October 10, 2025 • 47 mins
A polo field, a VIP tent, and thousands of devices waiting to light up—this week we take you behind the scenes of building a festival‑grade network that had to stand up fast, survive wind and wobble, and still deliver when John Mayer took the stage. We share the practical playbook: dual circuits into a gateway, 60 GHz point‑to‑multipoint for distribution, clean PoE runs to access points, and the small field hacks—like orange flags on telescoping poles—that make line of sight and troubleshooting human‑fast. Expect candid notes on channel utilization, why 2.4 GHz was a swamp, when simple tooling beats exotic analyzers, and how teardown can take ten minutes when setup is intentional.
From there, we zoom out to the bigger waves reshaping enterprise wireless. Wi‑Fi 7 adoption is climbing, which means real‑world mixed‑generation estates, careful upgrade points, and a renewed focus on telemetry and automation. We dig into the early promise of 802.11bf passive sensing—turning existing Wi‑Fi into a presence and motion sensor without new transmissions—and the rise of analog backscatter for ultra‑low‑power IoT. Privacy, consent, and coexistence aren’t afterthoughts; they’re table stakes if ambient intelligence is going to be useful and welcomed. On the competitive front, watch the split between cost‑sensitive solutions and license‑heavy premium stacks as buyers prioritize networks that “just work,” observable by default and simpler to run.
We also tackle private 5G’s steady role alongside Wi‑Fi, the reality check on satellite‑to‑device indoors, and what an FCC furlough means for approvals and product timelines. Underneath the tech is the human story: field craft, community, and a job market that’s finally moving again. If you’re looking to pivot into roles like solutions architecture or systems engineering, now’s a good moment to raise your hand—and we’re happy to make introductions where we can.
Subscribe for weekly, field‑tested insights on Wi‑Fi, sensing, and connectivity strategy, share this episode with a teammate who loves hands‑on lessons, and leave a quick review to help more builders find the show.
Thanks to our sponsors: Helium & meter Networks!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
What a happy morning, man.
What a week, dude.
What a week.
You know, it has been uh it'sbeen a crazy last couple weeks.
I've been out of the office,getting a lot of stuff done,
getting a lot of work done,having a really, a really good
time.
And so much has been happeningin the industry since then.
And oh my gosh, the FOMO isabout to be real, kicking in.
(00:24):
WLPC Prague is coming up.
Oh boy, oh boy, I'm not gonna bethere.
Already getting the textmessages.
So I hope everyone who's gonnabe on prog has a spectacular
time.
Looking forward to seeing thethe posts and the comments and
all the great data that's gonnabe coming out of that.
It's gonna be pretty, prettyawesome.
Let's do this.
Give me a second.
(00:48):
There we go.
Let's try and change this inputreal quick.
Make sure this is working.
I missed the last couple livepodcasts.
I guess I hopped on LinkedIn atthe right time today.
It's been a bit of forever.
Drew, how have you been?
Josh, I'm doing good, man.
It has been.
It has been uh the last coupleweeks have been have been really
nutty.
Uh but but good.
You know, uh, I'm glad that themajority of the people that
(01:10):
listen to this are people thatknow me or that are friends, so
it's always uh it's always agood time.
Um it's been crazy.
I you know, let's start withthat.
Let's talk about what's beengoing on.
I got to produce the the theWi-Fi at a VIP section called
the Palm Tree Club for an eventcalled the Palm Tree Music
(01:30):
Festival last weekend with JohnMayer and Kaigo and Sophie
Tucker, and this was an eventthat took place in Santa
Barbara, California, and it wasat the polo fields of the Santa
Barbara Polo Fields inMontecito.
It was in Montecito where one ofthe princes, Harry, William, I'm
not up to date on the princes,the one that's married to Megan
(01:51):
Markle, that one.
Apparently he was a polo playerthere.
Didn't see him, that's okay.
Uh, but I got to go uh help outwith the Wi-Fi there, and it was
pretty neat.
It was an interesting event.
A couple thousand people showedup for it, and it's a pretty
high-end event, and it's calledPalm Tree Music Fest.
So if you look them up online,you can see what they do.
They produce events all acrossthe United States and in these
(02:14):
funsi areas and the Hamptons andin Napa and in Montecito.
