WBA, the trials delivered smoother framerates, higher resolutions, and more consistent performance under heavy network loads. Round-trip traffic times fell, and overall network stability improved.
Although the trials emphasised technical benchmarks, the WBA argued that the impact of QoS stretches beyond performance alone. It said operators and enterprises could use QoS-enabled services to cut congestion costs, reduce churn, and create differentiated offerings, including low-latency Wi-Fi service tiers. The alliance also highlighted potential brand benefits from improved user satisfaction in areas such as online collaboration, gaming, education, and streaming.
The WBA said the business advantages demonstrated in the trials included stronger performance differentiation for operators and OEMs, increased user engagement, operational efficiencies from more intelligent traffic prioritisation, and clearer pathways for new commercial models. It also positioned QoS as a precursor to next-generation applications such as AR, VR, industrial IoT, and real-time collaboration tools.
The study validated the Wi-Fi Alliance’s QoS Management Specification Release 2, which the WBA said now provides a workable framework for aligning chipset makers, operating system developers, and service providers. Mechanisms such as the Mirrored Stream Classification Service and Stream Classification Service were shown to improve uplink and downlink prioritisation.
A second phase of testing is planned to examine QoS performance in multi-access point, mesh, and high-density environments, with a particular focus on enterprise and IoT deployments.
Tiago Rodrigues, President and Chief Executive of the WBA, said the results marked “a major step forward for the Wi-Fi ecosystem and a pivotal enabler for the next wave of low-latency applications”.
Metin Taskin, Chief Executive and founder of Airties, said the findings reinforced the need for end-to-end QoS as “consumers and enterprises expect optimal Wi-Fi performance even for demanding, latency-sensitive applications”.
Eric A. McLaughlin, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Connectivity Solutions Group, said the work demonstrated how standardised QoS could enhance performance on devices using Intel’s laptop platforms and its Connectivity Performance Suite software.
Somesh Agrawal, Senior Director at Zebra Technologies, said reductions in latency were particularly important for customers in retail, logistics, and healthcare, where “mission-critical operations” depend on reliable connectivity.
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