Last week, Cisco released its Annual Internet Report (2018–2023) and it predicted huge growth in Internet usage across the board, including in users, data traffic, and speed of connections. In particular, Cisco predicts substantial growth for Wi-Fi by 2023, particularly for next-generation Wi-Fi 6 and with the advent of 5G. Wi-Fi usage will only continue to grow substantially over the next decade. 

Here are several key takeaways about how critical Wi-Fi will continue to be:

1) The majority of global Internet traffic will run over Wi-Fi by 2023.   

2) Wi-Fi will play a big part in helping to power 5G by offloading mobile congestion. 

3) Wi-Fi hotspots will continue to proliferate.

4) With Wi-Fi 6 and other innovations, Wi-Fi will be faster than ever before.

To support this burgeoning growth in Wi-Fi, we need to designate sufficient airwaves for it. Failing to increase the availability of unlicensed spectrum could lead to congested wireless connections and would have very real economic consequences for the United States. This is why the FCC’s decision to take a new look at the 5.9 GHz band and its consideration to open up the 6 GHz band — which would add up to seven additional 160 MHz channels for Wi-Fi — are so critical for our wireless future.