Waves with Wireless Nerd
Join me for a weekly look into what's making waves in tech and the wireless industry! What's new? What's now? What's next?
Waves with Wireless Nerd
Evolving Connectivity: T-Mobile's Fiber Plans, Wireless Innovations, Mountain Connect, and Surviving Tech Layoffs
Ever wondered how T-Mobile's latest moves might reshape your home internet experience? Join me on this episode of "Waves," where we begin with a delightful collaboration between Minecraft and Lush that's sure to add a splash of fun to your bath time. I'll share my excitement and a quick shopping experience before diving into the heart of the episode. You’ll learn all about T-Mobile's strategic leap into the fiber internet market, the implications of the recent court ruling against net neutrality, and why these changes could be game-changers for your everyday connectivity. Plus, catch a sneak peek at an intriguing ongoing conference on connectivity that’s generating quite the buzz.
In the latter half of the episode, we explore the rapid evolution of wireless LAN technologies and how AIOps features, Wi-Fi 6e, and Wi-Fi 7 are setting new standards. Major industry shifts, including HPE's acquisition of Juniper Networks and Ubiquity's aggressive marketing strategies, are stirring up the market, and we’ll break down what that means for you. Amidst all this, we also address the pressing issue of tech industry layoffs, spotlighting cuts from giants like Intel and Dell. Discover how AI investments might be driving these changes and why networking and community support are more crucial than ever. Stay tuned for practical advice on navigating these turbulent times and helping those impacted by job losses.
I just learned something fantastic from my daughter. If you have children and they are very excited about Minecraft right now there was an announcement about 16 hours ago it has nothing to do with technology or internets or wireless, but Minecraft and Lush have teamed up for new products. We've got bath bombs. We've got bubble bath bars, showered jellies. I don't even know what all this stuff is, but if your kids like minecraft and you want to get something fun, go to lushcom right now, l-u-s-h, and check out their bath bombs. They've got exploding tnt blocks. This is awesome pre-sale item. The enderman end of day showers uh, I'm gonna go ahead and add that to the bag real quick. I'm gonna do some shopping here. Anyway, you should know that lush and minecraft have teamed up. That's fantastic. What fantastic news to start off a tuesday. Anyway, good afternoon. How is everybody?
Speaker 1:My name is drew lance. I'm the wireless nerd and this is the wireless podcast known as waves what's new, what's now, what's next, what's happening in wireless industry? I didn't get a chance to do the podcast last week. I was hanging out with some real waves, not just radio waves, but physical ocean waves. I was in the Pacific Northwest on a little family vacay and it was a lot of fun. I didn't I don't want to say I didn't think about Wi-Fi, because I did. I was staying in Forks, washington, and there's some interesting connectivity issues there, but I had a good time Overall. It was good. I used the Xfinity internet service at the house I was staying at. It was great. So there has been some stuff happening in the last couple of weeks.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and jump right into it. I don't have these segmented into what's new, what's now and what's next's next. However, all of it is new or now, or happening now or eventually going to happen. The first link that I have talks about t-mobile jumping into the fiber internet game. T-mobile has a new side gig. According to the wall street journal, the second biggest cell phone carrier by subscribers has pieced together at least five partnerships with fiber optic internet providers that could serve millions of customers in the upcoming years. Um, there was an announcement that they had had brought a couple of them on, but it was. This was crazy to see. Crazy, I mean they're. They're a carrier. But you know, you saw everyone go from lying of coax and fiber optic moving into the cellular space. Now you're seeing cellular providers moving down into the, the fiber optic service space, t-mobile claimed more turf recently. It agreed to pay $4.9 billion for a stake in Midwestern broadband provider Metronet through a joint venture with private equity firm KKR. So Metronet was pretty big. I'm sure a lot of people know who Metronet is, but that's expected to close next year. It's pretty awesome, following a 950 million dollar investment, uh with private equity firm eqt and lumos, a broadband company covering the mid-atlantic region, and there's a couple of them here and there. Uh, that's that's hey. Look, if they can do what they've done to the mobile space for fiber optic deployments and for internet connectivity of people's homes, I think this will be a good thing.
