Industrial Wi-Fi 6 Rollout Still Slow, but Things Could Change

While the next generation of Wi-Fi technology, Wi-Fi 6, was certified and released last year in September 2019, it has been off to a slow start due to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We initially saw chipset production being disrupted due to supply chain breaks when factories began to shut down production, and an increase in shipment prices as freight and transportation costs increased. Furthermore, the closure of public venues, such as stadiums and drops in hotel accommodation rates, also slowed the adoption of Wi-Fi 6.

Regardless, Wi-Fi 6 keeps advancing technologically to generate more value for business applications. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released 1200 Megahertz (MHz) of spectrum in the 6 Gigahertz (GHz) band for unlicensed usage in April this year, which will be used for the next technological advancement, Wi-Fi 6e. This will create new value for business applications as it increases spectrum availability, enhances throughput, and frees up channel space from legacy clients. Also, in December 2019, the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) spearheaded the world’s first industrial Wi-Fi 6 deployment in phase 1 at the U.K. Mettis Aerospace factory. While Wi-Fi 6 has been mainly focusing on other verticals, such as residential, hospitality, public venues, and education, its development in industrial deployments signals a slow but sure entry into the market, which has so far been dominated by 4G and 5G.

Industrial estates, such as manufacturing, ports, and warehousing, are some of the key verticals that Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and Network Equipment Providers (NEPs) are targeting through private 4G and 5G deployments. While there have been many successfully trialed deployments (e.g., BMW’s Leipzig Plant’s private 5G network, Hitachi Kokusai Electric and Nokia’s local 5G and private Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, etc.) for cellular technology in the manufacturing space, Wi-Fi 6 has not been as popular in this vertical.

However, there are certain benefits of deploying Wi-Fi 6 on the factory floor. The first would be its comparatively lower Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) compared to 4G and 5G in some situations. This is due to Wi-Fi typically having a much lower cost of deployment due to lower price points for their access points compared to cellular technology access points. Also, there is no access fee for using Wi-Fi, whereas for 4G and 5G, spectrum fees and other fees are usually paid to operators before being able to use the technology. Furthermore, Wi-Fi 6 can be simply deployed with access points and a controller for management, whereas a 4G and 5G deployment requires additional hardware, such as Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC) servers and small cell gateways on top of access points, which typically adds up to a higher CAOEX than Wi-Fi 6 access points. Wi-Fi 6 is also competitive in ensuring network efficiency and extending device life through Target Wake Time (TWT), in which a device can have a predefined amount of time before it starts to ping its status to the access point.

Another benefit is the Return on Investment (ROI) from unlicensed spectrum (2.4 GHz, 5GHz, and 6 GHz for future Wi-Fi 6e), which allows sharing spectrum at no cost, and with the introduction of the 6 GHz band, support for a higher density of devices, allowing Wi-Fi 6 and 6e to enable an Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem of devices. Furthermore, the 6 GHz spectrum will also free up spectrum space to enable high-bandwidth applications, such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

Understanding the benefits of Wi-Fi 6 on the factory floor will help put the technology in perspective against a cellular-dominated backdrop. First, it is important to realize that an industrial space’s (be it a port, manufacturer, or logistics facility) digital transformation will be staggered and deployed over a period of time, and while it is true that industrial deployments have been a top focus for 4G and 5G, it may not be the wireless monopoly on the factory floor. In fact, a factory that undergoes digital transformation and begins to slowly upgrade tethered equipment and sensors to wireless will probably begin to deploy trial phases in limited areas of the factory first. As factory owners begin to shift toward wireless, we may see Wi-Fi 6 gaining much more traction to enable certain use cases in the factory over time.

The factory owner must understand that it is not so much the technological standards applied, but whether certain use cases can be enabled. While Wi-Fi 6 has not been extensively deployed, it already has shown success in enabling 4K video streaming from mounted webcams and the Internet, reliable roaming and latency with persistent connectivity during video calling, and AR testing of machinery. However, different use cases have different requirements. For example, mobile Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) or Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs) have a low latency requirement that may be affected by Wi-Fi handovers and would operate better with cellular technology.

On the Information Technology (IT) side, the budget and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of each network deployment must be optimized. While it is true that Wi-Fi access points do currently have lower coverage than an individual 4G or 5G access point, each Wi-Fi access point has a lower cost than that of 4G and 5G. However, the weakness of Wi-Fi in an industrial environment is the potential interference from metal, high storage racks, and high ceilings, which might increase initial deployment costs due to planning and design. An optimal mix is required based on which use case requires Wi-Fi, and which is better off with cellular technology. This will optimize the TCO, while ensuring that the desired business results are achieved.

In conclusion, it is important to understand that while the technologies are in competition with one another, there are opportunities for them to co-exist. The important factor is to fully understand how each technology can benefit the factory floor based on requirements, layout, and budget, and then create an optimal mix to optimize TCO, while maximizing the operational cost savings from enabling wireless smart tools. The trend toward convergence is also a benefit, whereby certain Customer Premises Equipment (CPEs) and access points are beginning to support different wireless standards. For example, Wi-Fi 6 access points can support wireless technology, such as Zigbee and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), with Wi-Fi support for 5G being in the works since The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 13. However, there need to be more real-world trials and investigations into these initiatives in order for Wi-Fi 6 to start to have a foothold in the industrial sector.