By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
Nokia & Qualcomm strike 5G FWA & Wi-Fi 6 deal with Bharti Airtel
Leading Indian broadband service provider Bharti Airtel last week announced they’ve awarded a major 5G FWA & Wi-Fi 6 supply contract to Nokia. Bharti Airtel says the new supply contract will be used to expand existing 5G FWA coverage “to facilitate high-speed internet access to millions across India”. Both Wi-Fi 6 and 5G FWA devices will be manufactured in India, Bharti Airtel says. Nokia’s 5G FWA receivers and Wi-Fi 6 access points are powered by Qualcomm chipsets.
Indonesia opens lower 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi
The announcement was made by Mrs Meutya Hafid, Minister of Communications and Digital, at an event held at Langham Hotel, South Jakarta by the Indonesian Technology Alliance (ITA) on February 7. “By enforcing this regulation for Wi-Fi, we are not only improving connectivity, we are also at the same time strengthening Indonesia’s position as a digital leader in the region,” Meutya Hafid said in her speech. Also see the local news report here.
Poland gets its first Wi-Fi 7 home broadband service
This week Orange Polska launched the ‘Funbox 10’ home gateway to become only the sixth major ISP in Europe to offer a Wi-Fi 7 service. The new gateway and service is available in 39 cities, reaching more than 2.5 million homes across Poland, says SoftAtHome, the developer for the new platform. The new gateway supports one 320 MHz Wi-Fi 7 channel in the 6 GHz band backhauled by GPON or XGS-PON fibre connections delivering up to 8 Gbps of connectivity into the home.
“The tight project timeline—completed in under seven months—demonstrates the agility and innovation of Orange Polska and SoftAtHome’s engineering teams,” SoftAtHome says. SoftAtHome is a France-based gateway software solution provider jointly owned by operators Orange, Swisscom, and Etisalat.
Two new Wi-Fi 7 mesh solutions released: eero 7 and eero Pro 7
Amazon’s eero today released two new Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems into the world, bringing eero’s tally of Wi-Fi 7 mesh router models to four. The eero 7 is a new dual band (non-6 GHz) system delivering up to 1.8 Gbps of Wi-Fi speed across up to 2,000 square feet of coverage (single unit). The unit priced at US$169.99 (single unit), making it the most affordable Wi-Fi 7 mesh router from eero to date.
The new eero Pro 7 is a tri-band mesh unit delivering up to 3.9 Gbps of Wi-Fi connectivity at a price of US$299.99 (single unit) while offering similar coverage as the new eero 7. The eero Max 7 continues to be the premium Wi-Fi 7 mesh router from eero priced at US$479.99 (single unit) while the cool new eero Outdoor 7 (featured in our recent outdoor Wi-Fi webinar) router retails at US$399.99. The company’s unique TrueMesh, TrueRoam, and TrueChannel networking technologies continue to be at the core of the eero Wi-Fi performance value proposition.
Kinetic (Windstream) surpasses 600,000 whole-home Wi-Fi installations using RouteThis Certify
RouteThis Certify allows service providers to deliver certified whole-home Wi-Fi installations – and now US operator Kinetic has used the solution to ensure the Wi-Fi quality of more than 600,000 homes, RouteThis says in this press release from last week. RouteThis says “the milestone highlights how RouteThis Certify is helping large service providers elevate Wi-Fi installation processes, gain unprecedented visibility on Quality of Install (QoI) data, and deliver exceptional subscriber experiences.”
“By providing real-time insights and standardized installation quality, we’re able to optimise network performance, reduce troubleshooting needs, and enhance the overall customer experience,” says Barry Bishop, Senior Vice President of Field Operations at Kinetic. Kinetic (a brand of Windstream) is based in Arkansas and operates in 23 US states.
/Claus.
