With cellular and Wi-Fi, “You need them both,” analyst says
Commercial, standards-based 5G deployments are set to go live later this year. At the same time, Wi-Fi continues to see capacity enhancements, most recently, with the commercialization of products based on the IEEE’s 802.11ax specification. To get a better understanding of the parallel development of these two technologies, RCR Wireless News discussed the issue with Monica Paolini, principal of Senza Fili Consulting.
Q: I know this is a topic you’ve been researching as of late. At a high-level, what is the narrative that’s emerging?
A: My view is Wi-Fi is really developing independently of 5G but it’s sort of developing along the same lines as 3GPP 5G; it’s in parallel. The difference is that in Wi-Fi, you don’t have generations. It’s more incremental, you just add different pieces. It’s sort of more gradual and less visible from a marketing point of view. Even 802.11ax. We know what that is but, most consumers, it’s lost on them. When you go and buy an access point you go and buy the latest one. You see Wi-Fi is getting better but there is no ‘5G is coming’ marketing push.
Q: As the two technologies develop, as you said “in parallel,” how does that look over time?
A: If you look at the IMT specification for what they want 5G to be, to think about 5G without Wi-Fi, it’s just impossible. My take on this is it’s not whether Wi-Fi will survive. It certainly will. Will 5G be successful? Yes, it will. There’s no question there. But to think one of them is enough to meet the requirements, it just won’t be enough to meet it at scale. To make it economical, you just need both. Just imagine if you don’t have Wi-Fi. What would happen? You just need them both.
Q: You mentioned the economics associated with the relationship between cellular and Wi-Fi. Data offloading is a part of that, but what other variables influence those business models?
A: If you have millimeter wave access, for example, you have all this efficiency and you can use these very wide channels. Some people would argue you don’t necessarily need Wi-Fi anymore. That’s not really true. Strictly speaking, you don’t, but it’s just much more expensive. The business models aren’t there. You really have to have both. With Wi-Fi you have such a huge market and because there is, I would say, better backward compatibility. You just just keep adding things. You buy a new access point at home and it still works with everything. There’s more continuity. That makes it much easier to move forward. There’s more clarity. If you discuss what is Wi-Fi moving forward, in one minute you can say it’s this, this, this and done. With 5G it’s a little bit more messy. It’s more complicated.
Q: In the U.S. there’s strong operator interesting in this fixed wireless access use case for 5G initially geared toward residential connectivity, which is traditionally the domain of Wi-Fi. What are your thoughts on that deployment strategy?
A: It is 5G but it’s not really 5G in the access. There are some good use cases. Instead of doing fiber to the home, you do wireless. Over short distances it’s going to be much cheaper and better from a cost perspective, but it is what it is. I don’t think it’s a game changer. I’m a big supporter of CBRS but at home Wi-Fi does a good job.
Q: What type of use case do you see as potentially a more apt application of 5G fixed wireless access rather than Wi-Fi?
A: If you are in a downtown environment, you have your condo and there’s all sorts of other people using Wi-Fi and you’ve got all sorts of interference, [5G] might make a different. But then you might just use WiGig. Wi-Fi is just so entrenched. I once tried to count how many Wi-Fi devices I have. I can’t even really count them but it’s more than 20. If you come in and tell me I have to use a different interface, it’s a real problem. You have so much invested in it.
Q: We’ve discussed this paradigm as it applies to consumers. Does this change when you apply the question to enterprise users?
A: At some point, if you’re an enterprise, you might just run out of capacity on Wi-Fi. If you want to do IoT, right now IoT in the world is mostly Wi-Fi. We don’t really think about it that way but that’s the way it is. If you have a factory where you’re using Wi-Fi to get basic connectivity, then you need to have some automation of some specific type of services, that’s where you want to use something like CBRS, for instance. It’s cheaper in that case to just have another network you can use for specific services that’s better and not as congested. I think something like this is going to work but that doesn’t reduce the reliance on Wi-Fi. It’s just going to stay there. I’ve talked to a bunch of people about CBRS. No matter how strong the support for CBRS, they’re still not going to touch the Wi-Fi network, it’s just in addition to that. The way to look at it with 5G…you may need the capacity to support more services over wireless.
Q: What’s your appraisal of how standardization bodies are working to more tightly integrate cellular and Wi-Fi?
A: They’ve been trying forever. If you think about the handoffs, there is a sort of high-level approach. LTE and 5G is basically more network based and Wi-Fi is more handset- or device-based and much more distributed and intrinsically local. The two are sort of converging because 5G and LTE are getting more distributed. 5G is becoming more Wi-Fi-like than previous cellular technologies but there’s a difficulty in putting the two together. At the access network they sort of fight with each other. Wi-Fi is trying to take it on one end and 4G and 5G are trying to take it on the other end. For operators, Wi-Fi is a great thing. They don’t have to pay for it, they don’t have to manage it and people like it. Back to offload, it would be much more efficient if they were more closely integrated but, on the other hand, why bother if it’s working well enough? But I think it’s really too bad because it’d be nice to have the two more integrated.
Q: For enterprise users, or consumers for that matter, do you see any concerns around security that would create a preference for cellular?
A: The issue with security for Wi-Fi, in most cases, stems from the fact that people have the option to not use a secure network—it’s a human element. Wi-Fi can be secure. With the cellular network it’s somewhat different because the operator is in control of everything. But you can have your home Wi-Fi and you can do whatever you want with it but that doesn’t mean the technology isn’t good or isn’t secure. It means people have to be more aware. You just have to make sure you follow best practices. You have to be a little bit more careful.
Q: Based on our discussion and the discussion you’ve been having with people in the industry, what’s your outlook for the relationship between Wi-Fi and cellular as we move toward 2020?
A: “We are moving in the direction where there will be multiple air interfaces. Depending on the use case, you’re going to use a different one. You’ll have different IoT interfaces, you’ll have WiGig, millimeter wave, you’ll have more interfaces rather than less. As we move forward we’ll have the ability to put those interfaces together; how integrated they will be is an open question. Even if they’re not integrated at the access level, the devices will be able to manage that. I don’t see any reason why you need to sort of collapse cellular and Wi-Fi. I know some people think Wi-Fi will eventually die because you have 5G but there’s a role for both. It’s more than simply being complementary. You need both. Different technologies work differently for different things. Keep it open.”
To learn more about the relationship between 5G and Wi-Fi, check out our upcoming webinar on the topic.
