If you google “WiFi projected growth”, you will see multiple industry reports from various research entities, claiming up to 5x increase globally in the value of WiFi and/or number of WiFi devices in the next 5-10 years (2030-2035).
But I think it’s more interesting to focus on WiFi projects and improvements in recent years and how they could shape networks in the near future.
In 2017 I became aware of the Wi-Free (as it was named in Ireland) service offered by Virgin Media. This allowed any Virgin Media customer to connect to the Wi-Free network, which was broadcast not only by public WiFi hotspots, but also by the home routers of other Virgin Media customers. In order to use the service a customer had to opt in to allow Wi-Free be broadcast from their own router. Unfortunately, Virgin Media announced in early 2023 that this service would end in November of that year due to declining use and the increase in 4G and 5G traffic.
In 2018, WiFi NOW reported that the City of New York was considering rolling out public WiFi access across the five boroughs with 250,000 access points installed on street lights. This project (which was planned for completion by 2025) has not come to fruition, although its spearhead LinkNYC has currently rolled out almost 2,000 kiosks across New York City that provide free WiFi access, device charging, and phone services.
It’s disappointing that these projects were not developed further, but I think that the demand for this type of public WiFi hotspot will grow again in the next decade. This will be as a result of the increase in population outside of cities since Covid, the growing popularity of high density housing, and the restrictions in 5G due to its need for more towers than 3G/4G networks.
Urban areas and smaller towns could greatly benefit from a public WiFi service (both indoors and outdoors) that is not dominated by cell towers, nor will require a FTTH connection and/or router to every single residence.
Furthermore, with the cost of living increasing dramatically since Covid, and consumers investing more in energy-saving solutions like home insulation, this brings a new problem due to the attenuation the insulation causes to cellular networks. The proposed solution to this is for cell providers to allow connections to their network using a customer’s WiFi network. This is already known as WiFi Calling, and shows the demands even cellular networks will make on WiFi networks, whether public or private.
A common complaint about WiFi is security, and although WPA3 support has been mandatory for new WiFi certified devices since 2020, its increasing use in new networks will bring several security benefits.
OWE (Opportunistic Wireless Encryption) automatically encrypts data between the user device and the access point, even on open (typically guest) networks. It does this by embedding Diffie-Hellman key exchanges in the Association Request and Association Response.1
SAE (Simultaneous Authentication of Equals) is also employed in WPA3, where the PMK is calculated by both parties without an exchange of key data. A Diffie-Hellman elliptical curve exchange is required to create the PMK, and the PSK can be used for authentication (between client and AP), but not to decrypt data traffic. By comparison, WPA/WPA2 used a PSK (calculated from a passphrase) to create the PMK which was seeding material in the 4WH.2
For IoT networks, Easy Connect replaces WPS as a means of connecting devices without a user interface, by scanning a QR code, NFC tag, or downloading device information from the cloud. This simplified provisioning process also supports WPA3-Enterprise, which is most likely to be used in future versions of Wi-Free, potentially bringing public WiFi and IoT together in one network.
Keith Parsons, one of the most well-known WiFi evangelists, has frequently stated that WiFi and 5G will complement each other in the long run, rather than compete. Looking at the last five years and the changes in how and where our communities live and work, I think he will be proven correct before long.
Applied WiFi 