SAN JOSE, Calif.� According to the most recent Cisco Mobile Visual Networking Index, mobile offload exceeded cellular traffic for the first time last year in 2015. Wi-Fi and femtocells transferred�51% of total mobile data traffic (about 3.9 exabytes) to fixed networks. Cisco predicts that by 2020 mobile offload will increase to 55% of overall mobile data traffic, which at that point will mean about 38.1 exabytes per month.
Demands on Wi-Fi infrastructure are expected to increase as more Wi-Fi devices appear in organizations; as cellular offloading becomes more popular; and, as applications such as location sensing demand denser access-point placement. The Wi-Fi Alliance is expected to startcertificationof second-wave 802.11ac productsthis year, which along with multiple user, �multiple-input and multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems, will help meet carrier requirements by supporting faster and more scalable operator networks.
RCRwireless.comreports that analysts expect to seerapid growth in 802.11ad, orWiGig, in 2016�due to an interoperability agreement between Intel and Qualcomm which ensures that the new devices with 802.11ad features will work together, thereby boosting rapid adoption and driving demand for infrastructure. The new standard supports multi-gigabit speeds�over short distances using high-band spectrum (60 GHz), with very low latency, high capacity and increased battery efficiency because of the speeds at which it works � many of the characteristics expected of 5G technologies.�
