Why is Wi-Fi an essential driver of digital transformation?

If you look at wireless deployments across the world you'll find that the big corporations dominate the market. They have the capital and wherewithal to provision and maintain the network.

To be an internet service provider you need to be big. This is the nature of the industry. Thanks to capital investments made by big companies we enjoy seamless network connectivity almost everywhere.

However there are two sides to every coin. An organization that would invest billions of dollars in laying down the infrastructure would most certainly want to maximize their return from the investment. And it follows that they would want to target people who can actually afford to pay their prices.

The Internet has therefore seen maximum growth in urban areas. In the rural areas people don't have access to the network. This is a problem because internet connectivity can help raise awareness,skills as well as knowledge in the community which may be costly to acquire by traditional means,like schools. The Internet is free for all.

The actual numbers vary from source to source but a 2016 report by the World Economic Forum states that nearly 4 billion people are not on the internet.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/4-billion-people-still-don-t-have-internet-access-here-s-how-to-connect-them/

The G networks are expensive, need specially trained professionals and consume a lot of energy to simply function. Which is fine in a big city but a bit hard to implement elsewhere.

Traditional methods of acquiring spectrum rights, setting up towers may not work in rural settings. A quick low energy community focussed solution is more important.

Wireless networks powered by wifi provide a compelling low cost, low energy, easy to learn and operate G network alternative.

Combine this with the fact that you don't need special permissions to operate the network and the protocol is well suited for both indoor and outdoor usage, it's not hard to see why people get excited about it.

Here's a link to the case study of wireless for communities programs that was started by Internet society in India which has now expanded to 145 hotspots around the country

https://www.internetsociety.org/projects/w4c/

Considering that wifi implements the small cell architecture that 5G is just starting to use we all can appreciate how far ahead of time wifi was when it came out.

And it continues to innovate at a rapid pace. WiFi 6 is the newest member in the family. While people are most excited about the improved speed I am eager to see how community networks will evolve with this latest specification. The hardware will take some time to be cost effective, it is still cheaper than those required for cellular networks.

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