Speaker 1:Now, speaking of something that might not be a good thing as a consumer but might be a good thing as a carrier, the court has blocked net neutrality. The Federal Communications Commission's hope of enforcing net neutrality rules was dealt a major setback last week. A panel of appeals court judges blocked regulations on Thursday in a ruling that said broadband providers are likely to win the case on merits. So net neutrality tried to get. You know, that's where, where they, you know, service providers can't charge more for specific services or specific types of services or data flows, and that way, you know, keeping everybody at a, at a neutral, making sure that your internet connection is a neutral, you know, connection that you're provided to the internet. Now you know those rules were away and now they try to get reinstituted. And now the courts are saying, no, that's probably not going to win because it's you know, the networks belong to the carriers. It's not like you know, it's not like the spectrum line that runs to my house was run by someone that isn't the carrier. So the carriers are fighting back and saying that we want to make sure that they can prioritize their network traffic. So good thing for carriers, maybe not a good thing for individuals. And all the fear. When all this happened, when Chairman Pai was on board and got all that hate for it, everyone was concerned. It was going to be like well, my Netflix is going to be degraded because the carrier is going to put more emphasis on Hulu, or I'm not going to be able to process my cell phone calls over T-Mobile because the carrier has a partnership with Verizon or whatever it is. Those didn't really come to fruition in any way. That impacted me at least. Were you impacted by net neutrality over the last four years? I don't know, maybe you were, maybe it was just me, maybe I'm a special case that didn't get hit by it, but the court has now said that that probably will you know. If the ISPs fight back, then they'll probably win. So net neutrality as it stands is dead once again, no matter what the FCC is trying to do. Well, interesting, interesting.
Speaker 1:Other new snippets from around the world you know, right now, speaking of net neutrality and connectivity, there's a conference that's happening right now. That's one of my favorite conferences that I've never been to. It's a conference I've always wanted to go to. It's something that I've always had this idea that maybe I'm going to get there someday because just the quality of the presenters and the quality of the content and what they're trying to achieve to me is top-notch. But I'm the guy that loves to make sure that everybody's connected and give connectivity to everybody, no matter where they are. And Mountain Connect is happening this week in Denver. And Mountain Connect started really, really small and not that it's huge. Now it's not a gigantic conference, but the quality and the content that they have there is always just astounding. And so this week Mountain Connect is happening. Luckily, they publish a lot of their stuff after the conference. They're going to publish it all online so you can find them on YouTube. Just look up Mountain Connect. They have a really weird username. It's at MountainConnect1509. But if you look up Mountain Connect on YouTube or visit mountainconnectorg, you can find out more information about this conference.
Speaker 1:The keynote today that I was interested in I was hoping they would stream it live was a fireside chat with SpaceX. They finally got someone from SpaceX to sit down and have a fireside chat with them and to me, this is a great, great setting for it, because the people that are at Mountain Connect are really interested in what wireless ISPs are doing and what wireless communications are doing. They're very interested in connectivity for everybody. So what a great venue to host the team from SpaceX. I can't remember who it was. I believe it was the COO. Let me Google it real quick Mountain Connect, spacex, coo. I do believe that's who it was. Yeah, it was Gwynne Shotwell.
Speaker 1:Gwynne Shotwell began her career in the automotive industry before joining SpaceX as president and COO in 2002. She's shattered barriers by launching and landing the world's first reusable orbital rockets. Yada, yada, yada. Incredible stuff, very, very cool. So I'm really glad to hear that she's there at SpaceX, yes, but also at Mountain Connect, because the people that are going to be asking her questions and having these conversations with her are people that are helping drive big decisions, and that's what Mountain Connect is really good at. It's really good at bringing the people who matter together to help solve these problems, and one of the other ones that I'm very interested in I wish it was streaming as well is their closing session.
Speaker 1:Their closing session is called the Bead Conundrum, why an All-Fiber Approach May Be Insufficient or Inadequate. Now, if you've heard me talk about this before, you've heard me talk about how I don't like the fiber-first mentality. I like the fiber-also mentality and the wireless-also mentality and the private 4G and 5G-also mentality. Since Bede was announced in 2022, many in our industry have heavily promoted fiber as the only plausible infrastructure to deploy. History would suggest that this strategy has notable flaws. Is there enough funding to deploy a fiber-only solution? Therefore, should our industry promote hybrid infrastructure and, furthermore, prioritize wireless technology.
Speaker 1:Man, I wish I was there tomorrow, august 7th, at the Plaza Ballroom in Denver, at the Sheraton, from 4 to 445. Gary Bolton, president and CEO of Fiber Broadband Association. Jeff Gavlinski from Mountain Connect. The chairman, kevin Morgan from Clearfield, zev Suisa from Xlumen and Dave Zumwalt from Wispah what dude, moderated by Heather Gold. What a kick-ass panel of speakers to have this conversation. That's what I'm saying. You got the guy from Fiverr and you got the guy from Wireless and you're sitting there with the people from Mountain Connect Very cool. If you haven't heard of Mountain Connect, please look it up if you're into broadband development and what it can do, so shout out to those people for holding it down. I'm looking forward to seeing what the output of that will be and I'm also looking forward to seeing the recordings of that event. Maybe someday I will make it.
Speaker 1:Anyway, there is some coverage by Broadband Breakfast, the other Drew in the wireless industry over at Broadband Breakfast. If you tune into Broadband Breakfast, he did a live stream or two live streams from there. I want to say so go look up Drew at Broadband Breakfast. Drew Clark's a super cool guy. I talked to him. I had a great conversation with him when I was out at CES. But visit broadbandbreakfastcom. They do a lot of really great content and it's all published online. So go check them out and you can learn a little bit more about what's happening over there. So that was really cool.
Speaker 1:Something else that's happening this week. Black Hat is happening this week. It started Saturday, august 3rd, continuing to Thursday, august 8th. So in two days Black Hat's over. Black Hat's the corporate version of DEF CON. Black Hat's the one where you get all of the industry security experts together to talk about industry security and what's happening and how to protect enterprise and CrowdStrike and whatnot. There's never I don't want to say never, but there's Never really big crazy things that come out of Black Hat. That's all saved for DEF CON, where you get the crazy things that have happened. But Black Hat's awesome, man. It's a great conference for the industry to get together. It's a great conference for people to get together and see what the security framework looks like, whether it's hardware or software or services that are offered in the industry. So it's happening right now.
Speaker 1:And keep your eye out for Wi-Fi stand. You can see some Wi-Fi stands all over Black Hat. I saw those online. Always cool to see Wi-Fi stands showing up at conferences. People used it to help them out, so I'll tell you. If anyone from Black Hat's listening, let me know. Next year I'll sponsor. I'm in, I'll give you guys some Wi-Fi stands. I would love to be. Let me know. We'll ship you some stuff. Have a good time out there. I think DEF CON already has a bunch, but we'll be happy to provide some Wi-Fi stands if that's what you all need for the conference. So let me know what else is going on.
Speaker 1:It Expo is back. Tmc in 2024, apparently they had a really good year with IT Expo. They've increased the number of exhibitors 100%. So IT Expo 2025 will be at the Broward County Conventions here February 11th through 13th. That's some of the stuff that's coming back. Speaking of things that's coming back, dude for real.
Speaker 1:Ars Technica posted an article at 1.36 today and I'm just going to read the headline because it immediately grabbed my attention. Kudos to Kevin Purdy for a Purdy headline. Sci-fi writer and WordStar lover re-releases the cult DOS app for free. That's right. Wordstar is back. How cool is that? I don't know if that means anything to anyone under the age of 45. But WordStar is back. Robert J Sawyer, an award-winning science fiction author still using the program uh, that was the last update in 1992 has decided that even now that it's a abandoned where he's put together as complete a version of word star 7 as might exist, he bundled together over a thousand pages of scan manuals that came with word star related utilities, his own readme guidance, ready to run, versions of dos, boxbox X and VDOS Plus and WordStar 7 Revision D. He's posted them on his website labeled the complete WordStar 7.0 archive. So if you want to take a trip down memory lane, visit sfwritercom, slash ws7.htm, or just visit sfwritercom I'm sure there's a link on there. Go, download and play with WordStar there. It is right on the front page. Sfwritercom. Robert J Sawyer.
Speaker 1:A huge thank you from the entire industry for bringing WordStar to public light. I remember it was called WordStar 2000. Maybe that was just a version of it, I don't know man. Wordstar Harvard Graphics is next here we go, maybe not it, I don't know man. Wordstar got harvard graphics is next here we go, maybe not. Anyway, I thought that was kind of interesting. Again, doesn't have anything to do with technology, but if you're a nerd and you've been in the industry for a while, I'm sure that you used wordstar at one point in time or another. Let's see what else is happening. This was interesting.
Speaker 1:From del oro sean, my friend sean, whose name I can now pronounce correctly after meeting her, sean morgan, says we expect to see signs of recovery in 4q 2024 once excess inventory is flushed through the system and the market returns to demand driven dynamics. That quote made after the headline that wireless land revenues are expected to drop 13 overall overall in 2024, with lower price exacerbating depressed demand. According to Sean Morgan at Del Oro, it budgets are stretched. On one hand, enterprises are under pressure to figure out how generative AI can revolutionize their business. On the other hand, companies need high-performing networks to enable digital transformations. Vendors sensitive to these pressures are releasing cost-effective Wi-Fi 7 APs, which we've seen, which will help accelerate the adoption of the latest generation of Wi-Fi. So basically, you know there's all these stresses being put on enterprise IT trying to figure out how to move in this whole AI demand. You know generative AI demanding. You know businesses, and how does your infrastructure handle that? So cheap Wi-Fi 7 APs is how you handle that and how does your infrastructure handle that? So cheap Wi-Fi 7 APs is how you handle that. So interesting. But in Q4 2024, things should bounce back.
Speaker 1:Findings from the wireless LAN five-year July 2024 forecast include AIOps features are driving up license revenues and delivering significant value to enterprise facing labor difficulties. Dude, don't even start with labor difficulties. I mean for real, let's I mean for real, let's talk about that here in a second. Wi-fi 6e adoption is still growing but will be eclipsed by wi-fi 7 in 2025. So, uh, 2025, you'll start to see more wi-fi 7 impact. It looks like if the closing of hpe's acquisition of juniper networks is delayed, wireless land revenues could suffer as enterprises opt to wait before buying. Yeah, yeah, we're already seeing that. So, not that it's delayed, but that confusion in the marketplace, you know.
Speaker 1:And again, here comes Ubiquity trying to, you know, more announcements and more announcements, trying to really edge their way into that enterprise space. They've got the gear their latest commercials. It's a humdinger dude. I mean it really God. They're just setting their targets on everyone with this stuff. So if you haven't had a chance to go see the new ui commercial, visit uicom or jump online and look for ubiquity on linkedin and you can see their, their stuff.
Speaker 1:Speaking of marketing, juniper dude, bringing on the, the lady from uh, uh, madman, awesome. And then now ringing the bell at at nasdaq very cool. It's great to see companies putting a lot of effort into marketing again, glad to see it, glad to see ubiquity doing that. But I mean, with this division, right, do, okay. Well, juniper is being acquired by aruba. Do we? Do we buy juniper or do we buy aruba, or is it going to be one or is it going to be the other? Do we wait, you know? And then cisco's on the side doing cisco stuff, and then the labor difficulties. Give me a break, bro, like I don't.
Speaker 1:I think the number this year, in 2024, it's already up to 100. It's here 126 or 162 000 people affected by layoffs. Now, with the latest cut coming from intel, 15 000. The latest cut coming from dell, I think it was like eleven thousand man. People are just getting axed left and right and you know not, I don't want to misquote him, so I'm going to jump on on uh, the company that was formerly located in san francisco but now they've closed their offices, known as twitter or x. You know I posted that today. I said, man, my heart goes out to all the dell and intel folks who got cut. It's not a fun year for tech.
Speaker 1:Lee badman, the voice of a wireless generation, says ai bitches, god bless you, lee. Uh, I love leap, I mean. That's truth, though I wonder how much of this is caused by that, or how much of it is caused by people who are trying to make investments in ai and not make investments in other locations, or or waiting to make investments because they want to capture AI. So in one way, shape or form, lee, I do agree with you AI bitches, it's just where it is. What else is happening? Black Hat's happening.
