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
Exploring the Future of Wireless Technology: AR Mapping, 5G Innovations, and Network-as-a-Service Trends
Imagine being able to map your surroundings just by walking through them. Sounds like magic? It's not—it's EkaHow's groundbreaking AR model. Join me, Drew Lentz, as I walk you through how this cutting-edge technology enables users to create wall files and floor plans with their smartphone. We'll also chat about Nokia's revolutionary network-in-a-box solution for 5G, which is set to change the game in the wireless industry. I'll share why I'm so excited about AR and VR, and their transformative potential for connectivity. And if you're a wireless professional, you'll want to hear about must-attend events like Wi-Fi Day and WLPC.
Ready to explore the future of wireless technology? Let's uncover the features of Wi-Fi 8, delve into the potential of ultra-high reliability (UHR) technology, and discuss the implications of millimeter wave frequencies. We'll also address the rising trend of network-as-a-service and how it's shaping our future. From the novelty of Nokia's network-in-a-box to the concept of RF as a service, we'll dissect the potential, the promise, and the challenges of these technologies. It's time to join the conversation about the future of connectivity. Stay tuned for a stimulating and enlightening discussion about the latest advancements in the wireless industry.
It's Monday, a little bit later than average. It's about 3.10 in the afternoon. Let's go ahead and check on my Twitter here. Make sure this thing's streaming the way that it's supposed to be your ex. Sorry, I just, you know, I just I keep trying to call it Twitter and then I call it ex and then, oh man, I don't know what I'm doing here. Let me see if my volumes are okay. There we go, anyway. Well, hi, good afternoon everybody. This is Drew Lentz, the wireless nerd. Today is Monday, october the 9th, and this is Wave.
Speaker 1:This is where I talk about what's new, what's next, what's now, what's going on in the wireless industry, what's going on with tech, what's happening back and forth, up and down. Lots of great stuff happened last week, so I'm gonna, you know, let's start with that. Let's start with what's new. Ekahow has introduced an AR model where you can take your phone and you can do you can walk through your area, you know wherever you're trying to do a site survey, and you can generate the wall files and help, you know, generate the floor plan. So you don't even need a floor plan anymore, using the new AR enhancement that EkaHow's offering. I didn't see any information on when it's gonna be available, but it is exciting. I've been a huge fan of AR and VR in the way that that is going to be used in our industry. As you know, the first episode of this show I think I talked all about what I thought the future of RF design and RF planning looked like, and so I'm really excited for that.
Speaker 1:It was great to see that EkaHow made that announcement. It had been hinted at. You know Matt and Mack always, always trying to. You know seed the seed the room there. So there'd been some little screenshots posted before. And then even you know UC over at Haman had jumped in and made a comment about it a couple of days back. So you know talking about the new AR kit and what's going on. So great to see that advancement coming with EkaHow. I'm excited to try it. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Hopefully it helps a lot of people.
Speaker 1:You know we were doing this a couple of years ago. About two, three years ago I embarked on this journey to figure out how to create digital twins of restaurants and buildings and then take that information not just to generate floor plans but then to use that to generate the imagery for signal propagation modeling in augmented and virtual reality. So I know you know if you've ever followed me you can see some of that stuff on on the YouTube channel and on my blog and whatever. So I'm definitely interested in what's happening in that space. Glad to see a brand like EkaHow getting behind it. I know IB Wave has done some incredible stuff in that space as well and I know Kelly was one of those you know early advocates for things like this. I remember at WLPC where she did the walk and she was like putting equipment on chairs and drawing lines and stuff. So very cool to see it. Glad to see EkaHow jumping that game. I don't think Commina's far behind on there. I know IB Wave's already there. I know EDX technologies even has some stuff that they had done, so just really cool to see it. And then the consumerized or you know like commercialized version of it going into EkaHow I think is gonna be pretty neat.
