The advent of Wi-Fi has been a global success story. Today it is the world's most used wireless communications technology, thanks to its many features, high performance, ease of use, and cost-efficiency. It complements private 5G wireless networks, enabling an array of high throughput, low latency applications-from virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) to 4k video.

Cisco has championed Wi-Fi since its early development more than two decades ago. Now we're introducing important enterprise Wi-Fi 6 and 6E innovations and working closely with customers, partners, and device manufacturers to ensure that Cisco wireless gear provides unparalleled and flawless performance on the greatly expanded 6 MHz bands.

In response to the various requirements of our customers, we are also making wireless network management available on physical, virtual, on-premises, and cloud-managed options from Cisco and Cisco Meraki.

The Value and Proliferation of Wi-Fi  

According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry consortium, the economic value of Wi-Fi around the world is estimated to be$3.3 trillion currently, growing to$4.9 trillion in 2025. It has been cited as a game-changer in education, healthcare, and other industries and has helped to bridge the digital divide in rural and isolated geographies.

With the April 2020 announcement of Wi-Fi 6E by the Federal Communications Commission (FTC), 1200 MHz of spectrum was added to Wi-Fi 6, more than doubling the 583 MHz of spectrum available in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. While Wi-Fi 6 delivers three times the speed of Wi-Fi 5, the Wi-Fi 6E enhancement (IEEE 802.11ax standard) provides even faster, Gigabit speeds, plus an array of other important benefits derived from the huge increase in unlicensed spectrum.

A January IDC study estimated that 2.3 billion Wi-Fi 6 products and 350 million Wi-Fi 6E products will enter the market by the end of 2022.

Most countries in the world have already adopted or are considering adoption of the 6 GHz spectrum to enable Wi-Fi 6E (Figure 1). Countries mostly located in North America and South America have adopted (dark green) or are considering adopting (light green) spectrum between 5.925 MHz to 7.125 MHz. Russia, Argentina, Egypt, and a few other countries are considering adoption (purple) of spectrum between 5.925 MHz to 6.425 MHz. Greenland and other countries in Western Europe have adopted (black) spectrum between 5.925 MHz to 6.425 MHz and Australia has both adopted (black with white lines) 5.925 to 6.425 MHz and is considering 6.425 MHz to 7.125 MHz.

Benefits of Wi-Fi 6E

The addition of the 6 GHz band, with 1200 MHz of unlicensed spectrum, allows businesses to use more non-overlapping channels without degrading wireless performance. Since Wi-Fi 6E devices don't share spectrum with earlier generation Wi-Fi devices and use highly efficient Wi-Fi 6 radios, they are not slowed down by older devices that operate at lower data rates. Instead, Wi-Fi 6E devices can operate in their own fast lane.

Another benefit of Wi-Fi 6E's increased spectrum