Speaker 1:Oh, private networks All the rage. Let's talk about private networks All the rage right now. 4g and 5G private networks in a box. Private networks All the rage right now. 4g and 5G private networks in a box. They took over the RNC in the United States. They're going to be popped up at the DNC in the United States. A lot to do with video streaming and video cameras and people moving their stuff around and streaming video back via handheld cameras without being tethered. Very cool use of that technology.
Speaker 1:Pintane Networks has a CBRS integrated by Amdocs, their private network in a box, used five 4G LTE radios along with a mobile cord deployed in a suitcase. It says I've got a big suitcase. I wonder what size it was. Primarily the main network for the games. Speaking about the Olympics, the broadcasting in Paris is orange, using a 5G standalone network stretched over 6 kilometers, which is 3.7 miles in American of riversend, as well as venues like stad de france and arena berce. So chewy chewia uh kinchua from um oh avid think said that ray ray chua uh from avid thing said that it's a cisco power network that's separate from the oranges public network. So not network slicing off the public, but but a separate standalone private network.
Speaker 1:Interesting and there was an article a couple months ago talking about LA 2028 and what they were going to be doing with CBRS there, and the quote was something like we'll wait and see what happens in Paris. So it seems to be working so far, so good. So I guess that's a bellwether, if you will, for LA 2028. We'll see what happens. Shots fired at Wi-Fi, though. Providing a private cellular network solution adds a robust and reliable connection to the bonding mix, avoiding public network congestion and the instability of Wi-Fi. It also gives an early layer of service for our customers network segmentation, prioritization and greater security, while providing additional capacity for expanded remote production technologies and employee communications. Yeah, that was one of the quotes, but interesting. I think you know a lot of promise in private 4G, private 5G, so we'll see where that goes.
Speaker 1:People, you know the quote about networking a box being temporary or not being a real thing. I think I love the idea of temporary networks being set up. I mean, it's Wi-Fi stand right. I love the idea that people can just pop up a network and pull it down and move it wherever they need to without installing any infrastructure, and it's so easy to do now that the equipment can literally be loaded into a suitcase. I had a Raman Networks cell and a Signal Roam Wi-Fi access point sitting in the front of my F-150 Lightning cruising around providing signal to everyone. So I'm all for it, man, I'm here, I'm here for it, as the kids these days say. So that's what's going on, man, there's. It's just, it's a lot that's happening right now in the industry.
Speaker 1:Total number of satellites will grow from 10,000 in 2024 to 24,000 by 2029 for iot support. 2029 we'll see 24,000 satellites in orbit for iot support. You know it's interesting because they talk about that, but there was also an article. 2029, we'll see 24,000 satellites in orbit for IoT support. You know it's interesting because they talk about that, but there was also an article I'm sure I can find it if I look close enough Verizon IoT problems. There was another article that was put out and it was basically blaming IoT on issues that people are having, and it was a survey put out by Verizon. I wonder if I can find it. It was a survey put out by Verizon. I wonder if I can find it. It was a survey put out by Verizon, and the people that were polled that asked what the major flaws on their networks were were that they're using more IoT, so they're more subjective to IoT devices and more subject to mobile devices, and so when they have a problem, everything goes out right Like CrowdStrike. I mean, think about the CrowdStrike thing grinds my gears a little bit, because now the truth is coming out about CrowdStrike and the Delta thing, where they wanted to provide the professional services for Delta and Delta denied it and said nah, it's cool, we got it. And then this happened I don't know, sign your service contracts, y'all. Anyway, that's all I got going on this week A lot of rambling, lots of fun, but it's playing catch up.
Speaker 1:Oh, what else we got y'all? It's August 6th, kids go back to school, some have already started and the heathens are out of the house. According to a good friend of mine who's at DEF CON right now Well, not DEF CON, he's at Black Hat right now, but what a cool time. I started in computers using WordStars says Fernay Munoz. Of course you did, fernay, that's because we're legends, bro. What else is going on? Uh, man, I you know. Uh, let's see. August means october is around the corner, so wlpc prague is right around the corner. If wlpc prague is right around the corner, that means wlpc mexico is around the corner. That means ces is coming up. That means wlpc in february is coming up soon in phoenix.