And so uh we got to provide theWi-Fi out there with Eero, set
everything up, got it up andrunning, supported.
I think in our section therewere like 50 tables of 10 people
each or something, all jumpingon watching John Mayer do the
John Mayer thing.
You know, I'm not I'm not not afan.
(02:35):
Uh I'd never seen him live.
He that dude can play theguitar, I'll tell you that much.
Um, that was pretty neat, butlots of lessons learned there.
You know, it's it's fun tocontinually go out and learn
about the way that people dothings.
And so I wanted to talk a littlebit about that.
Worked with a group out therethat was uh that that they used
to produce these events allacross the US and in different
(02:56):
places, and one of the guys thatwas out there with me uh did the
Wi-Fi Burning Man.
So I got to learn a little bitabout what they do at Burning
Man, what goes into that, andhow long it takes.
But for the nerds, I'll I'lltell you real quick the back end
of it was we had two uh circuitsthat were delivered, two gigabit
per second circuits that wereout there, uh one one gig and
one two gig circuits, and thenthose circuits were connected
(03:17):
into uh a gateway, and then fromthat gateway they branched out
into a point-to-multi-point 60gigahertz.
And so it was 60 gig connectingthe stage area, the the artist
trailer area, the VIP section,some of the merch, you know,
stuff like that was allconnected in via 60 gig.
These little uh these littledevices are about this big.
(03:38):
And it was neat the way thatthat uh that he did it because
you always learn something fromsome, you know, from watching
someone else do a deployment.
And in this case, it was neat tosee uh what he did is he you
know raised up the flag, theselike uh extendable poles, like
almost flag poles, and then atthe top put big orange flags on
them so you could see all acrossthe the park, you could see
wherever the orange flags were,there were connections that were
(03:59):
taking place.
And you know, I can only imaginethat that comes with having done
that hundreds and hundreds oftimes to make sure that you you
figure out the easiest way tofigure out where your points of
presence are.
Uh, and you know, overall itworked pretty well.
There were some issues with oneof the devices was on some of
the staging, so when peoplewould walk back and forth, the
thing would just wiggle aroundback and forth.
(04:19):
And so that I think that createda couple of issues, but for the
most part, it worked prettywell.
And uh it was a quick and rapiddeployment, and then from there
we branched off into one of uhinto a power over Ethernet
gateway, and from there intoaccess points providing access
right there in the VIP section.
But it was a pretty simpledeployment, and you know, just
from point to multi-point, andthen you know, back into by
(04:42):
fiber and then connected toWi-Fi on the front end.
So I'm curious if you've everdone events, you know, what
you've learned from doingevents, you know, channel
utilization was through theroof.
Five gig was was was super,super high.
Up uh, you know, up higher intothe spectrum was crazy.
No six, no outdoor six gig uhthat I saw that was deployed
there, and then uh 2.4.
(05:03):
2.4 is pretty trashed, as youcan imagine.
You know, and the tools that Iused when I was out there this
weekend or this past weekend, II have my go-tos and my kit.
Um, but you know what I used alot of on this one was Wi-Fi
Explorer Pro, obviously, andconnected to the OSIM uh device
for six gig scanning and forfive gig scanning.
So it was really that was themost simple kit I think that I'd
(05:26):
use in a while, where I justused my laptop as the main hub
for everything.
Didn't I I didn't fire up any ofthe other spectrum analyzers, I
was only doing two and fivegigs, so I didn't need anything
crazy.
Channel utilization getsreported on the dashboards of
the Euro access points I haddeployed out there, so I was
able to see that.
Um, but I didn't there wasn'tany crazy troubleshooting that
was going on because it just didwhat it was supposed to do.
(05:48):
So it was great to be out thereusing some simple tools to get a
network done uh as simply aspossible and stand it up and ran
it throughout the course of theevent.
And it was really, it was reallycool.
It was a lot of fun.
Um and then I got to see JohnMayer, which I had never seen
before.
So there was that.
Uh let's see, outdoor largeevents are wild, everything is
temporary and comes together atthe last minute.
Really fun to deploy andsupport.
Yeah, they are.
