"WiFi and Internet have come to mean the same thing to most consumers," wrote John Kendall, senior analyst at IHS. "In the past, a home network was a relatively simple proposition: Connect your PC, your laptop, and maybe a printer to a wired modem or a retail router, with the PC as the main control point. However, today many households have multiple smartphones, TVs, tablets, streaming OTT boxes, and even pay TV set-top boxes. All of them depend on home WiFi networks to access media content, which places a serious burden on the broadband gateway."
The number of connected devices per household continues to rise, driving the need for more connectivity. In North America alone, IHS expects there to be nearly 13 connected devices per broadband household in 2019, compared to 10 devices in 2014. The proliferation of connected devices runs parallel to heavy ISP infrastructure investments designed to provide higher speeds and the budget to market it.
The rising number of devices can cause significant congestion and QoE issues with streaming video. Additionally, WiFi has had to compete on wireless spectrum with other home wireless devices, including cordless phones and microwave ovens, which have caused signal degradation.
Operators are turning to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association's (IEEE-SA's) 802.11ac standard to solve these problems. Dual band 802.11ac allows for WiFi operation on the 5 GHz band, which does not face interference from other household appliances. Additionally, the specification will incorporate multi-user, multi-input and multi-output technology in the second half of 2015, allowing for concurrent WiFi streams to multiple devices, which again doubles the theoretical WiFi throughput.
Broadband CPE with 802.11ac WiFi, including gateways, routers, and multimedia home gateways with integrated modems, are expected to be installed in more than 70% of global broadband households by 2019. While 2014 was the first year 802.11ac was widely adopted, there are expected to be more than 88 million 802.11ac unit shipments this year, nearly doubling again in 2016. Revenue from 802.11ac equipment is expected to grow from $1.5 billion in 2014 to greater than $10 billion in 2017.