Speaker 1:So that was announced last week at Wi-Fi Day. Wi-fi Day had some some really fun stuff where people talked about you know how they use the tools and what they do with it. A bunch of APs made, you know surprise appearances. There were some I guess it was Northern Arizona, was that the university that did the showcase? So really cool to see that. Many people jumped in. Lots of popcorn in the comments, lots of comments of people saying man, I'm just here for the comments. So it was great to see all of us get together a little bit of a precursor to what's coming up with WLPC coming in Prague and then obviously, what's coming in WLPC in February. And if you don't know what WLPC is and you're listening to this, go look at the Wireless LAN Professional Conference. If you have anything, if you care anything about wireless and Wi-Fi, that is that's the spot to be. It's always the spot to be. So that was neat to see that coming around. Whoa, I'm just moving stuff around. It looks like over here, trying to open up screens and not make my face look completely washed out at the same time. But I guess it's just part of it. So I thought that was pretty neat.
Speaker 1:Also, last week, nokia introduced their network in a box for 5G and I thought that that was pretty interesting. It follows along the lines of what's happening with. You know, amazon kicked that off. You know, I guess two years ago now, two years, three years ago about 5G as a service and private 5G as a service. And now we're seeing even the equipment manufacturers like Nokia getting involved in this. And it's still man.
Speaker 1:It takes me back to the time when I was sitting in the press briefing, the media briefing, and Antonio from HP was saying we're gonna give everything as a service, everything as a service. And Kirti, who at the time was the chief over there at Aruba I looked at him and was like everything as a service, like everything. And you know, here we are a handful of years later, in 2023, and we've got groups like Nokia who are entering that Again, private 5G as a service, so you don't have to pay any CapEx. It's all OPEX based on what you're using and how you're using it. And it's really neat. It's that upcoming trend of networking as a service, which I'll cover as the next part of this, but I think that that's. You know. We're seeing this move to augment a reality, to virtual reality, to more networking as a service, to more, you know, cloud-based services and that whole SaaS model really starting to take over a lot of the things that are happening. So it's very, very cool to see that.
Speaker 1:Now that I've shifted this little thing over, let me try and move my screen back to where it was supposed to be. I think it was there. Whatever, I just messed my graphics up as I was talking because I got so excited. Whatever, that's what makes it fun. Let's see what else do we have. That's what's going on. I think that that you know that's what's new that ECHO-HOW AR module, as well as the Nokia Network in a box, and there was another one, I think it was BT, bt or British Telecom. There was some another, or NTT it was NTT that was introducing some new 5G as a service. So lots of really great stuff happening along those lines, you know, helping people figure out the way that they want their network delivered to them. So I'm excited to see that. Excited to see that happening. I'm excited to see that.
Speaker 1:Moving on, what I'll do now is move on to what's happening now, because this one's interesting. This is about something called ACP, the Affordable Connectivity Program, launched here in the United States, and so ACP basically provides vouchers for people to qualify for it so that they can get connectivity at a decreased rate or a $0 rate in a lot of locations, so that they can get online. Some people who don't have, who may have an internet service provider that serves their area, but they don't. You know, financially they're not able to absorb the cost of whatever that connectivity costs them, and so ACP is really looking, is looking good. Lots of people that are subscribing to it, lots of people that are using the vouchers. It's great to see that. That's money, I think, well spent. There's lots of lots of people that can get online.
Speaker 1:39% of ACP enrollees live in red states in the United States, which was interesting. The breakdown between red states and blue states Not political, just I thought that that was an interesting stack or stat to look at overall about who's subscribing to these states. I wonder if it shows what the biggest one is. I think right now, lots I mean lots of states here. We've got 29,141 ACP eligible Americans that are out there and it gives them that voucher for 30 bucks a month, and even in some cases it's going up. So it's really interesting to see the states that are that are taking advantage of this. I know down here in South Texas we've got a lot, which is really cool, and so one of the things about it though that has generated a little bit of heat, if you will, when it comes to the way that ACP is being used is ACP can be applied to a mobile phone service or it can be applied to a broadband service, but it has to be one or the other.
