Wi-Fi 6 applications are in sight, will the development of the Internet of Things usher in a boom?
Wi-Fi currently sends signals on the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, but a new proposal from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) attempts to extend unauthorized Wi-Fi use to the wider 6GHz band. Doing so will bring new bandwidth of more than 1200 MHz to the next-generation Wi-Fi 6E equipment, while the total bandwidth of the 5 GHz band is 500 MHz.
The 6GHz band can accommodate 7 new 160MHz channels, and is completely free from interference from previous generation devices, so it may become the latest Wi-Fi equipment for multi-lane highways, all of which use the latest, fastest, and most efficient Wi-Fi version Wi-Fi 6. Currently, 10 days before the US Federal Communications Commission voted, an industry-funded study concluded that this initiative has other benefits in addition to the potential to bring more than $180 billion in revenue to the United States in the next five years.
The report was released on Monday and is funded by the industry advocacy organization WifiForward. Its members include Google, Microsoft, Comcast, Charter, Broadcom, Arris, etc. This report was written by Dr. Raul Katz, director of business strategy research at the Columbia Institute for Tele-InformaTIon and president of Telecom Advisory Services, LLC.
As of February of this year, the average download speed of fixed broadband in the United States is 137Mbps, and this number is expected to double to 280Mbps by 2022. This is faster than the average speed of the current dual-band routers in the 2.4 and 5GHz bands (267Mbps), which may lead to new network bottlenecks in the next few years, and ordinary routers cannot fully utilize the ultra-fast network.
In addition to opening the 6GHz band for unauthorized Wi-Fi use, the FCC also proposes to open the bottom 45MHz band of the 5.9GHz band. This seemingly minor change will create the first widely used, continuous 160MHz channel in the United States. According to the report, this can solve this bottleneck by increasing the average transmission capacity of the router to 468Mbps, and eventually contribute US$23 billion to the US GDP by 2025 and a consumer surplus of US$5 billion over the same period.
As for the 1200 MHz band that opens the 6 GHz band, Katz expects the economic value of five years to contribute 83 billion U.S. dollars to GDP, a production surplus of 68 billion U.S. dollars, and a consumer surplus of 3 billion U.S. dollars. Coupled with the gain of 5.9GHz, by 2025, the US economy will increase by 183.44 billion US dollars.
"Turn on the 5.9GHz and 6GHz bands and add to the existing unlicensed bands of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, the combined spectrum will be able to support eight 160MHz channels or three 320MHz channels, which will be Wi-Fi 6 and higher Technology can meet the increasing demand for Wi-Fi traffic." Katz wrote. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) proposal for the 6GHz band will open standard-power Wi-Fi connections, as well as low-power indoor connections (LPI) and very low-power connections (VLP). The latter two are the way to make a living of machine-to-machine communication (M2M). With the continuous development of the Internet of Things, M2M may play a key role.
Katz wrote: "According to this new proposal, industry stakeholders have stated that LPI and VLP equipment not only bring the least risk of harmful interference, but also provide great economic value." "In fact, including broadband providers Many stakeholders, including technology companies, believe that unless the design of LPI and VLP equipment is realized, the economic value of the 6GHz band will be greatly reduced."
In particular, Katz pointed out that the increase in LPI spectrum capacity for M2M communications (expected to increase from the current installed base of 118 million devices to 214 million in 2025) will allow for wider deployment of IoT devices in the future The five-year contribution to GDP is worth 44 billion U.S. dollars.
In addition, the report also describes the “potential of achieving ubiquitous, high-throughput wireless connectivity at multiple indoor access points in commercial facilities such as industrial plants, enterprise parks, etc., with savings equivalent to 54.04 billion between 2020 and 2025. The telecommunications costs in US dollars generate an initial producer surplus." As for VLP, Katz expects to open up connection space in the 6GHz band and will enable a new generation of AR/VR applications, which will sell hardware for US companies in the next five years. , Software and content bring up to 14 billion US dollars in revenue. This in turn will have a spillover effect on GDP equivalent to approximately US$26 billion.
Katz predicts that the mobile phone business will also benefit from the FCC's proposal. The reason is simple, as data traffic continues to expand, Wi-Fi networks will be able to bear more burden. This means that without the actions of the Federal Communications Commission, mobile phone service providers can reduce their investment and operating expenses.
Katz wrote: "In the absence of additional unlicensed frequency bands, service providers will have to deploy expensive infrastructure to accommodate the increase in traffic." He pointed out that the FCC hopes that the additional bandwidth allocated will directly affect these efforts . "Conservatively estimated that this advantage will play a role in network deployment in some suburbs (about 15%) and rural areas (about 5%), which will save US$13.6 billion and can be invested in expanding 5G deployments in rural areas."
Wi-Fi 6 plans to start voting on its proposal on April 23 through the on-look FCC. If these proposals are passed (with the support of Chairman Ajit Pai’s two parties, it is likely to be passed), the Wi-Fi industry will be ready to operate. The Wi-Fi Alliance has set a name for the new device "Wi-Fi 6E" for access to the 6GHz band. New chipsets for access points and mobile devices are already equipped and are expected to be in use by the end of this year.
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