(06:09):
It's one of those where it'slike it's fun until something
breaks, yeah.
You know, uh luckily it's youknow, if you've done it enough
times, you you have it down pat,right?
You know exactly what toinstall, how to install it, and
what to do.
The one thing that was avariable that we were not
expecting, or two things thatwere variables.
One is a crazy windstorm came inand actually knocked the main
(06:29):
mast of that 60 gig point tomulti-point over.
And then the second was therewas a polo match the day of the
event.
So the whole morning was takenup by a polo match.
They have polo match at the polofields in Santa Barbara,
Montecito, you say.
Um, so that was prettyinteresting to see the crowds.
You had a polo crowd on oneside, and then you had all these
(06:49):
people that were like festivalgoers on the other side.
So that was pretty interestingto watch.
But overall, it was a prettyneat event.
Not the first live event I'vedone, not the last live event
that I'm sure that I'll do, butthat one, you know, there were
no big major challenges.
It was like a mini coachella, soyou're sitting in the middle,
you know, same same concept,right?
You're sitting in the middle ofa polo field, and you got to
stand up a network for a couplethousand people and then tear it
(07:12):
all down and pack it up.
And obviously, you know, settingit up took took about, you know,
took a couple hours to geteverything set up, and but
mostly running cables and makingsure it power was was where it
needed to be, and then tear downtook like 10 minutes.
Threw everything in a in aplastic, you know, case, a big
nanit case, and then ship thatthing off.
But it was a great, it was agreat show.
It was fun to be a part of.
(07:33):
And coming up, um, I've got somereally fun stuff coming up.
I'm doing an overnight install.
Uh, I like those where you thebusiness operates during the
day, so we've got to shut downand do everything at night.
So that's coming up uh nextweek.
I'll be at the Wispapaloozaevent next week um in Las Vegas.
So it's uh it's gonna be reallycool.
(07:55):
And if any of you know me fromthe old Wisp days, it's gonna be
neat to see some old faces thatare out there and be a part of
that event.
So I'm showing up Wednesdaymorning and I'll be there
Wednesday, Thursday forWispapalooza.
So it'll be good to see some oldfaces out there in the crowd,
some people that I haven't seenin a while.
Um but that's coming right outright on the heels of a of a
really neat install that I'llhave more details about later.
(08:17):
What else we got going on?
Um yeah, it's just been it'sbeen a lot of back and forth.
I know that resonates with witha lot of y'all.
And for those of y'all, ifanyone's out in the job market
and you're looking for a job andyou want to do something and get
involved with projects likethis, I have seen posting after
posting after posting onLinkedIn for jobs, which is such
a cool thing because for a whileit there was an issue where that
(08:41):
it didn't seem like there were alot of jobs to be had, and
people who are doing what we dodidn't have a place that they
could go and and do the thingsthat they love.
And I just keep seeing so manyjobs posted online.
Um, if something pops up andyou're in my network and you
need an introduction, let meknow.
I've been making introductionsfor a handful of y'all already.
I know that we're hiring where Iwork at Eero, and I know that
(09:02):
there's a lot of other peoplethat are hiring right now.
So if you're still in the marketfor a job or if you want to make
a move or something's happening,please feel free to reach out.
Let me know what's going on,whether it's solution
architecture, systemengineering, uh, whatever's
happening.
So there's a lot of there's alot of really neat stuff that's
that's uh that's happening therein the space.
So, you know, I look forward toseeing you out in the field.
Um what else?
(09:23):
Very different crowds.
Did you see different take ratesand client device types between
the polo match and the musicfest?
So they were separate networks.
Um the network at the polo fieldwas a Meraki network, dude.
It was like an overbuilt Merakinetwork.
Whoever did the Meraki installat the Santa Barbara Polo Club,
that's a that's a lot.
There's a lot of Meraki in thatspot.
(09:44):
Uh and it, I mean it works, I'msure it does.
There's a lot of there's there'sprobably a lot of people to go
out there and take in the event,but um I didn't I didn't have
any access to that.
So no, I didn't I didn't see it.
Um yeah, uh there's golly, Imean there's just I feck there's
a lot going on.
So so I want to jump into someof the the headlines and stuff
(10:05):
that are out there.