Speaker 1:It can't be both. And if you're in a household, you can only use that voucher for one thing at a time. You know, or actually I think, you only use it for one thing. You can only use it for mobile service or for broadband service delivered via, you know, standard copper, fiber, wireless, whatever it is. And what we're seeing is that, as ACP takes on more and more, there's these mobile providers that are, you know, prepaid mobile providers that are really jumping on board with this and they're saying, hey, this is a great opportunity for mobile providers to step up in and take advantage of that ACP voucher so that they can provide broadband via hotspot in the home or they can bring it in via 5G and provide that in the home, which is interesting, because if you think about you know interesting dynamic in South Texas, if you have a whole home that's filled with children and you know mom or dad go use that voucher for their mobile service and then they're off at work the whole time, then does the family actually get to take advantage of what it's supposed to be earmarked for. So it's really interesting A little bit of controversy going on how that's playing out between the mobile providers that are absorbing those and if that's actually usable functional broadband for the students that are home, which is kind of the whole well, the whole points of this.
Speaker 1:Acp had 20.7 million households enrolled as of September 4th, which is 13.6 million more than they had last year September 5, 2022. I'm sorry it was, it was up, yeah, it was 13.6 million. Now we're at 20.7 million, so 7 million subs up a year over a year. There's 124 million households in the US, so that's 70% of US households are bringing this information from Fierce Wireless. It's absolutely one of my favorite websites to go to to grab information. I feel like I'm on it too much, but it's interesting because the ACP conversation is a great conversation to have and it's all about you know how we're delivering broadband to people in the United States. I think that's really. What's happening now is we're starting to see more and more communities that are coming on board that are supplying broadband for their, for, you know, the people that live there and for the school's students that live there.
Speaker 1:We've got such a cool program going on here in Far, texas, which is my neighboring city. You know, mcallen did this great initiative where we deployed Wi-Fi for the entire pretty much for the entire city 22,000 households that were covered, 16,000 users that were on it. It was pretty awesome. And then FAR just went fiber to the home for everyone. So they did this huge build out to run fiber to the home for everyone that lives in the city of FAR.
Speaker 1:I got to stand on a panel with those with those cats last week with the Texas Workforce Commission and Workforce Solutions down here and talk about how AI is going to affect the workforce development and the job and the job marketplace specifically in our area. And it was a crazy stat because it was something like 20, 20.7% of our workforce will be affected by AI over the course of the next seven years. It was 34,000 individuals, 34,000 jobs that they could put their thumb on, that were going to be affected by AI. So if you don't have those statistics about your community, it's really interesting to see how AI is going to affect your workplace. It's kind of a side note, but one of the things with that is the jobs that are going to be needed in order to pursue jobs and get jobs and get high paying jobs in the future.
Speaker 1:When AI is taking a lot of you know the mundane tasks out of the way, you know that connectivity component is super important. So that's how ACP plays into it. For us right Down in South Texas, there's affordability is very, very Hard to come by when it comes to internet service providers, and if we're moving into this area where workforce is going to be, where you have to have connectivity good connectivity in order to be a part of the workforce, then ACP is going to be vital for some of that that comes along. So that's what's happening now in my neck of the woods. As y'all know, that's one of my heartstrings. So start talking about affordable connectivity and broadband in areas, and I can just talk for days about it. But I don't want to talk for days because one of the things I've gotten feedback on With this, with this podcast and this little show, has been that it's short and sweet, to the point. So, that being said, I'm gonna move on to what's next. So I talked about what's going on now, which is that affordable connectivity. I talked about what's new at cows, ar and the Nokia Network in a box. That's pretty cool. So I want to talk about what's next, because I've saw, I've seen, a couple things that have been posted online about Wi-Fi 8 and you know, if you haven't, if you haven't fallen off that cliff and started to read about Wi-Fi 8 yet, it's pretty fun to look at Wi-Fi 7.
Speaker 1:As you know, a lot of people are working on that already. There's, you know, vendors that have put out, you know, pre standardized chipsets that are available. There's people that put out devices. You know, you know how it is, you know how this industry is. Every, you know someone mentions a new acronym and all of a sudden there's a new device for it. It's a weird device but sometimes it'll work.
Speaker 1:But Wi-Fi 8, the things that I'm that I'm looking at for Wi-Fi 8 just, you know three key points here, low latency being one of them. You know it's not so much about network efficiency from that component as it is from the ability Well, I guess is network efficiency being able to get data on and off faster. But the two, the two big things that they're really working around are UHR, which is also high reliability, that's, multiple access point coordination and transmission. So instead of MLO like, we're gonna have a Wi-Fi 7 which is just getting two links together to 5 gig radios. You know 5 and a 2. Whatever it is doing that, that link optimization and link coordination. Now we're actually talking about access points that can work together to help serve clients. So multiple access point coordination and transmission. Be on the lookout. The acronym is UHR ultra high reliability.
