We discussed with Oscar Bexell, about the Wi-Fi stake on Next Gen Netowrks and organizatios/associations associated in this endeavor with perspective.
Oscar is very active in linkedin discussion on any topic related to wireless, in his career so far he mostly being with ericsson at various technical & leading positions. He currently advisor to the board with Repeatit.
Here are what his views.........
xgnlab: 5G still seams to be dimensionless, where do you see Wi-Fi fitting with 5G?
Oscar: Residential and for enterprises (how long depends on how well 11ax plays out). In the longer run, and with new types of gadgets coming in, I don't think anything LBT/CS fits the bill. CBRS will take off in the US and take the indoor enterprise space. In China the MNOs have been doing this with small cells for quite some time. In other countries there will be other approaches. Different markets will also take longer/shorter time to adopt. For many Wi-Fi system integrators and vendors, there will be market shares to take with CBRS.
xgnlab: Wi-Fi in current wireless access technology space is on hype or settled, why?
Oscar: Settled, but all technology is in a sliding window and the access networks are never better than what we use them for. ADSL was good enough in Sweden 10 years ago. Then came Netflix and other streaming services and now everyone wants fiber. Same with wireless. The phone is a 20th century innovation. Sooner or later it will be replaced with something better, and I doubt Wi-Fi (or anything LBT/CS) will be feasible other than in residential environments (but I hope 11ax will prolong the process).
xgnlab: How relevant WBA has been so far, and what you think about its future role should be?
Oscar: I only follow them from a distance. I like the NGH initiative. I think they should get into CBRS+4G/5G. That's where the MSOs and many service providers will be able to take footprints over time. Build ecosystem and drive standardization/harmonization.
xgnlab: How relevant Wi-Fi Alliance has been so far, and what you think about its future role should be?
Oscar: It's probably the main factor behind the success of Wi-Fi. I see their work as critical, both for new standards, but maybe even more for driving interoperability work and harmonization of frequencies. They should keep on doing exactly this, but I also think they should drive CBRS spectrum harmonization in more markets and the ecosystems around this. That is the future for enterprise/venue in-building networks.
xgnlab: Wi-Fi access would be catching what kind of segments of IOT?
Oscar: It's already used a lot, especially in in-home deployments and as backhaul to many Bluetooth/Zigbee/Z-wave/gateway applications. It will play a very big role in the coming years as it's already present in most environments. I think mainly as backhaul. I'm also looking forward to see how 802.11ah takes off. I see that mainly as an in-home competitor to Bluetooth 5.0 and Zigbee.