Voice of IT: Small businesses have big Wi-Fi demands

With businesses facing transformative imperatives like artificial intelligence and infrastructure modernization, it would be sensible to think that something as common as Wi-Fi connectivity might take a back seat. But businesses of every size understand that innovation and efficiency for their organization relies on fast, secure and reliable networks.

A deeper dive into the data from our recent Spiceworks Voice of IT survey on Wi-Fi access point preferences among IT professionals clearly shows this trend of businesses focusing on connectivity improvement, especially for businesses under 1,000 employees, which make up the majority of our survey respondents.

Our data found that 68% of businesses are currently using Wi-Fi 6, with only 18% having deployed Wi-Fi 7. Given past Wi-Fi upgrade trends, the share of Wi-Fi 7 installations should grow quickly as new equipment starts to come to market.

Also driving the need to modernize and improve Wi-Fi capabilities are the barriers and hurdles that businesses face every day when it comes to purchasing, deploying and managing Wi-Fi environments. The Voice of IT survey found that the top challenges to successful Wi-Fi implementations for businesses included the cost of equipment, management complexity, and troubleshooting difficulties.

As always, cost is a main issue. However, the other top challenges illustrate a consistent theme throughout the survey, that businesses struggle with unnecessary complexity when it comes to managing their Wi-Fi networks.

These challenges point directly to a need for simplicity and budget-friendliness. This is mirrored in our survey where we asked about the improvements that businesses want from Wi-Fi-vendors. The most common answers were competitive pricing, improved management software, and better documentation.

From these results, we can see that small businesses are demanding Wi-Fi offerings that are affordable but still offer the cutting-edge functionality needed for today’s high-demand, AI-enabled environments. These companies are looking for centralized, intuitive dashboards for managing all network settings, simplifying complex and time-consuming tasks like diagnostics and upgrades.

The high adoption of Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) confirms its status as the current stable benchmark for SMBs. It brought key technologies that improved efficiency in congested, multi-device environments—a critical feature in any modern office or retail space.

For the typical SMB today, Wi-Fi 6 remains the reliable, cost-effective choice, but the early Wi-Fi 7 adopters are those with extreme performance demands or a significant focus on long-term future-proofing.

When it comes to purchasing decisions, small businesses prioritize operational features that provide immediate benefits in security and deployment. Looking at what respondents chose as the most important features in Wi-Fi offerings, we see a tie between guest network isolation and PoE+ support, as well as advanced security features as the next most important feature.

The emphasis on guest network isolation is a recognition of the significant risk associated with visitors, contractors, or even employees’ personal devices connecting to the main network. This segregation is a simple, yet powerful, defense against lateral cybersecurity threats.

We also find that the demand for advanced security features illustrates a growing awareness of the threat landscape. While 54% of businesses aren’t concerned with compliance requirements like GDPR or CCPA, the desire for robust security tools like WPA3 encryption, content filtering, and intrusion detection remains high. This suggests that businesses are motivated more by the fear of a data breach and operational downtime than by regulatory adherence.

Modern Wi-Fi trends for small businesses are defined by a need to reconcile enterprise-level performance and security with a small business budget and a limited IT staff. The market is moving toward solutions that are not just fast (Wi-Fi 6 and the coming Wi-Fi 7) but are also inherently simple, secure by default, and easy to deploy. By demanding competitive pricing, better management software, and foundational features like guest network isolation and PoE+, small businesses are clearly seeking a powerful, hands-off solution that lets them focus on their core operations, not on network maintenance.