The GSMA and CTIA have misrepresented early 6GHz Wi-Fi adoption data to justify reallocating spectrum for mobile use, arguing the technology remains in a normal growth phase with significant long-term strategic and economic value.
GSMA last month published a report titled “The Evolution of Mid-Band Mobile Spectrum in the US”, based on Ookla wireless-network testing samples taken in 10 US cities during June 2025. In a series of apples-to-oranges arguments and out-of-context data, GSMA suggested in its report that 6GHz Wi-Fi has somehow been a disappointment, and that this should prompt a rethink about possible licensed cellular access to at least part of the 6GHz band in the US.
Unsurprisingly (and perhaps in close coordination), this GSMA conclusion was quickly amplified by CTIA on social media, claiming “limited” 6GHz Wi-Fi uptake and that “less than three percent” of Wi-Fi connections use the upper part of the band.
The GSMA and CTIA framing of how the 6GHz band is being used for Wi-Fi is misleading. At best, the GSMA analysis is an incomplete, year-old snapshot of one moment in history of Wi-Fi’s early expansion into the band. It is a poor (and frankly cynical) basis for deciding the future of US spectrum policy.
Moreover, even if this limited snapshot were somehow representative, it looks backwards at early 6GHz Wi-Fi usage, and then compares it with GSMA’s own forecasts of mobile usage and 5G/6G spectrum demand out to 2040, a self-serving extrapolation that does not stand up to close scrutiny[1]. That is not a like-for-like comparison.
In reality, 6GHz Wi-Fi is in the early part of a normal adoption curve for devices and routers built to fully utilize the band, and it was at an even earlier stage when the GSMA data was obtained.
The report’s key measurement is based on 30 million Ookla “scans” and speed-test observations of both Wi-Fi and cellular speeds and spectrum bands. It claims that only a small number of such scans were in the upper part of the 6GHz band.
But this is not the “gotcha” that GSMA and CTIA seem to think it is.
A scan is not a spectrum analyzer sweep, nor an airtime-utilization measurement. It is a crowdsourced smartphone observation: at a given time, a device is seen using a particular Wi-Fi generation, frequency band and signal strength. It will detect 6GHz only if both the access point and the client device support 6GHz, the 6GHz radio is enabled, the device has chosen that band, and the scan occurs while that connection is active.
That leaves many blind spots. It will not count or capture:
- Households or venues with 6GHz-capable routers where older devices are still constrained to 5GHz
- 6GHz-capable devices in places with older Wi-Fi access points
- Routers with 6GHz disabled, especially where managed by ISPs or enterprises
- Devices that use 6GHz intermittently using techniques such as “band steering”
- Or – most obviously – the latent value of clean 320-wide MHz channels for future Wi-Fi 7/8 use.
GSMA is therefore using connection observations as if they were spectrum-utilization evidence. They are not. A low share of 6GHz scans in June 2025 tells us mainly about the installation curve of 6E/7 routers, smartphones, laptops and ISP gateways as consumers start to upgrade from earlier generations. It does not prove that the upper 6GHz band is “fallow”, nor does it acknowledge how dramatically Wi-Fi traffic in those upper frequencies accelerates as 6GHz installations proliferate.
It just shows us something familiar to anyone involved with wireless technologies: lots of separate early-stage “s-curve” adoption cycles need to align in time, place and measurement to register adoption. This is not unusual.
The timing matters. The FCC opened the entire 6GHz band for unlicensed use in 2020. But Wi-Fi 6E certification only became available in January 2021, Wi-Fi 7 certification started in January 2024 and the final IEEE 802.11be Wi-Fi 7 amendment was published in July 2025. GSMA’s sample was not five years into mature adoption. It was in the early stages of a multi-year diffusion curve.
The smartphone timeline illustrates this. The first Apple iPhone with 6GHz support was launched in September 2023. Mass-market Wi-Fi 7 handsets arrived mainly from late 2023 and during 2024. By June 2025, many users had not yet replaced their phones – let alone their laptops, TVs or IoT devices.
6GHz-supporting Wi-Fi access points have followed a similar pattern. It takes time for new equipment classes to diffuse into the market – a point ironically illustrated by CTIA’s own members’ tardiness. Verizon’s first FWA gateway with Wi-Fi 6E arrived in August 2023 and AT&T’s All-Fi Pro Wi-Fi 7 gateway appeared only in April 2025[2], just two months before the GSMA data period. If CTIA wants to use household Wi-Fi observations as policy evidence, it should put them in the context of its own members’ broadband product deployment progress by mid-2025.
In the enterprise and public Wi-Fi market, support for 6GHz has been accelerating, with recent upgrades and new installations now typically featuring Wi-Fi 6E or 7, now that IT management teams have tested them and understood the benefits. Again, this does not occur overnight; it fits in with normal equipment refresh cycles. A recent report by fellow analysts at ABI[3] examined the growing demand for 6GHz-capable devices in enterprise environments. It projects that annual global shipments of 6GHz-enabled Wi-Fi chipsets will reach 2.6 billion in 2030.
Other evidence illustrates the diffusion-curve story. OpenSignal and Hamina found higher 6GHz adoption in early 2025[4]in enterprise environments where 6GHz-capable access points were deployed and enabled, compared to the general population that was still adopting suitable phones and devices. A Notre Dame stadium study[5] found Wi-Fi 6E client connections reached 14 percent after about two months in a dense standard-power deployment – a figure which is actually surprisingly high given the diffusion curves involved.
The clear takeaway: where 6GHz infrastructure and capable devices both exist, usage follows.
CTIA and GSMA fall into a common trap among cellular-industry observers: they compare predicted future use and demands for mobile networks (such as 6G) with historical patterns for Wi-Fi. The GSMA leans heavily on its own predictions for mobile networks and applications out as far as 2040 in its spectrum-demand forecasts. But those predictions underweight potential spectral efficiency gains from AI and other techniques, offload to indoor Wi-Fi, use of private networks and neutral-host systems, or CBRS-style spectrum sharing. They also avoid making forecasts for Wi-Fi growth as a fair comparison.
The estimate of 60-70 percent indoor usage of midband cellular is also telling. Some locations, such as malls and convention centers, will have dedicated in-building systems, but the majority of that use will be inside normal homes, offices and retail stores. Blasting 3-4GHz signals through walls and insulated windows wastes spectrum and energy, and 6GHz would be even worse. Carriers could instead use indoor cellular densification, CBRS-based neutral hosts, or more Wi-Fi offload, if they wish to free up extra capacity on their macro, outdoor networks.
The FCC should leave 6GHz as it is. The band is not “fallow.” It is early, growing fast, useful, and strategically important. The tremendous and growing economic value of WiFi has proven itself time and time again. What CTIA’s own leader Ajit Pai once publicly described as a “bold vision” for America’s Wi-Fi future, in his former role at the FCC, should not be treated as a tentative experiment, to be second-guessed after one early and misleading adoption snapshot.
[1] https://deanbubley.substack.com/p/review-gsmas-vision-2040-for-spectrum
[2] https://about.att.com/story/2025/all-fi-pro.html
[3] https://go.abiresearch.com/whitepaper-enterprise-wi-fi-innovation-and-future-spectrum-allocation
[4] https://insights.opensignal.com/2025/05/wi-fi-7-vs-previous-generations/dt
[5] https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.18359
