Rahul Patel named new President & CEO of Synaptics
The world of Wi-Fi is sometimes very, very small. Case in point: Former Qualcomm SVP Rahul Patel was last week named new President & CEO of Synaptics, an younger and increasingly formidable competitor to established Wi-Fi silicon giants such as Qualcomm and Broadcom. And – unsurprisingly – as it turns out, Rahul Patel has spent 10 years at Qualcomm and 13 years at Broadcom leading – in particular – Wi-Fi product innovations, which means he is in every way the perfect man for the job. At WiFi NOW we’re honoured that Rahul has been a frequent speaker at WiFi NOW events, most recently in Stockholm, Sweden, in September of 2023. A huge congratulations from WiFi NOW to both Rahul Patel and Synaptics. Find the official announcement here.
South Korea accelerates Wi-Fi 7 adoption
South Korea has traditionally been leading the pack as far as rollout of new Wi-Fi standards are concerned, and Wi-Fi 7 is no different. According to THE CHOSUN Daily, Wi-Fi 7 is entering full-scale commercialisation this year. Adoption in consumer environments – such as homes and smartphones – has lagged behind but this is now changing, THE CHOSUN says.
“South Korea’s telecom providers are also moving quickly to integrate the technology. KT and LG Uplus began offering Wi-Fi 7-compatible routers to new internet subscribers in March. SK Broadband is expected to launch its own version later this year,” the publication says. It also says that public infrastructure has begun adoption of Wi-Fi 7 with The National Information Society Agency (NIA) replacing Wi-Fi systems on roughly 100 city buses with Wi-Fi 7-based networks with more to come.
Did Orange really disable 6 GHz in their Wi-Fi 7 CPEs?
France’s Orange has been one of the first operators in Europe and in the world to introduce Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 – but now rumour has it that Orange has disabled 6 GHz in their latest Wi-Fi 7 CPE called the Livebox 7. According to this news report, Orange has chosen to restrict its Wi-Fi 7 service to 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands only. Orange says only 5% of connections run on 6 GHz – which is exceedingly odd, knowing the extensive adoption of 6 GHz Wi-Fi over the past few years (read more here). The report also claims that the 6 GHz band is ‘unstable’ and that the filters separating the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands are insufficient. It’s all exceedingly strange knowing how successful 6 GHz has been for example in North America, but make up your own mind – the report can be found here. So far the report is uncorroborated.
/Claus.
