WiFi NOW Resource Centre Report
By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
Executive summary
The 2026 OpenWiFi/OpenLan Global Summit – held in conjunction with the Wi- Fi World Congress 2026 in Mountain View, California on April 15, 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 presentations demonstrated an ecosystem that now includes Wi-Fi access, switching, gateways, cloud management, AI operations, SD-WAN, security integration, and a growing multi-vendor hardware ecosystem. Throughout the event, speakers consistently argued that open networking has moved beyond experimentation into commercial deployment.
Although individual vendors naturally promoted their own solutions, the overarching message remained remarkably consistent: enterprises increasingly want hardware independence, open APIs, cloud-native management, and freedom from proprietary networking platforms. The summit therefore represented not simply another OpenWiFi update but a significant step toward an open enterprise networking architecture.
OpenWiFi becomes OpenLAN
Perhaps the most significant announcement was conceptual rather than technical. The project is no longer centred solely on Wi-Fi access points. Instead, OpenLAN now defines an architecture comprising:
- OpenWiFi access infrastructure
- OpenLAN Switching
- OpenLAN Gateway
- uCentral cloud management
- Shared PKI infrastructure
- Open engineering processes
- Common APIs
- White-box hardware ecosystem
The objective is to allow organisations to deploy enterprise networks where hardware, operating systems, and management software evolve independently while remaining interoperable. This represents a substantial expansion beyond the project’s original focus on wireless networking.
A complete networking stack
Several presentations reinforced the idea that enterprise customers increasingly require integrated networking platforms rather than separate wireless products. Join Digital described five technology pillars operating as a single platform:
- Wi-Fi access
- Enterprise switching
- Routing and SD-WAN
- Security
- Operations
Its Graphite platform integrates these capabilities with AI-assisted operations, real-time telemetry, and hybrid cloud management, illustrating how OpenLAN can serve as the foundation for a complete enterprise networking stack rather than just wireless connectivity. Similarly, NetExperience presented a cloud-native management platform that unifies wireless access points, switches, gateways, fibre infrastructure, and operational workflows under a single management system.
Freedom from vendor lock-in
One of the strongest recurring themes throughout the summit was hardware independence. Multiple presenters argued that networking remains dominated by vertically integrated proprietary platforms where customers become tied to a single vendor’s hardware, software, licensing model, and upgrade cycle.
OpenLAN proposes a different model based upon:
- Standardised management interfaces
- White-box hardware
- Open APIs
- Interchangeable components
- Independent software evolution
Join Digital described this as eliminating vendor lock-in while accelerating innovation and improving pricing flexibility. NetExperience similarly characterised the existing enterprise market as suffering from “legacy tax,” including high licensing costs, hardware dependence, and accumulated technical debt.
Switching matures
The OpenLAN Switching project has evolved rapidly. Rather than continuing to add features, Release 5.0 focuses on establishing a consistent enterprise baseline supported across all compliant switches. The baseline includes:
- Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking
- VLANs
- LACP
- 802.1X authentication
- DHCP snooping
- ACLs
- Monitoring
- Diagnostics
- PKI integration
- Real-time events
- Troubleshooting tools
Future releases will extend multicast support, additional security features, enhanced telemetry, and operational capabilities. CyberTan also demonstrated that the switching ecosystem now spans more than fifty switch SKUs from multiple ODMs, illustrating the project’s emphasis on hardware diversity.
Gateways become part of the architecture
Another major announcement was the introduction of the OpenLAN Gateway initiative. Rather than depending on proprietary branch routers, the project aims to develop an open gateway platform supporting:
- Routing
- Firewall services
- Cloud management
- Zero-touch provisioning
- Virtual machines
- Containerised applications
- Third-party services
The reference architecture addresses deployments ranging from small offices through large enterprise campuses with high-availability gateway pairs. The community plans an initial software release before the end of 2026.
AI becomes operational
Artificial intelligence was discussed throughout the summit as a practical operational capability rather than a future aspiration. Join Digital highlighted:
- Agentic AIOps
- Continuous optimisation
- Network observability
- Autonomous troubleshooting
- AI-driven telemetry analysis
NetExperience similarly described its cloud platform as AI/ML-native, using Kubernetes microservices and real-time telemetry rather than retrofitting AI onto legacy controller architectures. The consensus was that AI will increasingly automate network optimisation and reduce operational overhead.
