Network convergence will drive enterprise 6G wireless strategies

Low latency drivers

The biggest impact of 6G will be healthcare, industrial automation, and smart cities, he adds.

These are also industries where convergence with Wi-Fi will be particularly useful.

“These verticals demand reliable, low-latency connectivity and seamless transitions between networks across wide areas,” he says. “For example, smart city infrastructure can benefit from 6G-enabled convergence for traffic management and public safety, while healthcare applications will rely on 6G for mission-critical communication and remote diagnostics.”

However, the convergence between cellular and Wi-Fi is not likely to happen soon, such as in the next five years, says Swarun Kumar, professor at Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University.

“I view the vision of completely seamless Wi-Fi and cellular as something not in the cards in the near term,” he says. “Enabling such seamless integration would require new standards — governed by different bodies, hardware advances, and changes to network infrastructure — all of which happen over long time scales.”