Samsung and Broadcom Partner to Deliver the World's First Wi-Fi 6 Smartphone

Avoiding being drowned out in the tidal wave of MWC 2019 announcements, Samsung has confirmed the recent rumors that their latest Galaxy device, the Samsung Galaxy S10, will be the first in the world to come equipped with Wi-Fi 6 technology. The smartphone will be powered by Broadcom’s BCM4375 chipset, a Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 combo chip capable of supporting up to 1.43 Gbps data rates. The move represents another landmark in the roll out of Wi-Fi 6 technology following growing traction in networking devices at CES 2019.

Samsung’s decision to adopt the technology in its new flagship Galaxy S10 models is key for a number of reasons. Firstly, Samsung’s Galaxy models are high volume devices, accounting for a significant portion of Samsung’s greater than 300 million annual unit shipments over the last few years. The move further highlights ABI Research’s expectation that smartphones will drive the Wi-Fi 6 market forward over the next few years. The presence and promotion of the technology in this key model should also build out greater awareness of the benefits of Wi-Fi 6 solutions in the months to come. By the end of next year, ABI Research expects over 250 million Wi-Fi 6 chipsets to be shipped in the smartphone market alone.

Early hands on the device have shown that it supports the visual indicator that shows when the device is connected to a Wi-Fi 6 network versus legacy Wi-Fi standards. Back in October 2018, when 802.11ax was rebranded to Wi-Fi 6, ABI Research noted that one of the more interesting aspects of the announcements was that device manufacturers and OS vendors now have the ability to choose to implement UI visuals that indicate the connection that a device is making to a Wi-Fi network. In a similar way to how cellular connectivity switches between 3G and 4G in a smartphone display, the UI visual has the potential to adjust in real-time to indicate that the connection has shifted from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ac to 802.11ax). This development has the benefit of providing the end user with much greater awareness of the capabilities of both their own network and the networks they are connecting to than ever before, allowing them to easily visualize potential changes to their Wi-Fi device performance in real time. The greater awareness of Wi-Fi devices’ strengths and limitations could also drive competition and greater incentivization in the market. Users may no longer be happy with legacy connectivity in their existing device or router and may be willing to spend extra on a device with Wi-Fi 6 versus Wi-Fi 5, in a similar vein to 3G versus 4G and soon to be 5G in the cellular space. This could lead to an increasingly competitive market in which Wi-Fi is leveraged as a key differentiator between device types.

The timing of this move is encouraging, and demonstrates growing momentum for Wi-Fi 6 following recent announcements at CES on the networking and AP sides. ARRIS unveiled its SURFboard mAX Pro, a tri-band residential Wi-Fi 6 mesh networking solution. TP-Link announced its first Wi-Fi 6 mesh networking solution, the Deco X10, available in Q3, while Netgear announced that its next-generation Orbi mesh networking product line will support Wi-Fi 6 later this year. Qualcomm had a stand dedicated to their mesh networking products from the likes of EnGenius, Google, and Netgear. The move should further incentivize adoption of these new networking devices throughout 2019. During the show, the Wi-Fi Alliance also announced that the Wi-Fi 6 certification program will begin in Q3 2019, ensuring that the Wi-Fi 6 ecosystem will meet all interoperability and security requirements as with previous standards. Wider adoption of Wi-Fi 6 in smartphones is expected at this time, and Samsung’s move therefore comes somewhat ahead of the curve.

However, it is clear that for some time there will be a limited installed base of Wi-Fi 6 networking infrastructure that the Galaxy S10 and consumers can take advantage of. Some vendors may therefore choose to wait for another iteration before rolling out the technology. One further challenge for Wi-Fi 6 is that it does not have the same headline throughput increase as previous standards, but is focusing instead on average throughput in dense deployment scenarios and wider efficiency improvements.

Samsung’s move puts early additional pressure on the likes of other leading smartphone vendors such as Apple and Huawei to also incorporate the technology in their next flagship devices. It also leaves Broadcom well-positioned and with an early lead in Wi-Fi 6, as the company has a key presence in leading vendors such as Samsung, Apple, and Huawei. However, Qualcomm will similarly be pushing for Wi-Fi 6 adoption. Their most recent Snapdragon 855 platform supports Wi-Fi 6, and the company also has a growing presence in flagship devices from the likes of LG, Asus, Google, Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppose, and ZTE. MediaTek also introduced their Wi-Fi chips for AP devices at CES 2019, but is likely to take longer to build its presence in client devices. It is clear that the Wi-Fi 6 ecosystem is starting to come together, and its technology is well placed to reach over 1/3 of all Wi-Fi chipset shipments by 2023.

However, perhaps more exciting for the industry is the fact that the 802.11ax working group is also currently determining how best to incorporate 6 GHz support into 802.11ax in anticipation of the spectrum becoming available. This will help pave the way for smoother adoption of 6 GHz chipsets and devices if it is granted. The increased spectrum is also likely to form the foundation of the next EHT standard that goes beyond 802.11ax, with the primary objective of increasing throughput through wider 320 MHz channels, more spatial streams, and multiband aggregation. This could provide huge increases to smartphone connectivity performance in the coming years.