The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has released the WBA Industry Report 2025, with 81% of respondents to its annual industry survey planning deployments of WBA OpenRoaming, an 18.9% increase on 2024. Of those, 25% were already rolling out the technology, 42% said they would deploy in 2025, with 27% planning for 2026. This enthusiasm is driven largely by the benefits such as automatic authenticated connections that seamlessly move between Wi-Fi and cellular networks (5G/LTE), enhanced security and the end user experience.
The survey also found that confidence to invest in Wi-Fi is accelerating due to its cost effectiveness and new standards delivering performance. Three fifths (60%) stated they were more confident investing, while 19% said they were less confident. 19% said that their outlook had not changed from its previous position.
Asked why they planned to invest in OpenRoaming or Passpoint compliant networks, the most popular response was to enable seamless access between Wi-Fi and 5G/LTE (44%), followed closely by providing improved security on Wi-Fi (43%). The third most popular reason was frictionless access to Wi-Fi (39%), with enabling seamless access across different networks close behind (38%).
Respondents also reported that 37% had deployed Wi-Fi 6E, with 19% stating they had deployed the latest Wi-Fi 7 standard, despite it being a new technology still in its earlier adoption phase. Some 27% said they had already deployed Wi-Fi Sensing, and 17% had done the same for Wi-Fi HaLow.
On the cellular side, 20% said they had deployed CBRS (Citizen Broadband Radio Service), with 5G scoring 37% by this same measure. Some 30% said they had already deployed private cellular (some of which could be counted in the other responses), and 24% said they had deployed Distributed Antenna Systems. Notably, 24% said they already have AI or Cognitive access networks.