That pitch has come in many forms. The ambition is genuine and the technology is advancing at a remarkable pace, but there is one question that hangs over all of it, and it is the one operators keep coming back to: Where is the proof that AI actually does something meaningful for the business? Well, here it is.

Over the past decade, delivering the right home Wi-Fi QoE has become the dominant challenge for vendors and home broadband service providers alike. Here’s what it means.

Netduma puts intelligence directly on the home gateway to continuously measure what is happening, identify the root cause of problems, and in many cases fix issues locally and automatically. Here’s a summary of WiFi NOW’s recent Tech Watch interview with Netduma.

WiFi NOW has identified more than 85 commercial ISP Wi-Fi 7 deployments or offerings across Europe, Asia-Pacific, North America, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa – and the number continues to grow.

The real significance of Wi-Fi 8 will ultimately depend on how these technologies are implemented and deployed in real networks. Wi-Fi 8 is unlikely to arrive as a single capability that suddenly transforms every network.

The transition to Wi-Fi 7 is underway, but Ookla’s latest global research shows that adoption remains highly uneven across the world. Drawing on millions of Speedtest measurements collected from Android devices, the company’s Global State of Wi-Fi report offers one of the clearest pictures yet of how broadband subscribers are actually connecting to Wi-Fi networks today.

The wireless industry has spent more than two decades measuring progress in terms of faster Wi-Fi. According to Qualcomm, that era is coming to an end. Wi-Fi 8 represents something fundamentally different: The emergence of networking infrastructure designed specifically for the AI era.

The 2026 OpenWiFi/OpenLan Global Summit 2026 marked an important milestone in the evolution of the Telecom Infra Project’s OpenWiFi initiative. What began several years ago as an open-source Wi-Fi access point project has now expanded into a much broader vision encompassing complete enterprise networking.

The prpl Foundation is an open-source industry alliance focused on software for broadband CPEs, including residential gateways, Wi-Fi routers, fibre gateways, cable gateways, and other broadband access devices. Its objective is to decouple software from hardware, enabling broadband service providers to deploy common software.

Our vendor / ecosystem / deployment maps and trackers show what companies constitute the OpenWiFi/OpenLAN ecosystem and also lists active network deployments across the world.

OpenLAN/OpenWiFi has matured into the broader OpenLAN architecture, comprising cloud software, access point firmware, Ethernet switch firmware, and validated white-box hardware. This makes OpenLAN one of the industry’s most comprehensive open networking initiatives.

Originally developed by Comcast and now governed by the RDK community, RDK-B enables broadband operators to deploy a common software platform across multiple hardware vendors. Today RDK-B has become one of the most important software platforms for residential broadband.

Airties is one of the pioneers of Cloud-managed residential Wi-Fi (including mesh) and today focuses exclusively on software for broadband service providers. RouteThis specialises in helping customer support agents, field technicians, and subscribers rapidly identify the root cause of connectivity issues.

Airties is one of the pioneers of Cloud-managed residential Wi-Fi (including mesh) and today focuses exclusively on software for broadband service providers. The company provides an AI-driven Connectivity Experience Management (CEM) platform that helps operators monitor, diagnose, optimise, and personalise the in-home broadband experience.

CUJO AI is a provider of AI-powered network intelligence and cybersecurity software for broadband service providers. The company’s platform helps operators understand the behaviour and performance of home networks and connected devices while enabling improved customer experience, operational efficiency, and subscriber-facing digital services.

Netduma develops intelligent traffic management software designed to optimise the user experience on home broadband networks with a particular focus on reducing latency and improving application performance. Netduma focuses on gateway-based traffic intelligence, using advanced QoS, application prioritisation, and bufferbloat reduction.