Despite being sill defined, 5G is becoming a priority for telecom operators as 5G comes with the promise of unseen services and a broad range of new use cases and business models ranging from enabling autonomous vehicles to smart agriculture and factories. 5G is expected to push the digitization of the economy further due to its ability to handle large volumes of data with low latency in real time.
Importantly, these new 5G environments such as factories, cities, automotive, energy, and eHealth are typically served by private networks, frequently based on Wi-Fi technology so it is natural to envisage the role of Wi-Fi in the evolution towards 5G.
The purpose of this article is to present the findings of the recently published white paper by the WBA “The Role of Wi-Fi and Unlicensed Technologies in 5G Networks “. The paper provides an outlook of the possible role that unlicensed technologies can play in 5G and an overview of the work that is still needed to make that role a reality. Read More