Quality of Experience replaces traditional monitoring
Several presentations argued that conventional Quality of Service metrics fail to reflect the actual subscriber experience.
Join Digital introduced the concept of Intent-Based QoE, arguing that network averages can conceal poor individual application performance. Instead, each user session should be evaluated according to the specific application’s requirements. Examples included:
- Deterministic roaming
- Coordinated airtime management
- Frictionless onboarding
- Application-aware optimisation
The broader OpenLAN roadmap also includes joint work with the Wireless Broadband Alliance on QoE metrics and end-to-end QoS specifications.
MSPs become platform owners
One of the more interesting strategic presentations came from Shasta Cloud. Rather than viewing networking as hardware sales, Shasta argued that managed service providers should become software platform owners. Its proposed model combines:
- White-label networking
- Programmable APIs
- Embedded enterprise networking
- Vertical applications
- Recurring software revenue
The presentation targeted sectors including:
- Hospitality
- Education
- Senior living
- Retail
- Property technology
- EV charging
- Smart buildings
Shasta’s central message was simple: The network becomes the platform.
Cloud-native management becomes the norm
Several speakers highlighted the shift from controller-centric architectures toward cloud-native software. NetExperience described a management platform built around:
- Kubernetes
- Microservices
- API-native architecture
- Cloud-agnostic deployment
- Elastic scalability
- Multi-tenancy
Its roadmap also integrates gateways, fibre infrastructure, switches, and wireless into a unified operational framework.
Commercial momentum
Although the summit was primarily technology-focused, several presenters referenced commercial deployments. Among the publicly discussed examples were:
- Join Digital‘s enterprise deployments, including the T-Mobile New York headquarters implementation.
- NetExperience‘s commercial deployments in multi-dwelling units and nationwide carrier architectures.
- Shasta Cloud‘s focus on managed service provider deployments.
- A growing ecosystem of operators, MSPs, and hardware vendors contributing to OpenLAN development.(For a detailed overview of verified commercial implementations, see this OpenWiFi/OpenLAN Deployment Tracker.)
Ecosystem expansion
The OpenLAN ecosystem continues to broaden. The roadmap presentation highlighted contributions from organisations including:
Engineering support is provided by embeDD, Aerlync, Candela, Kinara Systems, and the Telecom Infra Project. The project is also collaborating with the Wireless Broadband Alliance on Quality of Experience and indoor AFC specifications.
WiFi NOW Perspective
The biggest conclusion from the 2026 OpenLAN Global Summit is that the industry has moved beyond open Wi-Fi to open enterprise networking.
Only a few years ago, the debate centred on whether OpenWiFi could provide a credible alternative to proprietary WLAN platforms. That question now appears largely settled. The discussion has shifted towards how open networking can support complete enterprise infrastructures spanning wireless, switching, gateways, security, SD-WAN, AI operations and cloud-native management.
Another striking observation is the maturity of the ecosystem. Hardware vendors, software developers, cloud platforms, managed service providers and system integrators are now contributing to a common architecture rather than isolated products. This collaborative approach is beginning to resemble the evolution of Linux in enterprise computing, where open standards enabled a diverse ecosystem while still allowing vendors to innovate and differentiate.
Commercial adoption remains modest compared to the largest proprietary networking vendors, but the pace of development is accelerating. Hospitality, multi-dwelling units, managed enterprise networks and public Wi-Fi have emerged as the leading deployment segments, while switching and gateways are rapidly closing feature gaps with traditional enterprise platforms.
OpenLAN’s long-term success will ultimately depend on continued commercial deployments, broader operator participation and sustained investment from the ecosystem. However, based on the evidence presented at the summit, OpenLAN has clearly evolved from an open-source Wi-Fi initiative into one of the industry’s most ambitious efforts to redefine enterprise networking through open, disaggregated architectures.
Methodology
This report has been independently prepared by WiFi NOW based primarily on presentations delivered at the OpenLAN Global Summit 2026, supplemented where appropriate by publicly available information. Vendor-specific claims have been interpreted conservatively and cross-compared across multiple presentations wherever possible. The analysis and conclusions presented here are those of WiFi NOW and are intended to provide an independent overview of the technologies, ecosystem developments and industry trends discussed during the event.