{"id":26769,"date":"2019-06-19T08:41:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T07:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=26769"},"modified":"2019-06-21T09:37:41","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T08:37:41","slug":"africas-wi-fi-growth-is-in-full-force-according-to-ruckus-networks-director","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/06\/19\/africas-wi-fi-growth-is-in-full-force-according-to-ruckus-networks-director\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa&#8217;s Wi-Fi growth is in full force, according to Ruckus Networks director"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>World Wi-Fi Day is celebrated every year on June 20, signifying a day where governments, industries and consumers recognise the important role of Wi-Fi in socio-economic development. This special day celebrates the advances of Wi-Fi and how it enables affordable connectivity for the unconnected around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Riaan Graham, Sales Director for Ruckus Networks (now part of CommScope via acquisition) Sub-Saharan Africa, said: \u201cWi-Fi networks across commercial, government and communities, have continued to grow at a rapid pace across the continent. Both governments and network operators are realising with high-speed backhaul networks, it is a small marginal cost to add Wi-Fi access points at key points in the networks.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a result, Wi-Fi is currently connecting millions of people in Africa and represents one of the most expedient and cost-effective ways to increase both capacity and coverage. And it\u2019s growth is in full force.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the stats:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are 9 billion Wi-Fi devices in use and 3 billion devices are shipped every year<\/li>\n<li>There are more Wi-Fi devices than people (7.6 billion) and cellular subscribers (5.2 billion)<\/li>\n<li>Wi-Fi accounts for most wireless traffic today. In the US, Wi-Fi carries 67% of mobile device traffic. In Japan, mobile subscribers use Wi-Fi for 83% of their traffic and 75%<sup>4<\/sup> of connections, and Wi-Fi connections are on average twice as fast as those over cellular (10 Mbps and 5 Mbps, respectively)<\/li>\n<li>Wi-Fi is well-positioned to benefit from the explosive growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) and it already accounts for a large percentage of current IoT connections<\/li>\n<li>The global economic value of Wi-Fi was US$1,96 trillion in 2018, and that is expected to reach US$3.47 billion in 2023<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_24643\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-24643\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-24643 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/03\/Riaan-Graham-Ruckus-2-731x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"897\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/03\/Riaan-Graham-Ruckus-2-731x1024.jpg 731w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/03\/Riaan-Graham-Ruckus-2-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/03\/Riaan-Graham-Ruckus-2-768x1075.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/03\/Riaan-Graham-Ruckus-2.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-24643\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Riaan Graham. Sales Director at Ruckus Networks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAfrica\u2019s continued growth is driven by the need to not only connect the unconnected, but to consolidate demands for access and data,\u201d added Graham.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s more, the ubiquity, reliability, performance and cost effectiveness of Wi-Fi have created a massive footprint that will retain its prominent role as we transition to new networks, such as 5G.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, for Wi-Fi to continue growing, more spectrum is required. Wi-Fi is not only a cost-effective solution for both urban and rural areas, but it plays a fundamental role in key areas such as making South Africa more accessible for business by improving the ease-of-doing business in the country, as well as increasing global competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe that Wi-Fi technology should be recognised as a core pillar of the National Broadband Strategy to truly realise the unlimited capacity that Wi-Fi provides and open up true connectivity across the country and continent,\u201d said Graham.<\/p>\n<p>With the transition to Wi-Fi 6 \u2013 where most providers are already scaling access points and technology infrastructures to accommodate this shift \u2013 this is even more critical. In fact, Wi-Fi 6 will be important to the overall industry and will bring better speeds, lower latency and enhanced support. The flexibility and scalability that Wi-Fi 6 enables results in increased speed and capacity with next-generation applications.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor Africa to realise the true potential that Wi-Fi technology can bring to the continent, the issues of spectrum needs to solved so the necessary infrastructure can be accessible for limitless possibilities, encouraging a better quality of life, business growth and investments into the continent,\u201d said Graham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>World Wi-Fi Day is celebrated every year on June 20, signifying a day where governments, industries and consumers recognise the important role of Wi-Fi in socio-economic development. This special day celebrates the advances of Wi-Fi and how it enables affordable connectivity for the unconnected around the world. Riaan Graham, Sales Director for Ruckus Networks (now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":26770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,6,298,103,38,19,9059,382,13,262],"tags":[871,2383,155,390,9966,577,578,453,83,9967,9965],"class_list":["post-26769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-insights","category-main-story-newsletter","category-mobile","category-networking","category-regional-news","category-south-africa","category-telecom","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-5g","tag-commscope","tag-internet-of-things","tag-iot","tag-national-broadband-strategy","tag-riaan-graham","tag-ruckus-networks","tag-south-africa","tag-wi-fi","tag-wi-fi-6","tag-world-wi-fi-day"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26769"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26829,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26769\/revisions\/26829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}