The private network conversation continues to be bombarded by the promise of 5G, but the established base of Wi-Fi equipment and systems, and recent advances to the technology standard lend credence to a future where both are key to growing the enterprise-focused private network space.

Purva Rajkotia, connectivity and telecom practice lead for the IEEE standards association, is on board with that inclusive option, noting that both transmission technologies have a place in the ecosystem. He explained in an interview with SDxCentral that recent advances in Wi-Fi technology have allowed the more than 25-year-old technology standard to continue to shoulder the growing enterprise networking load.

“If you look at the data transmission right now, more than 80% of data traffic goes over Wi-Fi networks,” Rajkotia said. “Hence we feel that Wi-Fi technology is here to stay for a long time.”

Rajkotia explained that the Wi-Fi 6 and 6e standards ushered in new levels of management, performance and security for enterprise networks, with the recently unveiled Wi-Fi 7 standard taking those advances to a new level. This includes enhanced antenna technologies that allow for higher speeds and greater range, as well as access to new unlicensed spectrum bands to support more users and capacity.

“The success of the enterprise market actually relies on the effective control of the network. Who do you want to give access to and how much of those resource should be allocated,” Rajkotia said. “From that perspective, Wi-Fi gives a lot of control in terms of how they can control network access and whether you want to enable security, whether you want to develop privacy, what kind of privacy. All those things are very easily controlled with Wi-Fi technologies compared to 5G technology.”

Wi-Fi’s legacy also provides management advantages as most IT personnel are familiar with Wi-Fi and there is an established ecosystem of equipment providers that can supply a deep pool of choices at a wide range of price points.

Rajkotia noted that the silicon vendors are playing a role as well. He said those vendors want to have a more continuous roadmap of new products for the market, which is something the Wi-Fi ecosystem has become more adapt at meeting as compared with 5G technology.

“The [Wi-Fi] standards are coming much quicker compared to what we saw in the past,” Rajkotia said. “But I think part of it is the push by the silicon manufacturers so that they have a continuous market that's out there.”

“And at the same time,” he continued, “they have realized that if they try to do something really big on 5G technology, the market acceptance is not there. The Wi-Fi technology market is growing at a great speed so they're just trying to utilize that to make the best use of what the market really is and has this push for this new technology, new standards, new chipsets in the market.”

That’s not to say 5G does not have a place in powering private networks. Rajkotia admitted that cellular-based technologies like 5G provide superior mobility and range characteristics when compared with Wi-Fi.

The former is due to the ability to seamlessly integrate a private 5G network into a WAN, which allows a user or device to roam between that private network and the WAN without losing or having to re-establish a connection. This is important for autonomous vehicle use cases where a dropped connection could result in an accident.

Cellular-based technologies also benefit from a much wider breadth of spectrum support, including low- and mid-band licensed spectrum that provide for greater geographic coverage from each access point. This can be important in larger venues or warehouses that might require several dozen Wi-Fi access points instead of just a single 5G-enabled access point.

“Wi-Fi operates in the unlicensed spectrum frequencies and is very susceptible to interference, it is very much susceptible to absorption, it is also susceptible to climate changes, so we do not want to be a deploy a Wi-Fi technology next to an area where there is going to be a lot of interference in the unlicensed spectrum,” Rajkotia said. “In those scenarios, maybe the cellular technology, since they're operating in the cellular licensed spectrum bands, might be a better choice.”

Analysys Mason predicts the overall private network space will hit more than $9 billion in revenues by 2028, and that both Wi-Fi and cellular-based technologies like 5G will drive that opportunity.

“The two technologies will co-exist and private cellular will support applications where Wi-Fi performance is limited,” Ibraheem Kasujee, senior analyst at Analysys Mason, noted in a recent report. “This includes outdoor coverage of large sites, where Wi-Fi may not be cost-effective, and indoor sites such as factories, where dedicated spectrum can perform better than Wi-Fi in ‘noisy’ signal environments.”

Rajkotia said this co-existence will likely be driven by that market opportunity.

“I think that choice is going to be market driven,” Rajkotia said. “If the market sees that there is a demand for a hybrid 5G and Wi-Fi solution then IEEE can provide a platform, but I think that is very much going to be dictated by the market, by the service providers, by the silicon manufacturers where they see if having an integrated solution make sense or not.”