Unlocking the Economic Advantages of Wi-Fi Through 6 GHz Band Access Has Broad Support

Today, Cisco joined 34 other technology companies in a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai expressing our support for the allocation of unlicensed spectrum, specifically by opening the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi use. Along with Apple, Boingo, Broadcom, Facebook, Google, HPE, Intel, Qualcomm, Sony and dozens of others, we applauded the Chairman for his continued commitment to opening the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi.

Chairman Pai rightly said to a Senate subcommittee, “Let’s protect the incumbent users, but let’s also have our eyes on the future. And the future in many cases is dependent on Wi-Fi.”

Indeed, Wi-Fi can advance the future of U.S. economic prosperity and improve the lives of Americans in ways that are still being discovered.

Consider:

Wi-Fi 6 achieves speeds up to 4 times faster than previous Wi-Fi standards, improving the user experience and performance of bandwidth-hungry apps like voice, video, and collaboration.

By 2025, the number of connected IoT devices is expected to exceed 41 billion globally, and the majority of those will be wirelessly connected.

Wi-Fi is a U.S.-led global industry that contributed $500 Billion to the U.S. last year in economic value. And the value Wi-Fi in the U.S. is expected to rise to $993 billion by 2023.

This next generation of super-fast Wi-Fi and 5G will usher in a new era of augmented reality and virtual reality consumer experiences, revolutionize our agricultural economy by powering precision farming, and enable the expansion of industrial IoT, which will be the backbone of our factories of the future.

But we can’t realize this potential without access to wider channels available in mid-band spectrum. It has been over 20 years since new mid-band spectrum was made available for Wi-Fi, and existing spectrum allocations fail to meet the ever-evolving demands for Wi-Fi connectivity and advancement.

Chairman Pai is right. The future depends on Wi-Fi. And we look forward to quick action by the FCC to make Wi-Fi 6 a possibility.