LinkedIn seems to have reallytaken off in the last year, so
as a place for the Wi-Ficommunity to land online.
Uh I couldn't agree more, man.
Uh really.
That's you know, for a while wewere all on X and or you know,
Twitter at the time, X at thetime, whatever it is, and a lot
of us have moved past that.
I posted something the otherday, like yesterday, I wanted uh
I wanted to see if anyone had aninvite code to Sora.
(10:26):
So if you have an invite code,let me know because there's some
funny stuff that I want to make.
But um, but I posted it, andusually when you would post
something like that on X before,it would just like immediately
you've had 30 people that wouldrespond.
But there's so few people I feelthat are actually on that
platform anymore for variousreasons.
But part of it is that you know,a lot of us just don't.
(10:47):
I mean, let me try and fix mycamera here.
It's just been uh the place hasbeen kind of a suck lately, to
be honest.
And LinkedIn has done a reallygood job of connecting people
with work-only related stuff.
So I would agree.
I think that that LinkedIn hasreally has really shown uh its
colors.
And I, you know, I've been sobusy, I haven't even posted a
lot of stuff on social media.
I got to meet some social mediaexperts, uh, some crazy social
(11:11):
media nerds, man.
Sean Walchief and the team overat Cali Barbecue Media.
What a fun group of people towork with.
This guy started a barbecuerestaurant in Southern
California, and let me see if Idon't destroy the story.
Uh basically, he started abarbecue restaurant and started
posting a lot of content onsocial media, did a really good
job with it.
That content took off, and someof the manufacturers and vendors
(11:33):
he worked with started to usehim to produce more content.
And now this guy's like a crazyrestaurant influencer, and uh,
you know, he's he's so much funto hang out with.
I had a great time with theirteam.
You'll see some content beingpublished with with this ugly
mug on on some of it, uh, youknow, me and my my face for
radio.
Um you'll see you'll see somenew content being posted for
(11:55):
some of the events that we didat that uh at that event.
Uh, some some content postedfrom the John Mayer concert at
Palm Tree.
Um, they were out there with us.
I got to meet them and learn alittle bit and watch them.
It was, you know, if you aredoing any type of uh production
or or social media or anythingyou want to learn more about it,
the best thing you can do isfind some of these people and
watch them.
A lot of people don't mindsharing their stories and their
(12:17):
secrets or and whatnot.
Um, at least the ones that I'vemet, they're really fun to be
with, and they'll give you tipsand they'll say, hey, you know
what?
I watched your podcast, and whatyou should do is you know, don't
do this or do that.
And then of course I don'tlisten to them, but you know,
that's why I stick at a thousandsubs.
1,600 subs, I think we're at.
Although I do have one video onTikTok.
If you're not following me onTikTok, I have a video that has
(12:40):
66,000 views on there that Ididn't realize had 66,000 views,
and it's the video where I Ipretend to do the ASMR.
I'm gonna make my daughter'slunch today.
And instead of putting in lunch,I put in SFP connectors and
flipper zeros.
So if you haven't seen thatridiculous video, uh please go
(13:01):
watch it.
It's really dumb.
Uh, and it was a lot of fun.
And you know what?
I used to think that the peoplethat made a lot of these videos,
like the goofy, the goofyvideos, I was like, oh, they're
not taking it seriously, youknow, watching Alexis do her
dances and whatever.
And then it's like, and then I'mlike, hey, that's really fun.
You know, after after talking toAlexis and getting to know her a
(13:21):
little bit and watching what shedoes online, I'm like, that's
just looks like fun.
Like, who am I to judge?
That looks like you're having agood time.
Speaking of uh, speaking of uhfriends in the industry, there
is a new podcast, uh Life Lifein the Uptime, Life in Uptime,
is that what it's called?
I don't know.
Uh, there's uh um Kevin Nans andAlexis have a new podcast on the
(13:41):
Packet Pushers Network.
So go take a listen to them.
They're gonna be interviewingand talking to people about how
they got where they are and whatthey're doing, and how you know,
maybe sharing some stories abouthow that's getting there.
So kudos to them for launchingthe podcast.
And and uh you know, it wasfunny to listen to the first
episode and then watch some ofthe outtakes where they're like,
we suck at this and we don'tknow what we're doing.
