This is a time of considerable upheaval in the broad
communications industry. On one side, cellular operators
(mobile operators) are in the midst of their 4G buildout, but
are already preparing for 5G. They see opportunities not just
in the traditional Internet-to-cellphone market, but many
others such as IoT, smart cities, fxed wireless broadband
access to residences, and managed services for enterprise
customers. This, and the availability of new licensed
spectrum and new technologies, has made 5G considerably
broader in scope than the preceding 2G, 3G, 4G generations.
In order to accommodate these new use-cases and markets,
the 5G standards organizations have expanded their scope.
Meanwhile the radio technologies proposed for 5G and
802.11ax share many characteristics: multi-user MIMO,
spatial diversity, beamforming, OFDMA, channel aggregation
and others. This is partly because the drivers for spectral
efciency, high data-rates, long-range and good battery life
are common to cellular, private and consumer networks, and
also because these are state-of-the-art radio techniques that
one would expect any new radio standard to incorporate.
But another aspect of 5G is perhaps more interesting. In
their quest to cover new markets, especially enterprise
networking, the 5G standards now include detailed
specifcations for integrating Wi-Fi and associated
authentication protocols into 5G networks. This, along with
lightly-licensed spectrum suitable for either LTE/5G or Wi-Fi
use, offers a much broader swath of possibilities for the
networks of the future.
So both at the radio and the system level, 5G and Wi-Fi are
moving closer together, driven by increasing overlap between
the markets targeted by the 3GPP and Wi-Fi Alliance.