By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
We’ve been disrupted by travels and holidays over the past couple of weeks – but we still want to make sure that our readers are informed on what transpired across the Wi-Fi world in the meantime. Here are some of the most important stories.
RUCKUS T670 (outdoor) & R770 (indoor) Wi-Fi 7 APs ready for standard power
CommScope RUCKUS has been at the forefront of early Wi-Fi 7 adoption and the company now offers both indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi 7 APs capable of standard power operation with AFC. RUCKUS says the T670 outdoor AP was the first of its kind to be certified for AFC operation by the FCC. The T670 is intended for sports venues, hospitality, urban spaces, recreational areas and more. RUCKUS uses Comsearch’s AFC service to enable standard power and highlights AI and patented antenna technologies as key operations and performance differentiators. Read more here.
New study: Europe lacks the Wi-Fi spectrum to reach broadband goal
A new study commissioned by the Wi-Fi Alliance and authored by Plum Consulting has concluded that Europe will not reach its broadband goals for 2030 unless the top half of the 6 GHz band is allocated to Wi-Fi. Currently only the lower half of the 6 GHz band is allocated to Wi-Fi within the EU region.
The EU’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act and the Digital Decade Policy Programme 2030 aim to ensure that a fixed Gigabit network (meaning a network providing connectivity at a downlink speed of 1 Gbps) covers all EU households. Except such a goal is impossible to reach without more spectrum, the study says.
“While other countries, such as the U.S., South Korea, and Canada, have addressed this issue by enabling the latest generation of Wi-Fi in the entire 6 GHz frequency band, European regulators continue to delay this critical decision, depriving Europe of the latest Wi-Fi capabilities and benefits,” the Wi-Fi Alliance says. The ‘Wi-Fi Spectrum Requirements Study’ can be downloaded here.
NETGEAR launches Orbi 770 Wi-Fi 7 mesh & new Wi-Fi 7 Nighthawk router
NETGEAR continues to be one of the frontrunners in introducing cutting-edge Wi-Fi 7 routers to the mass market and earlier this month the company released two new Wi-Fi 7 products. The new Orbi 770 mesh system three-pack delivers up to 11 Gbps of Wi-Fi 7 data rate to up to 100 devices across a whopping 8,000 square feet of floorspace. The tri-band Orbi 770 system uses MLO for both fronthaul and backhaul and the three-pack retails for US$999.99.
NETGEAR also released the Nighthawk RS300 stand-alone Wi-Fi 7 router featuring a top data rate of 9.3 Gbps. NETGEAR says the new Nighthawk covers up to 2,500 square feet and will connect up to 100 devices. Both the new Nighthawk and the new Orbi incorporate 2.5 Gbps Ethernet ports. The new Nighthawk RS300 retails at US$329.99.
Qualcomm’s Wi-Fi 7 connects dozens of new laptop models at Computex
Qualcomm’s processor platforms are of course most well known for powering smartphones but the company is now making significant inroads into the market for computing devices. At Computex in Taipei, Taiwan, earlier this month Qualcomm released this graphic of dozens of new laptops powered by Snapdragon X plus and X Elite platforms including the FastConnect 7800 Wi-Fi 7 chipset. The FastConnect 7800 connectivity solution delivers up to 5.8 Gbps of data rate or up to 4.3 Gbps in regions where the 6 GHz band is not available. Read more here.
/Claus.
