{"id":28238,"date":"2019-08-15T14:51:01","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T13:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=28238"},"modified":"2019-08-16T10:51:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T09:51:30","slug":"next-gen-wi-fi-for-smarter-buildings-and-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/08\/15\/next-gen-wi-fi-for-smarter-buildings-and-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Next-gen Wi-Fi for smarter buildings and cities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Following the white paper released by the World Broadband Alliance (WBA) that&nbsp; provides deployment guidelines for a number of possible scenarios utilising Wi-Fi 6 technology, Jacques Visser, Head of Wireless at Vox, says South African companies should familiarise themselves with it, and the ways in which they can use it to enhance their business operations.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the quality and\nspeed of Internet connectivity continues to improve, thanks to technologies\nsuch as fibre, LTE and the upcoming 5G, users are responding by connecting even\nmore devices to their local area networks. They are engaging in bandwidth\nintensive tasks such as making latency-sensitive video calls, streaming content\nin 4K, and adding Internet of Things devices that continually transmit small\npackets of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wi-Fi networks face two major challenges, namely to be able to counter the incredibly complex security risk, and to provide more efficient ways to handle the growing and diverse amount of traffic as well as bandwidth needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To solve this, the\nWi-Fi Alliance has identified improvements to the current standard, 802.11ac. A\nkey improvement was to focus on usage under typical conditions in order to\nimprove the performance of the entire network, which is fundamentally different\nfrom the existing standard where the focus is on peak data rates under perfect\nconditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The partners have further made naming conventions for these\ntechnologies easier to understand. Instead of making customers wonder what\nterms such as 802.11a\/b\/g\/n or 802.11ac mean and trying to figure out which is\nthe better product, the industry body is switching to the use of numbers, with\nthis newest iteration &#8211; 802.11ax &#8211; being branded Wi-Fi 6. This nomenclature\nwill be retrospectively applied to previous technologies, with 802.11ac being\nWi-Fi 5, and 802.11n being Wi-Fi 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Key features of Wi-Fi 6 include improved performance, particularly in high-density, high throughput environments; better resource utilisation and lower latency enabling service level assurances; serving multiple users simultaneously to boost capacity; flexible channel sizes and target wake time for more efficient IoT support; colour codes to reduce collision between signals from nearby networks; and providing up to six times the speed of 802.11ac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Quality Wi-Fi in high-density environments<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wi-Fi 6 will\naddress the issues experienced by the continued and expanding success of Wi-Fi\nin the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands and will be key to delivering the increased\ncapacity and performance required for next generation connectivity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the focus points was to enhance the efficiency of how\naccess points handle devices simultaneously. It\u2019s not about comparing Wi-Fi\nspeeds; it\u2019s more about providing optimal throughput for all clients. Think of\nit as adding more lanes to a highway, and each lane is dedicated to a user.\nThis opens up a wide range of new use cases for Wi-Fi 6, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>IoT:<\/strong> This is a core use case which benefits      significantly from Wi-Fi 6 with narrow dedicated channels, power saving      and target wake time features all allowing IoT devices to make greater use      of the network. This includes enabling lower data rates, longer range and      reducing power consumption.<\/li><li><strong>High density deployments:<\/strong> More capacity for      devices in areas such as airports, train stations and in campuses<\/li><li><strong>Transportation:<\/strong> Lower latency improves support for      automated vehicles within industrial environments; and supporting      ticketing and payment services at automated road barriers<\/li><li><strong>Retail:<\/strong> Improved accuracy for Wi-Fi based location      determination allows retailers to leverage location information, dwell      time analytics and use targeted advertisement systems<\/li><li><strong>Enterprise:<\/strong> Improved efficiency and network      performance offer better data connectivity to serve high productivity      needs. This includes drastic improvements for Wi-Fi calling, and enabling      more simultaneous voice calls over extended coverage areas<\/li><li><strong>Smart cities (outdoor):<\/strong> Enhanced      throughput and extended range to enable better last mile point-to-point or      point-to-multipoint wireless links, high density capabilities to support      extreme IoT densities, and to support the backhaul for hyper-dense 5G      deployments<\/li><li><strong>Smart villages (last mile):<\/strong> Higher throughput      and increased range make it suitable for delivering last mile connectivity      as an alternative to conventional copper and fibre, while compatibility      with existing 2.4GHz devices ensures ease of adoption<\/li><li><strong>Residential (single and multi-dwelling):<\/strong> Increased      throughput and improved range, more effective use of spectrum in      multi-dwelling units to allow for more throughput and less contention      between neighbours; smaller channel widths and more simultaneous users      facilitate the deployment of a mesh network to extend coverage and      seamlessly support lower power IoT<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Complementing cellular networks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nearly 70% of smartphone data is carried over Wi-Fi networks, and\nit is clear that cellular deployments in licensed spectrum have not been able\nto keep pace with consumer demands for wireless data.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This has led to the acceptance of Wi-Fi as an important complement\nto cellular access, and 3GPP\u2019s definition of its 5G Core Network re-enforces\nthis with the ability to better integrate with Wi-Fi networks as well as its 5G\ndefined New Radio (NR). 3GPP, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, is the organisation\nthat has set standards for mobile telecommunications, right from GSM till\ntoday&#8217;s 5G.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Equipment vendors are set to have equipment available locally\nlater this year, subject to getting approvals from ICASA, while the launch of\nWi-Fi 6 compatible System-on-Chip (SOC) and devices were announced at Mobile\nWorld Congress in Barcelona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is also a focus in 5G cellular to improve its\ncompetitiveness with Wi-Fi, including defining support for operation in\nunlicensed spectrum as well as adopting a more flexible authentication\nframework. While these investments may potentially pay dividends in the years\nto come, Wi-Fi 6 is already at our doorstep to meet the ever-growing demand for\nwireless data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the meantime, South African companies should familiarise\nthemselves with Wi-Fi 6, and the ways in which they can use it to enhance their\nbusiness operations. However, as often observed with the introduction of new\ntechnologies, it will be smaller more agile businesses who are the first to\nadopt, in an effort to gain an advantage over the competition &#8211; and bigger\ncompanies will eventually be left with no option but to respond similarly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following the white paper released by the World Broadband Alliance (WBA) that&nbsp; provides deployment guidelines for a number of possible scenarios utilising Wi-Fi 6 technology, Jacques Visser, Head of Wireless at Vox, says South African companies should familiarise themselves with it, and the ways in which they can use it to enhance their business operations. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":28239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4950,134,328,136,6,103,38,19,260,9059,382,13,262],"tags":[871,155,390,8156,1050,1290,10674,453,5372,10670,10673,10672,9967,10671,10669],"class_list":["post-28238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-blog","category-features","category-industry-expert","category-insights","category-mobile","category-networking","category-regional-news","category-regional-news-newsletter","category-south-africa","category-telecom","category-top-stories","category-used","tag-5g","tag-internet-of-things","tag-iot","tag-jacques-visser","tag-lte","tag-smart-cities","tag-smart-villages","tag-south-africa","tag-vox","tag-wba","tag-wi-fi-4","tag-wi-fi-5","tag-wi-fi-6","tag-wi-fi-alliance","tag-world-broadband-alliance"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238","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=28238"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28298,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238\/revisions\/28298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}