North America enterprise WLAN market to hit $10bn by 2027

Fast-paced digitalisation wave and increased investments in the telecom industry are likely to power North America enterprise WLAN market forecast over 2027. Regional governments are actively investing in various sectors of the telecommunications industry in order to accelerate digitalisation. For example, in August 2021, the Government of Canada spent $44bn to support the country's economic growth by enabling affordable broadband internet and 5G connection for all Canadians.

Since December 2019, several businesses have agreed to WFH, either as complete or hybrid models. In a statement issued by Cisco in July 2021, the company shared that all its 75,000 employees might continue to work from home if they so desire. This decision may have acted as a tipping point for other corporations to follow suit.

In the present business landscape, as company leaders plan and implement workplace re-openings, they are considering more permanent remote working arrangements to satisfy employee expectations and establish robust corporate operations. To that end, industry leaders are at work to create powerful distant networking environments.

In 2020, Cisco introduced a package called Remote Workforce Wireless Solution that allows businesses to provide and manage WFH employees to act on business insights in real-time. Similarly, in August 2021, EdgeConnect Microbranch extended SD-WAN services and the SASE architecture to the edge by utilising cloud-native Aruba Central for administration and any Aruba Wi-Fi access point. It expands on existing cloud-managed Wi-Fi capabilities such as enhanced WAN troubleshooting tools, and SASE integration.

These capabilities provide IT teams with increased control and visibility over the distant network without the added cost of on-premises appliances. Some prominent enterprise WLAN vendors in the industry include ADTRAN Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., Dell Inc., D-Link Corporation, Extreme Networks, Juniper Networks, and Fortinet.

Because of increased digitisation and growing demand for effective communication network technologies, North America enterprise WLAN industry share from IT and telecom applications accounted for 20% of the total market revenue in 2020.

The rising popularity of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G technologies is a major source of revenue for telecom carriers. When compared with earlier versions of Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi 6 has had significantly faster acceptance with customers, one of the major reasons being the COVID-19 pandemic-led spike in demand.

For over two years, Wi-Fi technologies have improved to accommodate hybrid work. Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) subsidiary, announced the first Wi-Fi 6E access points for companies in May 2021. Whereas in January 2022, Wi-Fi Alliance unveiled Wi-Fi 6 Release 2, an upgrade to Wi-Fi 6 that is applicable to all Wi-Fi 6-supported bands.

The standard improves device application performance and power management. Increased power capabilities will benefit business, industrial, and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, according to the company.

With the upgradation of Wi-Fi technologies, secure connections are a must. IT teams are safeguarding company data by securing home networks just as thoroughly as enterprise networks. Thanks to this increased demand for secure network solutions, North America enterprise WLAN security software market share accounted for more than 35% of North America enterprise WLAN market share in 2020.

Market leaders have stepped in to catch up with the booming demand curve, with a slew of marketing tactics. In April 2021, Nokia announced a strategic alliance with DISH to secure the first cloud-native open RAN-based 5G wireless network. DISH delivers secure 5G network to clients through this alliance. A part of the 5G network may be extended from the device to each application server through radio access.