Huawei launches sixth-generation Wi-Fi pilot with Wireless Broadband Alliance

4 Nov 2019

From left: Li Xing, vice-president of Huawei’s Campus Network Domain, and Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of WBA. Image: Huawei

Huawei has partnered with the Wireless Broadband Alliance to launch a pilot programme for the latest generation of Wi-Fi.

Huawei and the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) have announced a pilot project consisting of a series of sixth-generation Wi-Fi verification tests at Mondragon University in Spain.

The programme, which was announced at the WBA’s Wireless Global Conference, will explore Wi-Fi 6 use cases and, the collaborators hope, pave the way for immersive education methods such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). The trial will also include testing Wi-Fi 6 for online live broadcasts and remote education.

Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the WBA, said: “Wi-Fi has become an essential part of daily life for people across the world, and enabling students and teachers to learn in truly immersive and collaborative learning environments will unlock so many possibilities for academia. [We’re] working with Huawei and Mondragon University on this Wi-Fi 6 trial to help deliver a seamless and secure Wi-Fi roaming experience for students and lecturers.”

Jesus Lizarraga, telematics coordinator of Mondragon University, added: “Compared with other industries, colleges and universities have a stronger need for Wi-Fi 6. Mondragon University has just deployed the latest Huawei Wi-Fi 6 products, bringing higher bandwidth.

“We believe that Wi-Fi 6 will help us explore new educational models for the future. Therefore, we are very pleased that the WBA and Huawei have chosen Mondragon University for Wi-Fi 6 verifications.”

Next-generation research

Earlier this year, Huawei also announced that it had commenced research into 6G technology – the next generation of wireless technology that will eventually supersede 5G – in a Canadian lab.

Huawei’s primary research centre in Ottawa, Canada, is carrying out the research, but the telecoms giant is also partnering with more than 13 universities and research institutions. However, the technology will likely not debut until 2030 at the earliest.

The company is a world leader in 5G technology, though an increasingly fractious trade relationship with the US, and a cascade of entities bans that have followed, have hampered Huawei’s international deployment of 5G core infrastructure.

Eva Short was a journalist at Silicon Republic

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