By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Gamers are notoriously known for shunning Wi-Fi connectivity but last week Nokia may have shifted the paradigm: Nokia Apex Legends Invitational challenged pro players to do what they do best over a Wi-Fi 6E connection only, and the results were impressive. “Even pro players can compete using only Wi-Fi connectivity and get amazing results,” Nokia says. All participants used the Nokia Beacon 10 router powered by Qualcomm.
Is it possible to conduct an esports competition using only Wi-Fi for connectivity? That’s what Nokia wanted to find out – and the short answer is a resounding YES. Last week’s Nokia Apex Legends Invitational pitted ten pro and ten amateur teams against each other to find out if Wi-Fi could deliver the goods when only ultra-responsive millisecond accuracy is good enough.
“One of the main purposes was to discover whether or not – once the games started – our players would notice that they were connecting over Wi-Fi. And the answer is that even the pros didn’t notice that they were not on wired Ethernet connections, which is what pros use exclusively. We’ve won at least this part of the gaming community over. The response from the community was overwhelmingly positive, and that’s a great start,” says Gino Dion.
Each player was given a Nokia Beacon 10 Wi-Fi 6E router, which was backhauled by their respective providers’ broadband services. Nokia does not offer retail Wi-Fi router products so an important goal was to demonstrate to prospective ISPs clients that ultra-responsive gaming over Wi-Fi is not only possible but desirable and indeed what most home gamers end up using.
“80% of the pro players we invited to the event at the outset did not have Wi-Fi on their PCs, since they – at least until now – never used it. Conversely, by far most non-pro gamers end up using Wi-Fi because that’s what is typically available in the home. We can now say with confidence that their connectivity needs are well taken care of with Wi-Fi 6E, and that ISPs don’t need to provide specialised gaming routers to deliver the right experience,” Gino Dion says.
Although Nokia is not typically known by consumers for its Wi-Fi solutions, Gino Dion says the company has delivered millions of Wi-Fi CPEs to ISPs and has made substantial contributions to Wi-Fi standard and the industry over the years. Historically, Nokia was one of five founding members of the Wi-Fi Alliance when the name ‘Wi-Fi’ was unveiled at a press event in September of 1999, close to 25 years ago.
Nokia’s Wi-Fi Beacon 10 is powered by the Qualcomm Networking Pro Series chipset platform.
/Claus.
