The W-Fi Alliance expects there to be 2.1 billion Wi-Fi 7 devices worldwide by 2028
Wi-Fi 7, or IEEE 802.11be, was certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance in January 2024. At the time of certification, the Alliance said it expects there to be 2.1 billion Wi-Fi 7 devices worldwide by 2028. A year later, RCR Wireless News held it’s first-ever Wi-Fi Forum where industry analysts Dean Bubley and Jeff Heynen took a deeper look at Wi-Fi 7’s adoption and the key factors influencing it. Here are a few highlights:
Service provider interest in Wi-Fi 7
Both Bubley, who is an analyst with Disruptive Analysis and Disruptive 6G, and Heynen, who is Dell’Oro Group’s Vice President of Broadband Access and Home Networking, noted that service providers are becoming increasingly interested in how Wi-Fi — and particularly Wi-Fi 7 — fits into their connectivity offerings.
There are a few reasons for this:
First, Wi-Fi 7 is the most reliable version of the technology to date: “Wi-fi 7 is viewed as the first carrier-class Wi-Fi technology because of not only taking advantage of the three spectrum bands but also being able to allocate and use all those spectrum bands in conjunction to improve the bandwidth and throughput throughout the house,” said Heynen, adding that this gives operators additional flexibility. In other words, reliable Wi-Fi means they can better ensure that the gigabit or multi-gigabit service they’re advertising is actually being provided consistently throughout their subscribers” homes.
Second, reliable Wi-Fi also enhances an operator’s offering. “Operators also view Wi-Fi as… a way … to begin offering differentiated services,” he said, explaining that broadband penetration rates are reaching saturation in many markets, and when this happens, speed alone is no longer the differentiator it once was. Therefore, service providers are looking to offer things like Wi-Fi management services and additional security features enabled by Wi-Fi 7.
And finally, Wi-Fi 7 units are still expensive — this will change, but for now, that’s the situation. Therefore, Dell’Oro has found that adoption of both mesh units and typical standalone residential routers is being driven more through service providers than through retailer outlets. This allows users to pay for or lease these units overtime. “Many operators are finding that they have become a conduit for Wi-Fi 7 and improved capability to their customers simply by being a lower cost offering of those units,” he said.
People are ‘thankfully, finally’ catching on that 6G needs advanced Wi-Fi
For the first time, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) identified ubiquitous connectivity as a requirement for 6G systems. Bubley explained that while this largely refers to bridging the digital divide by incorporating things like non-terrestrial networks, it also specifically calls out the need for increased indoor connectivity. “And that will mean Wi-Fi,” he said.
Bubley said, too, that what is “becoming increasingly [clear] amongst not just users, but thankfully, finally governments and regulators, is the importance of indoor wireless connectivity.” As such, he claimed, Wi-Fi is quickly becoming part of the “ubiquitous framework” that defines 6G.
But to achieve ubiquitous Wi-Fi coverage, Wi-Fi onboarding needs to be secure and seamless — two characteristics not typically associated with Wi-Fi. This is where OpenRoaming, developed by Cisco and built upon a set of standards and guidelines developed by the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) and Wi-Fi Alliance, comes into play in a big way. OpenRoaming allows user can join any network managed by any provider within the established trusted federation of providers. The network is then able to automatically authenticate devices by using established identity providers, such as a service provider, device manufacturer, cloud ID or even loyalty memberships.
According to the WBA Industry Report 2025, 81% of the 170 global industry executives surveyed are planning to deploy OpenRoaming. Of those, 25% were already rolling out the technology, 42% said they would deploy in 2025, with 27% planning for 2026. When asked why they are interested in deploying or investing in OpenRoaming or Passpoint compliant networks, Industry Report 44% of the respondents said to enable seamless access between Wi-Fi and 5G/LTE, while 43% said to provide improved security on Wi-Fi (43%). These top answers were followed by enabling frictionless access to Wi-Fi (39%) and enabling seamless access across different networks (38%).
“The U.S is getting a good start; in Europe, we are starting to see some countries like Belgium … looking okay. London is starting to get some traction, as well. Another country that is very well layered is Japan,” WBA CEO Tiago Rodrigues told RCR Wireless News in a previous conversation. “OpenRoaming is all about security and the user experience. We are super enthusiastic to see that every day there are new networks. Let’s be honest, this is the start. Like any technology, you need a starting point, and I believe we will continue to grow over time.”
China’s Wi-Fi 7 push — without the 6 GHz band
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officially opened up the 6 GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use in April 2020, resulting in the introduction of Wi-Fi 6E, and in turn, faster speeds and increased capacity. With this decision, an additional 1,200 megahertz of spectrum is now available for unlicensed Wi-Fi use. While the United States was quick to adopt all of the band (5925-7125 MHz) for Wi-Fi use, the response from the rest of the world varied greatly.
Today, 13 countries have adopted the full 5925-7125MHz range, according to the Wi-Fi Alliance, while 50 others have already allocated a portion of the band for Wi-Fi. Further, many countries are still considering opening up the band — like Egypt and Tunisia — or opening up more of the band, like the United Kingdom, which has, thus far, only opened up 5945-6425 MHz for Wi-Fi use. Others — notably China — have chosen instead to allocate the 6 GHz band for 5G and 6G services.
Because Wi-Fi 7 was built from the ground up with the 6 GHz in mind, some of its most exciting features and use cases, like augmented, virtual, and extended reality (AR/VR/XR), ultra-high definition video streaming and Industrial IoT, depend on the ability to tap into the 6 GHz band. However, Wi-Fi 7 works on the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, and so, even without full or partial access to the 6 GHz band, users will still benefit from the standard’s faster speeds, improved capacity and enhanced efficiency in congested environments. This is, in part, thanks to other key Wi-Fi 7 features including preamble puncturing, which can be used to bypass channels experiencing interference, enabling the use of wider channels even amidst disruptive signals and delivering a more reliable wireless connection — and this can be done without the 6 GHz band.
I bring this up only to provide context for an interesting market dynamic: Heynen said that despite China’s unwillingness to adopt the 6 GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use, the Asian country is actually driving early adoption of Wi-Fi. “And that’s because operators there are deploying low-cost units that do not take advantage of the 6 GHz band,” he explained. “However, it is very critical to these operators to be able to market Wi-Fi 7, even if the full capabilities of Wi-fi 7 — as defined in the specifications — aren’t available.”
China Unicom and China Telecom, for example, have both been rapidly switching over to Wi-Fi 7 units with 2×2 MIMO capabilities since last spring.
He added that efforts around improving Fiber to the Room (FTTR) are driving material volumes of W-Fi 7 units in the Chinese market. FTTR extends a Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) optical fiber access network to individual rooms within a home or office. As of December 2024, it has been reported that China has 30 million FTTR subscribers. Because Wi-Fi 7 can significantly improve in-home mesh connections between Wi-Fi access points by combining different types of unlicensed spectrum together with multilink operation, users can get faster speeds and lower latency — in every room of their home or office building.
Register here to watch the full Wi-Fi Forum session with Dean and Jeff.
