Wi-Fi HaLow Readiness Expands to Japan with Latest Wireless Broadband Alliance Field Trials Report

The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) recently announced the publication of its Wi-Fi HaLow for IoT: Japan Field Trials Report. This report highlights the successful completion of its Wi-Fi HaLow Phase 3 field trials in Japan and seeks to further validate Wi-Fi HaLow (IEEE 802.11ah) technology as a scalable, long-range connectivity solution for real-world Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. This builds on the WBA’s 2024 Phase 2 report, which focused predominately on the North American market, showing the potential for Wi-Fi HaLow to be used globally despite regional variation on the sub-Gigahertz (GHz) band, alongside (the WBA argues) signaling the growing maturity of Wi-Fi HaLow as a powerful wireless foundation for the next generation of connected environments.

The report conducted several trials across four different environments: a large outdoor recreational venue, a multi-building school campus, a multi-dwelling residential building, and an industrial water reclamation center. The intention was to show deployments beyond laboratory results and to assess behavior under real-world conditions more representative of large-scale IoT deployments, subject to Japan’s existing regulatory framework in the 920 Megahertz (MHz) bands.

Throughout these deployments, it was found that Wi-Fi HaLow was able to deliver extended range across large indoor and outdoor environments; achieve strong penetration through concrete, steel, vegetation, and underground spaces; provide stable multi-device operation from a single Access Point (AP); reduce the infrastructure complexity due to requiring fewer APs; offer support for multiple IoT workloads, including video, voice, control systems, and Over-the-Air (OTA) updates; and support efficient operation aligned with low-power, duty-cycle-based IoT applications.

Deployments and findings included:

• Smart Public Spaces and Recreational Venue: At Yamanashi Fuefukigawa Fruit Park, Wi-Fi HaLow delivered wide-area connectivity across dense vegetation and uneven terrain using a single AP. It supported cameras, sensors, and access control, with reliable video streaming and low packet loss. Compared to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, performance remained stable and predictable.
• Smart Residential: In a Saitama apartment complex, Wi-Fi HaLow enabled consistent coverage across shared spaces from a single AP. It supported cameras, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) intercoms, and sensors, delivering stable video, low jitter voice performance, and reliable multi-device connectivity.
• Smart Campus: At Shudo Junior & Senior High School in Hiroshima, Wi-Fi HaLow provided reliable indoor and outdoor coverage with fewer APs than traditional Wi-Fi. Commands across 12 devices were completed in ~1.5 seconds, with stable performance under high user density and Radio Frequency (RF) interference.
• Smart Industrial:–At the Kiyohara Water Reclamation Center in Utsunomiya, Wi-Fi HaLow maintained reliable connectivity across concrete structures, dense machinery, and underground tunnels, supporting remote monitoring and stable multi-device operation.

Of course, the results are not surprising. Wi-Fi HaLow has always been uniquely positioned from a technology perspective. It can solve many challenges with existing IoT deployments when it comes to reducing deployment complexity, supporting diverse IoT use cases, reducing infrastructure cost, offering superior range and signal penetration, and supporting battery-enabled devices. However, the expansion into different regions, as well as proving Wi-Fi HaLow’s utility in different regulatory environments, will be critical to its future success. Each region is subject to its own restrictions and what Wi-Fi HaLow can achieve will be different between each one.

In Japan, for example, the maximum channel bandwidth supported is 4 MHz, as opposed to 8 MHz in the United States, resulting in a halved throughput of up to 20 Megabits per Second (Mbps) versus 43.3 Mbps. Transmit power and duty cycles are also both heavily restricted in Japan compared to the United States, limiting the range capabilities.

The report also calls on other regions and stakeholders across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) and Asia-Pacific to participate in future trials, while some vendors such as Morse Micro have already developed EMEA-specific Systems-on-Chip (SoCs) that offer lower bandwidths and comply with their unique duty cycle restrictions. However, what is increasingly clear is that Wi-Fi HaLow can provide a compelling alternative to existing extended range IoT technologies regardless of the region in which it operates, alongside complementing 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi IoT deployments.

From ABI Research’s perspective, the main challenge for Wi-Fi HaLow has been the limited backing from larger-scale semiconductor suppliers and limited or no presence within consumer and enterprise Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) infrastructure. Thankfully, a growing number of module vendors are adding Wi-Fi HaLow to their IoT connectivity portfolios, with notable recent announcements expanding this further. For example, at MWC26, Quectel announced the launch of its FGH200M Wi-Fi HaLow module, while at the beginning of the year, Gateworks Corporation announced its next generation Wi-Fi HaLow module, the GW16167, and has been strongly promoting the benefits of HaLow within industrial applications. This is in addition to a growing list of module vendors, including Vantron, MegaChips, Silex Technology, Murata, AzureWave, Teledatics, ALFA Network, AsiaRF, Acsip, Vizmo, and Askey, among others. From the AP side, vendors should continue to investigate how HaLow can solve some of the ongoing challenges for IoT deployments, while also helping to develop solution-based approaches that can take advantage of the unique range and scalability characteristics of Wi-Fi HaLow.

Meanwhile, the expanded availability of Wi-Fi HaLow dongles will be critical in helping to retrofit solutions to the existing installed base of WLAN infrastructure. Wi-Fi HaLow should not be seen as a threat due to its potential to reduce deployment complexity by lowering the infrastructure requirements and number of more conventional Wi-Fi APs to be deployed. Instead, it should be seen as a complementary technology that can enhance the value proposition of its consumer and enterprise AP portfolio, an enabler of next-generation Edge AI-related IoT applications, and another solution for reducing congestion on the already crowded legacy bands within these dense IoT deployment scenarios.

ABI Research expects that Wi-Fi HaLow is set to grow considerably in the coming years as it finds success across many enterprise and industrial applications. The continued partnerships with many industrial module vendors, and the growing realization of the importance of sub-GHz in solving many of the IoT’s needs will further accelerate this. However, if the Wi-Fi HaLow ecosystem remains limited to just a few Integrated Circuit (IC) vendors, and AP vendors remain hesitant in deploying the technology, wider traction will naturally remain more limited.