Speaker 1:I'm saving up for those events right now.
Speaker 1:That's's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I've got a really cool project. Oh, and I'll talk about this real quick. I tweeted a picture on Wireless Nerd earlier today where I finally I was waiting on a couple pieces, but now I have everything put together. I've got NetAlly Cyberscope, I've got Ekahau Sidekick 2. I've got Acidos Wave and I've got the OseDOS Wave and I've got the OCM Hamina Nomad. So I've got all of the tools that everybody uses on a day-to-day basis in one room. At one time I've surveyed my house with almost all of them. I'm going to do a survey with two more of them just to make sure I get it down. I'm going to cut a cool video.
Speaker 1:I'm going to stack these things up and I'm going to compare them side by side Because, as friends of mine have gotten in trouble working for vendors or partners or whatever you know what I think the industry deserves just a realistic perspective on how the tools stack up and what makes them good and what makes them bad. I'll tell you that just right out of the gate. Just the packaging alone makes some of these things stand out and the usability stand out. I saw something today on the Nomad when I opened it up that I hadn't seen it's my first time getting one in my hands right in front of me and I saw something that made me go holy moly. If that's what I think it is, that's really cool. So I'm going to be looking into that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be doing a survey here at my home and I'm going to publish all the results and put it online. And then I've got a really cool trip coming up in September where I'm going to be out on site in the open and I'm going to be using I've got my Epic Prism right beside me and I'm also going to be doing some Wi-Fi scans over there. It's going to be outdoor with a really cool background, so stay tuned for that. I'm also going to see if there's some other venue that I can go. So if you know of a venue, we can test all of it.
Speaker 1:I've got licenses, I've got hardware, I've got software. I really want to have a good time and really get to the bottom of what makes these tools different, not just from the hardware side and the ability to carry them and strap them on and whatever it is, but also from the software. Does the software work the way that you would imagine it does? Where are the problems, mark? What does Mark say? Hanging in the Phoenix airport for a layover, wishing I was here for WLPC? Dude, I hate layovers in Phoenix because I get to Phoenix and all I can think of is is it that time of year? Like, are we checking our watches? I feel you, buddy, I feel you Mark. Anyway, let me know if you guys have a test case and you've got someone who wants to do this, I'm totally down. I've got them all and we're going to have a good time testing all of them out.
Speaker 1:If there's a tool that I'm not testing and you think I should drop me a line and let me know. I've got a lot of them. I've got the WLAN pies. I've got oh, you know what I don't have. If anybody has one, the Ubiquiti one man that sticks on the back of your phone, I'm going to try and order one. Drop me a message because, uh, because I'd love to use it and play with it and see what it does, because I do want to compare that to the big tools. Oh, hey, man, it's there. I mean there's a. There's a term that we use in south texas. Uh, it's like. One of those uh, spanglish terms is chaffa. It chaffa means like, like, uh, like crappy, and so, you know, some people might think that it's a little, it's a little chaff, but, man, let's see how it compares to everything else. It'll be cool. Yes, I still have the Epic Prism. It's fun. It's right here beside me, so let me know if you have a place where I can test that out.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I hope everyone has a wonderful week.
Speaker 1:I will talk to you next week. Hopefully there's not any crazy news that's happening, but at the same time, I so jobs, jobs, jobs. Man, I'll tell you that it's tough right now, and now, with all these layoffs, even more layoffs coming. If you have an opportunity for someone that you know to come work with them, drop them a message and let them know. I mean, so many people are getting laid off right now, and it's a really tough time to be in tech. So if you know of anyone that you can help out, reach out to them. If you have a job posting, please post it online. Get your entire network to help out, because there's going to be a lot of people that are affected by these layoffs, not just the ones that have already happened, but everything else that's coming down the pipe. Please reach out to your fellow networking nerd, wireless nerd and help them if that's what they need. So I would appreciate that for everyone. So, anyway, I hope you have a great week. I will talk to you next week. Until then, see you later.
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