Speaker 1:That's the thing that that's gonna make a big difference here in Wi-Fi 8 as it comes down, you know, in 5, 6, 10, 8, 3. I don't know however many years when it comes that's what's gonna be there and also millimeter wave frequencies. So when you start to talk about MLO in 2 gig, 5 gig and 6 gig is we're gonna see in Wi-Fi 7 now start to add 45 gig and 60 gig to that. So that the whole why gig thing if you remember that, looking at how that's going to affect Wi-Fi and respectively of 45 gig Hertz We've got 5 and a 5.5 gig of open spectrum and in 60 gigahertz there'll be 14 gigahertz of open spectrum. So when you start to think about those, those 320 megahertz channels and the way that that's gonna, that, that's gonna scale up Over time, it's gonna be, it's gonna be pretty neat. We've got a lot of a lot of spectrum that's gonna be used and a lot of fast spectrum that's gonna be used and then coordinated obviously as as MLO turns into UHR, so I think that's pretty cool. Wi-fi it's gonna be really neat to watch.
Speaker 1:And RF as a service I've got no nerds as RF as a service. You know, I really, I really I want to look down down the ways a little bit and start to see that you know, this year, you know with, with a cow talking about the ar stuff, and there's a, there's a company called kinetic sits out there that's doing some of that digital twin modeling to do our floor plans and blueprints for rf. I think that that's really neat and I start, I'm starting, to really look at what. What's that gonna mean for all of us in the future? What's that gonna mean for us as our designers, as people who work in our f is administrators, as planners of our networks, things like that. And I really start, you know I that's where my mind's going. You know what. It's not just gonna be the design services in, you know, in the troubleshooting services, it's gonna be the actual feet on the street and I love to think about. You know, I started talking about this last year.
Speaker 1:If fuse, fuse twenty three, which is happening right now in Madrid sad that I'm not there was there's part of the open Wi-Fi team last year and you know, knowing, knowing that they're leading the charge and disaggregated networks and things, I'm sure there's a lot of buzz going on at fuse. Not lot has made it online. So Step their social media game up and spread the word about what's happening over there at the event this year. But talking about how, how, you know, being able to go out and troubleshoot a network by putting on a headset, not needing the spectrum allies are not needing the tools and and all that stuff to go out and really provide services just by looking at things and reporting that back and using cameras and sensors and all the other Data to push it back to help run RF as a service. So will elaborate more on that later.
Speaker 1:But I think the last thing that I really want to think about in the future is really my heads, my head stuck around network as a service and you know, with Nokia, making their introduction is not small company when it comes to To sell deployment. So I'm looking for Eric said I'm looking for out to loosen and looking for these other groups to come in and say, hey, this is what we're gonna start offering now, because some of the service providers are offering it, so let's see where those equipment manufacturers step up and see what they're gonna do. Anyway, that's my 15. That's it for this week. Those are the things are on the top of my mind. What's on the top of your mind? Send a message, getting great feedback on LinkedIn, so I totally appreciate it.
Speaker 1:I still need to get to a thousand subs so that my wife will take me to Mexico. So please, if you get a chance, tell everyone to subscribe to my channel so I can go to Mexico with my wife. I would very much appreciate it. Otherwise, post some comments online. Let me know what's top of mind for you and, if you know, if you want to jump online, maybe we'll get some guests on here pretty soon and, as I mentioned before, I'm lining up sponsorships right now, which is really good, and I do appreciate the support.
Speaker 1:Couple people have come out and show some really good early support, so expect some sponsored messages coming coming soon. There'll be like a little 30 second thing at the beginning and then there'll be like a minute or two in the middle, but I've got some new equipment on the way that I'm going to be showing off for the first the first sponsor of many and that will be net ally. So take a look at some of the tools I'm gonna have available. Anyway, have yourself a wonderful week. I will touch base with you all next week. In the meantime, enjoy your Wi-Fi. Have a wonderful week. Talk to you.
