New Report: More Spectrum Needed to Combat Projected Wi-Fi Congestion
Within 5 years, as many as 54 million Americans will be at risk of Wi-Fi congestion and exhaust as demand for Wi-Fi skyrockets. Allocating additional spectrum for Wi-Fi will help mitigate the projected congestion, but lawmakers must act now.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – There are few things more frustrating than a video call freezing in the middle of an important work meeting, an online order failing to go through right at checkout, your child unable to download their homework or connect with their virtual tutor, or even your favorite show and video game buffering. As demand for Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi-connected technologies continues to grow, though, increased congestion and exhaust that lead to lag times and missed opportunities for consumers is a real concern.
When accounting for the continuing and growing demand for Wi-Fi, a new report from the Brattle Group warns that the current allocation of spectrum used by Wi-Fi is insufficient to avoid harmful congestion and exhaust on our Wi-Fi networks in the near future. To avoid the projected congestion, lawmakers should act now to set aside additional spectrum for Wi-Fi use so that there will be adequate Wi-Fi capacity for years to come.
Based on Brattle’s analysis, 17 to 30 million Americans live in areas already susceptible to Wi-Fi congestion and exhaust. Within just five years as data demands for Wi-Fi continue to grow, 33 to 54 million Americans are projected to live in areas susceptible to harmful congestion. This number could grow as high as 61 to 99 million consumers if the demand for innovations like artificial intelligence drives Wi-Fi usage towards the high end of projections.
An impaired Wi-Fi experience caused by congestion will undercut the positive economic projections for Wi-Fi, such as the 21 million American jobs it is projected to create by 2032, and its annual economic value, projected to reach $2.4 trillion by 2027.
“This report’s findings should concern every lawmaker since all of their constituencies will be at risk of congestion within the next five years,” said Mary Brown, Executive Director of WifiForward. “With Wi-Fi being such an integral part of most Americans’ daily lives, the report demonstrates that slowing data rates caused by spectrum congestion will be felt in every state and in every district, where Wi-Fi networks are concentrated. The good news is that there’s a simple answer – additional unlicensed spectrum adjacent to the existing 6 GHz band permits the use of wider channels, enabling Wi-Fi to more efficiently transmit data. Consumer frustration can be avoided, and economic value enhanced, if lawmakers get ahead of this problem and act swiftly to allocate additional unlicensed spectrum.”
You can read the full report here.
Press Contact: media@wififorward.org
About WifiForward:
WifiForward is an ad hoc, broad-based group of companies, organizations and public sector institutions working to alleviate the Wi-Fi spectrum crunch and to support making Wi-Fi even better by finding more unlicensed spectrum.
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