By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
MediaTek is gaining significant broadband market share in EMEA as Europe transitions to fibre, 5G fixed wireless access, and not least Wi-Fi 7. The chipset giant is attributing its ‘spectacular’ growth to strong product portfolios, complete software offerings, and the right partnership strategies. MediaTek says it has the comprehensive AI framework needed for ISPs to deliver next generation quality Wi-Fi and broadband services.
European telcos – including such giants as Telefonica Spain, Telenor Norway, and even BT-EE in the UK – are decommissioning legacy DSL networks and the shift is fuelling a change to fibre, 5G FWA, and Wi-Fi 7. MediaTek has been making the most of market dynamics to more than double its market share in SoCs for home gateways including Wi-Fi 7 during the 2023-2025 period, the company says.
“The shift means we’re experiencing excellent traction with our 5G FWA SoC solutions combined with Wi-Fi 7. The 5G FWA market has increased by an order of magnitude in terms of units, in some cases because 5G FWA delivers substantially better broadband than DSL. Many subscribers also like 5G FWA-based services because the service is immediate and because they’re not required to sign long contracts as is often the case with fibre,” says Stephane Renaud, Director of Product Technology Marketing at MediaTek.
He also says that specifically the XGS-PON fibre market has been good for MediaTek in Europe. “We are winning with our complete platform solutions that combine the most advanced hardware – meaning Wi-Fi 7 and XGS-PON – with RDK and prpl Foundation software,” he says.
While MediaTek is very close to announcing groundbreaking agreements with several large household name European telcos, Stephane Renaud says Southern European operators in particular have been looking to MediaTek as their preferred gateway SoC supplier. “We have been spectacularly successful with operators in for example Italy, Spain, and Portugal. ARPUs in Europe are generally lower than in North America which means that the best and most complete solution in terms of state-of-the-art capabilities in Wi-Fi, 5G FWA, and XGS-PON – as well as overall platform cost competitiveness – wins,” he says.
Stephane Renaud also attributes MediaTek’s success to choosing the right strategy when it comes to open-source platforms and standards. For example: The company is equally committed to both prpl and RDK. “It’s important to be able to deliver a unified set of services regardless of the choice of technology and even across technologies, which is exactly what we provide for prpl and RDK. This is in particular important for tier one telcos operating across many markets,” he says.
Meanwhile on the AI front, MediaTek’s portfolio includes SoCs with integrated CPUs and NPUs for gateways as well as SoCs with only embedded CPUs. Currently, most EMEA operators are still studying how to select good use cases for AI given that these may introduce big engineering changes into their networks. “Currently, there’s still plenty of value in supporting hybrid Cloud and edge AI-based services using CPU-based gateway architectures. However, there is no doubt that NPU-based AI Wi-Fi optimisation including radio resource management, smart mesh, and more will be a focus area of the future,” Stephane Renaud says.
It is also not just a technology issue. “The generational shift to generative or agentic AI-based networks still needs time to evolve in terms of the business model. AI will certainly be critical in the longer term for telcos to evolve from selling connectivity to selling personalised, intelligent services,” he says.
Stephane Renaud will be speaking at Wi-Fi World Congress EMEA in Dubai on November 17-19. Click here for details.
/Claus.
