The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) has released “Private 5G and Wi-Fi Convergence Report: Phase 2 - Technical Considerations.” This report builds on the phase 1 report – which highlighted key use cases and the crucial role Wi-Fi infrastructure plays in optimizing 5G performance – to now present advanced architectural strategies and technical solutions for seamless interworking between the two technologies.

Since 2017, WBA has led efforts to demonstrate the benefits of converged licensed and unlicensed wireless technologies, focusing on integrating 5G and Wi-Fi. While Private 5G and Wi-Fi have aligned technically and complement each other, their distinct characteristics make them suitable for different use cases and market needs. Technological advances like WBA OpenRoaming™ and enhanced quality of service in Wi-Fi have further bridged performance gaps, allowing for coexistence that reduces operational costs, simplifies management and improves user experience across diverse environments.

This report outlines the next phase of integration, including architectural considerations, providing a comprehensive roadmap for enterprises seeking to leverage both networks to maximize performance, efficiency and cost savings. This convergence will allow enterprises to utilize the high speed, low latency benefits of 5G alongside the broad coverage and flexibility offered by Wi-Fi, tailored to different use cases and industry demands.

Architectural and technical proposals for convergence

Notable proposals include using RADIUS-based AAA infrastructure for 5G device authentication, enabling network operators to unify identity management and policy enforcement across both Wi-Fi and Private 5G. This integration allows for a singular policy to be enforced on all sessions from a given device, whether connected via Wi-Fi or 5G, simplifying network management and improving user experience. The report is a comprehensive exploration crafted by experts from leading tech companies including Broadcom, Cisco, Nokia, Aruba (an HPE Company), Boldyn Networks, Intel and many others within the WBA.

Additional proposals include:

• Wi-Fi Fast Transition Domain to include Private 5G – A standardized approach for bootstrapping keys on Wi-Fi access based on the key material generated from the 5G access authentication. This helps in reducing number of messages exchanged during the initial attach.  Proposed is a method and technique for leveraging session keys generated in 3GPP access (5G/LTE) and leveraging 802.11r capability of Wi-Fi infrastructure to derive the Fast Roaming (FT) Keys, as the user moves from private 3GPP access to Wi-Fi access. This approach results in a drastic reduction of connection establishment time to Wi-Fi access, upwards of 90 percent.
• Indication of Identical Services on another Radio Access Technology (RAT) – The network will maintain a mapping of Service Name/Network Identifier in one access, with the corresponding identifiers in the other access. Both the Wi-Fi and Private 5G access networks will have awareness of these service mappings.
• IP Address Preservations and Seamless Mobility – Enabling a multi-access capable piece of user equipment (UE) to attach to both Wi-Fi and Private 5G access networks and have distinct IP address configuration on an access basis. Application-binding to the access is based on the UE policy.

The report explores several other technical solutions, such as Service Functions, which are extensively deployed in most networks providing features such as security, WAN acceleration and server load balancing. It also covers how a device connectivity status can be shared across networks for optimizations, and how latency can be improved by moving user place traffic in Wi-Fi and Private 5G access networks.

Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of the WBA, said, “The convergence and coexistence of Wi-Fi and Private 5G play an important role in shaping the future of wireless networking. It will not only help establish the standards needed to ensure its technical success for operators, network owners, enterprises and users, but provide clear advice on the architectural considerations for such converged implementations. In many environments, the coexistence of Wi-Fi and Private 5G is essential, and there is significant value in realizing synergies between these two technologies to increase competitiveness and reduce operational costs by the elimination of redundant functions, simplifying management and greatly improving end-user experiences.”

Developing new convergence standards in 2025

A new phase will begin in 2025, focused on developing new industry standards, including RAT Roaming, Access Traffic Steering (ATSSS), and quality of experience metrics. This convergence strategy will set new benchmarks for network interoperability, security, and user-centric services, enabling enterprises to harness the strengths of both 5G's speed and reliability and Wi-Fi's coverage and flexibility.

Matt MacPherson, wireless CTO at Cisco, added, “Wi-Fi meets the demands of most enterprise customers. However, the convergence of Wi-Fi and Private 5G elevates capabilities by offering policy-based segmentation aligned with business needs. By combining Wi-Fi and Private 5G with a unified policy, enterprises gain control. Cisco is excited to collaborate on this pioneering report, which provides the architectural and technical guidance enterprises need to leverage the combined strengths of both networks.”

Download the “Private 5G and Wi-Fi Convergence Report: Phase 2 - Technical Considerations” for more information on methods for internetworking between these two technologies and realizing the potential of their coexistence.