This week we’re back with our panel of experts for our next installment of Frequency Pulse. (Check out the first edition, What does the Biden Administration need to know about balanced spectrum policy?)

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

This time, we picked panelists’ brains on the much-ballyhooed Wi-Fi 6 technology, sometimes pitted against cellular/wireless interests in the wild world of telecommunications and tech. Our official question was, Wi-Fi 6 and cellular—are these two technologies interdependent or will one eventually replace the other?

As this report written by wireless analyst Monica Paolini avers, both Wi-Fi and cellular “jointly meet the needs of those already connected and of those who still need to be connected in a way that neither technology on its own could.” Learn more about the synergy of the two technologies in our blog from earlier this summer:

Paolini’s report gives three reasons for why we need both technologies: 

• Having both cellular and Wi-Fi encourages technological and market competition
• Cellular and Wi-Fi meet connectivity needs in different ways 
• Wi-Fi 6 and LTE will continue to “enable different service models and use cases”

In the report, Paolini lays the foundation that Wi-Fi is primarily for nomadic purposes, meaning it’s most useful where there are fixed broadband connections in homes and offices, while LTE is helpful in more mobile situations, such as mapping out a driving route.

Despite our panelists coming at the issue with different perspectives, they were largely in agreement. Chalk that up to one of the few times the industry can come together around a shared opinion. Read on for the nuance and decide for yourself who’s rocked this battle best:

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Harold Feld, Public Knowledge, Senior Vice President:

These technologies complement one another. It is critical to match the network to the use case. Many use cases are ideally suited to unlicensed spectrum (such as local IoT), while others are suited to licensed spectrum (e.g., where a user needs a national wireless network to provide adequate coverage). Good traffic management and good cost management match the traffic to the network, rather than relying on one type of network for all needs. These “het nets” also enhance reliability by providing alternative networks when one is overloaded or goes down.

Kristian Stout, ICLE, Director of Innovation Policy:

Most likely, both Wi-Fi 6 and cellular services will serve as complements to each other in most locations. It will be the case that in some areas only one or the other technology might make sense, but broadly they are most likely to run in parallel.

Bartlett Cleland, Innovation Economy Institute, Executive Director:

Wi-Fi 6 is the next generation of wireless. Rarely is a technology completely replaced but rather it becomes less prominent, and often less useful but rarely useless. Just as 5G is a broadband “system of systems” that works with previous technologies, and requires some new infrastructure, such as small antennas, and new investments in many miles of new fiber, cell towers and base stations, so too will the next generation likely also interact with 5G. The result is improvement in both wireless and wired connections completing the broadband communications loop.

David Coleman, Extreme Networks – Director of Wireless, Office of the CTO:

Wi-Fi technology evolves in 3–5 year cycles, while new versions of cellular technology appear about every 10 years. However, because of the aggressive marketing tactics of cellular providers, I am asked the “Will 5G replace Wi-Fi?” question every day. Truth be told, the cellular industry relies on Wi-Fi for bandwidth offloading purposes. These technologies will co-exist for many years to come. Any talk of one replacing the other is misguided.

Danielle Pineres, NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, Vice President & Associate General Counsel:

Next-generation Wi-Fi and cellular technologies are complementary and even interdependent and both will continue to flourish. Cellular technology continues to be useful for truly mobile applications while many American consumers will continue to rely on Wi-Fi for fast, reliable, and affordable connectivity when at their homes, offices, and public spaces. The unlicensed spectrum that powers Wi-Fi will also continue to be critical for mobile offload in order to ensure that 5G delivers its promises of faster speeds, more capacity, and lower latency.

Now it’s your turn: tweet us or email us with your take on balanced spectrum policy to join this conversation. We might feature thoughtful submissions right here in a future piece.