By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Broadband equipment spending to pick up in 2H24, says Dell’Oro
How will the broadband equipment market fare in 2024? The analysts from Dell’Oro say that first half of 2023 will “see continued weakness followed by an improved spending environment in second half of 2024.” Dell’Oro also forecasts that new cable architectures will drive equipment spend from 2025 and forward. Interestingly – and this is good news for the Wi-Fi industry – revenue for Wi-Fi 7 residential gateways and broadband CPEs will reach US$9.3B by 2028. Read more here. Also, don’t miss Dell’Oro’s Jeff Heynen and our panel of Wi-Fi 7 experts as we take a deep dive into the question: How will ISPs benefit from Wi-Fi 7? on February 21.
Ubiquiti launches the industry’s lowest cost Wi-Fi 7 enterprise AP
In January (we missed this but we’re making amends now) Ubiquiti launched the U7 Pro enterprise-grade AP, which is said to be the lowest-cost Wi-Fi 7 AP on the market priced at just US$189. The new unit is a 6-stream ceiling-mount AP delivering a total of 9.3 Gbps across the three bands.
The price point of the Ubiquiti AP bodes well for the fast introduction of Wi-Fi 7 technology into every enterprise – even smaller businesses – in particular if rumours of Apple’s introduction of Wi-Fi 7 into the next iPhone turn out to be true. We’re betting they are – it’s hard to see any reason why they would delay Wi-Fi 7 capabilities further.
Morse Micro, Litepoint, & AzureWave announce three-way partnership
Morse Micro keeps racking up new deals and partnerships, the latest being a three-way linkup between leading test equipment provider LitePoint (a Wi-Fi NOW Partner) and IoT module-maker AzureWave. Morse Micro says “the collaboration with LitePoint will harness our collective expertise to drive innovation and scalability in the IoT ecosystem,” while “AzureWave provides reliable, pre-validated modules that ultimately shorten the customer’s development process and time-to-market.”
LitePoint’s IQxel-MW 7G test platform is supports a range of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi HaLow while AzureWave already offers the AW-HM581 module based on Morse Micro’s MM6108 Wi-Fi HaLow SoC. For more Morse Micro Wi-Fi HaLow announcements read here.
Boldyn deploys RUCKUS Wi-Fi 7 network at Camping World Stadium
Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, this week became one of the first – and possibly the first – major stadium in the world to deploy a Wi-Fi 7 network. Boldyn Networks (previously BAI) has deployed a RUCKUS Wi-Fi 7 network ‘in selected areas of the venue,’ CommScope says in a press release here. Camping World Stadium is a 65,000-seat stadium previously known as the Florida Citrus Bowl.
Boldyn is one of the world’s largest providers of neutral-host wireless network infrastructure including solutions for smart cities, hospitality, stadiums, entertainment venues, and more. This is RUCKUS’ second public Wi-Fi 7 network launch following Boingo’s introduction of Wi-Fi 7 services at CES last month.
/Claus.
