- Efficiency necessities (diminished latency, jitter, packet drops): 67.1%
- Elevated bandwidth consumption: 59.9%
- Consumer mobility (roaming, broader protection): 53.3%
- Connectivity for operational expertise (industrial techniques, medical imaging, video surveillance): 50.0%
- Return-to-office insurance policies driving up workplace occupancy: 48.7%
- Density necessities (customers congregating): 44.7%
- Finish-of-life community tools: 40.8%
- Want for location-based providers: 40.1%
“Finish-of-life tools shouldn’t be the large driver you’d assume,” McGillicuddy stated. As a substitute, he stated the analysis exhibits that the upgrades are pushed by basic modifications in how networks are getting used.
Among the many tendencies which are reshaping Wi-Fi necessities is hybrid work—managing each distant and on-premises entry creates complexity. As well as, collaborative area utilization and a shift from assigned desks has led to workers working from myriad constructing places, requiring enterprises to rethink community protection and roaming capabilities.
The functions and gadgets in use in the present day are additionally impacting Wi-Fi design decisions. Bandwidth-intensive functions, comparable to real-time video and collaboration, are extremely delicate to community circumstances. And workers are connecting not solely laptops but additionally smartphones, wearables, and different Wi-Fi-enabled gadgets, which may improve concurrent connections and protection calls for.
Unified community entry and safety
On the safety entrance, enterprises are prioritizing unified options for on-premises and distant entry, specializing in stronger, extra versatile safety to help zero-trust environments, in response to EMA.
“Safety is at all times high of thoughts for networking groups,” McGillicuddy stated. “Even supposing it’s the cybersecurity staff that will get all of the credit score for safety, the enterprise community staff is commonly liable for rolling out a safe infrastructure.”
Hybrid work has revealed that organizations typically handle on-premises entry and distant entry by separate, siloed applied sciences, in response to McGillicuddy. The analysis discovered that 100% of IT professionals surveyed desire a unified platform for each. EMA survey respondents shared that they imagine the advantages of common community entry administration are:
