Ireland’s Dublin City Council and its ISP, Virgin Media Business, are implementing a Wi-Fi 6 trial  compliant with Telecom Infra Project’s (TIP) OpenWiFi solution in the hopes of building a free public Wi-Fi network for the city center. The announcement supports the expanding uses of decentralized architectures and signals growth in TIP’s move for disaggregated Wi-Fi adoption.

One form of this adoption – Wi-Fi 6 – has been gaining momentum since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocated 1,200 megahertz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use, the largest swath of spectrum approved for Wi-Fi since 1989.

TIP’s open source-based Wi-Fi architecture solution allows for multi-vendor, interoperable Wi-Fi networks according to the release. To grow the network, the city council and Virgin Media will be able to “mix and match” access points and controllers from any vendor compliant with TIP OpenWiFi.

OpenWiFi’s disaggregated open architecture allows “broader industry participation and faster development of new features,” according to Neil Bullock, TIP Technical Program Manager, Smart Cities.

“Open source is the perfect solution as it facilitates rapid propagation of the architecture amongst both existing and new participants, and it allows collaboration between participants to swiftly implement new features in a way that is simply not possible from proprietary, traditional Wi-Fi implementations,” Bullock told SDxCentral.

The OpenWiFi solution complies with requirements of the European Commission’s WiFi4EU initiative – which looks to promote free access to Wi-Fi in public spaces in Europe. The release states, “Municipalities receive a voucher that pays for the network including maintenance of the equipment to offer free and high-quality Wi-Fi connectivity for at least three years.”

Bullock explained that TIP’s support with this initiative and the trial in Dublin are important signs that the OpenWiFi solution is a fitting one for public Wi-Fi deployments.

“Plus, TIP OpenWiFi supports the WBA’s OpenRoaming initiative that offers secure access on Wi-Fi by participating organizations without the need to re-enter credentials, which enables convergence and creates new value around public Wi-Fi deployments, and OpenRoaming program is aligned with the WiFi4EU program,” he added.