Passpoint is a standard created by the Wi-Fi Alliance to enable mobile devices to automatically authenticate on enterprise Wi-Fi networks using their cellular credentials and is now broadly accepted and supported on nearly all mobile devices. To that end HPE says it has managed to extend 5G cellular footprint into enterprises with a Passpoint-based Wi-Fi Service.
The clever way forward is to enable convergence between the two, says HPE. Simply put, 5G naturally gets to do the outdoor tasks and in many circumstances Wi-Fi can be left to handle the indoor.Īpart from anything else, Wi-Fi is now well entrenched in many enterprise settings, so convincing managements to yank it out just to make way for 5G won’t cut it. Voice over Wi-Fi solutions, on the other hand, have been in operation for years and have now reached a level of manageability and sophistication to make them a fitting partner for 5G. Even integrating with a single operator is more difficult than it should be.
On the other hand, the alternative indoor 4G/5G small cell solutions tend to be more expensive and are notoriously difficult to set up for multiple operators. In its newish high frequency guises, where Wi-Fi occupies both 5GHz and 6GHz frequency bands, the network technology has enough capacity to serve the densest of crowded office spaces (if it’s able to serve crowded sports stadiums it should be able to handle a bunch of people hunched over laptops).
HPE takes the view that Wi-Fi will very often be the best solution for indoor coverage in the 5G era and it has followed through on this conviction by buying one of the leaders in the space, Aruba.įast forward to yesterday and HPE made a slew of 5G product and service announcements (see - HPE unveils open “as-a-service” 5G portfolio) including ambitious plans for Aruba Wi-Fi at what it calls the ‘customer edge’.Īccording to Phil Mottram, Vice President, Communications and Media Solutions at HPE, “On the enterprise edge, what we see is a convergence between Wi-Fi and 5G technologies, so what we’ve done is enabled Wi-Fi for 5G so that Wi-Fi becomes an on-ramp,” he told TelecomTV.