Green WiFi

Accelerating digitization along with the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are both critical objectives for the European Union at this time. The modern generations of fixed and mobile network technologies FTTH and 5G can make significant contributions to digitization as well as improving energy efficiency compared with legacy technologies. However, both are likely to require the latest Next Generation WiFi technology (WiFi 6) indoor as a cordless tail to enable them to exploit their full potential. In this study, we explore how WiFi 6 and WiFI 6E can contribute to new applications which help to reduce CO2 emissions. We also analyse the energy consumption of WiFi 6 and 6E and examine how this new generation technology will support innovative mass-market applications such as Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality. The COVID pandemic has sharpened awareness of the importance and need for Very High Capacity Networks. However, at the same time, increased use of remote working, the trend towards cloud computing as well as e-learning and e-health services, have highlighted an important additional challenge - namely that Very High Capacity Networks also need indoor infrastructure as a complement. After all, what is the advantage of having gigabit speeds available in the basement of a building or even up to the front door, when due to a lack of a performant indoor infrastructure, the bandwidths received by end-users are limited to a few megabits per second. It should also be noted that wireless connectivity is often a necessity, because many devices used inside buildings do not have a wired connection, either because they are new and their presence was not foreseen in the original wiring plans (e.g. sensors) or they are mobile by nature (i.e. cordless phones, smartphones, tablets etc.). The availability of Next Generation WiFi is therefore essential to implement the vision for a European Gigabit society. (...)