Survey: Growth in confidence for Wi-Fi, OpenRoaming
December 11, 2024
The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), the industry body dedicated to improving Wi-Fi standards and services, has released the WBA Industry Report 2025, with 81 per cent of respondents to its annual industry survey planning deployments of WBA OpenRoaming, an 18.9 per cent increase on 2024. Of those, 25 per cent were already rolling out the technology, 42 per cent said they would deploy in 2025, with 27 per cent planning for 2026. This enthusiasm is driven largely by the benefits such as automatic authenticated connections that seamlessly move between Wi-Fi and cellular networks (5G/LTE), enhanced security and the end user experience.
The survey also found that confidence to invest in Wi-Fi is accelerating due to its cost effectiveness and new standards delivering performance. Three fifths (60 per cent) stated they were more confident investing, while 19 per cent said they were less confident. And 19 per cent also said that their outlook had not changed from its previous position.
Asked why they planned to invest in OpenRoaming or Passpoint compliant networks, the most popular response was to enable seamless access between Wi-Fi and 5G/LTE (44 per cent), followed closely by providing improved security on Wi-Fi (43 per cent). The third most popular reason was frictionless access to Wi-Fi (39 per cent), with enabling seamless access across different networks close behind (38 per cent).
Latest Wi-Fi and cellular standards being deployed
Respondents also reported that 37 per cent had deployed Wi-Fi 6E, with 19 per cent stating they had deployed the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard, despite it being a new technology still in its earlier adoption phase. Some 27 per cent said they had already deployed Wi-Fi Sensing, and 17 per cent had done the same for Wi-Fi HaLow.
On the cellular side, 20 per cent said they had deployed CBRS (Citizen Broadband Radio Service), with 5G scoring 37 per cent by this same measure. Some 30 per cent said they had already deployed private cellular (some of which could be counted in the other responses), and 24 per cent said they had deployed Distributed Antenna Systems. Notably, 24 per cent said they already have AI or Cognitive access networks.
Other highlights from the survey include:
- 90 per cent reported that 6Ghz spectrum was important to their businesses. 23 per cent of those respondents categorized it as critical, while only 9 per cent of the overall sample said it would not be important for them.
- Network security and privacy (78 per cent) is the most important area of Wi-Fi for respondents. This was followed by monetising Wi-Fi services (70 per cent), with Wi-Fi calling scoring 70 per cent. IoT was close behind (68 per cent), followed by roaming (65 per cent) and end-user QoE and QoS (65 per cent).
- Transportation hubs expected to be biggest area of traffic growth. 47 per cent of respondents suggested that transportation hubs (stations, airports, etc.) are expected see the greatest growth in traffic in the next year. Retail was next, scoring 38 per cent, with ground transportation (the vehicles themselves) in third place, with a 37.6 per cent response rate.
- 46 per cent plan to deploy city-wide Public Wi-Fi in 2025/2026. 23 per cent saying this would happen in 2027, and 11 per cent saying it would happen in 2028 or beyond. 15 per cent had already deployed a city-wide public Wi-Fi network.
Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the Wireless Broadband Alliance, commented: “The WBA Industry Report 2025 gives all readers a clear view on the exciting juncture the world of Wi-Fi is at, and the momentum behind technologies such as, OpenRoaming, Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi HaLow. Confidence to invest in Wi-Fi is growing, and industry members want to realise the benefits they offer such as lowering costs, simplifying management and improving the end-user experience. OpenRoaming has been a key focus in 2024 for the WBA and played a pivotal role in the activities of the Alliance, in part due to the growing number of global deployments but also from the ways it’s addressing verticals such as Guest Wi-Fi, IoT, Private Cellular and more. I feel confident that this momentum will grow exponentially in the years ahead.”