Uh, you know what?
(14:01):
Everybody sucks at it, andnobody knows what they're doing
the first time they cut one ofthese things.
I've been, you know, I don'teven know how many episodes I
have out now, and nobody reallyever really knows what they're
doing unless you hire a fullproduction team to do
everything.
So so kudos to you guys for forkicking it off.
I'm really looking forward toseeing um seeing and hearing
more.
Um, it's a fun, a fun one tolisten to.
(14:22):
Packet Pushers does a reallygood job.
There's lots of great content onthat network.
JJ's got a podcast, Keith has apodcast, and now Alexis and
Kevin have theirs on there too.
So kudos to you guys for doingthat and uh to Packet Pushers
for for kicking that off.
Um but yeah, it's uh the guysfrom Cali Barbecue were a lot of
fun to hang out with.
So if you if you ever need agood contact in the restaurant
space, you need someone to shootsome video or do some media, the
(14:44):
Cali Barbecue team is pretty,pretty dope.
All right, let's see.
What do we got going on?
There there's a there's a fewthings I wanted to look at here,
and what I started to do, youknow, not for full transparency,
I started to run all theselittle scripts on Chat GPT and
you know, uh Anthropic Claudeand just trying to scrape and
find news and see if there's abetter way to do it than what
(15:05):
I've been doing historically inthe past, which is RSS feeds,
because I love RSS feeds, butthen at one point I was like,
Drew, you're a moron.
You could be using AI to lookthrough those RSS feeds for you
and pull out things that youwouldn't normally talk about.
So I have this, I'm I'm tryingto learn more about the way that
I that I get information aboutwhat's happening in the
industry.
(15:25):
And some of it's kind of lame uhand but important.
Like there's no fun, I don'tthink, in talking about it, but
it's still important.
Such as item number seven,enterprise wireless land market
jumps 16% in quarter two, andWi-Fi 7 shares double.
You know, it sounds like a lameheadline, but then you realize
that that's the industry that weall work in.
Uh Del Oro, our good friendSean, reports that the
(15:47):
enterprise wireless land marketgrew 16% year over year in Q2 of
25, driven by a jump in Wi-Fi 7adoption, shares doubling from
13% to 26%.
The pace of Wi-Fi 7 uptakesignals that many enterprises
will need to plan for mixedgeneration deployments, new APs,
license models, andinteroperability challenges.
A good talking point here, itsays that I should use is
(16:08):
creating upgrade paths where toinject Wi-Fi 7 without
disrupting legacy clients, costversus benefit.
When is the performance orfeatures of Wi-Fi 7 actually
justify the spin?
I don't know.
Uh you know, these are these arequestions for the audience, I
guess you will.
Um, but definitely keep an eyeon monitoring and analytics
tools to ensure that diagnosticscan support those multi and
mixed generation networks.
(16:29):
Um Corvo, Wi-Fi 8's quote, ultrahigh reliability quote, of focus
signal shift in next generationdirection.
So there was an interview aboutWi-Fi 8 and and what it consists
of.
And it's time, I guess, to starttalking more about Wi-Fi 8,
reliability, coordinationbetween multiple access points,
(16:50):
interference management, realworld performance peaks.
Um this is the whole missioncritical, latency sensitive
buzzword, buzzword, buzzword,um, deployment of what Wi-Fi 8
brings to the table versus whatwas seen in Wi-Fi 6, 6E, 7.
Now 8 is focused onultra-reliability.
So that should be coming out.
So look for that interview fromCorvo.
Q O R V O.
(17:11):
That's happening.
Um check this out.
I don't I don't know how to sayit.
I should have asked Chat GPT howto say it.
Legiro, Legiro, L E G G I E R O.
Legiro introduces an analogbackscatter method that embeds
analog sensor data into Wi-FiCSI measurements in real time
without using a microcontroller,achieving ultra low power, and
(17:32):
maintaining Wi-Fi throughputperformance using backscatter.
Wi-Fi backscatter.
Fantastic.
Um, this is a path for passivesensors, battery, battery-free
sensors, or the ones that justhave the little loop in them,
uh, to piggyback onto existingWi-Fi infrastructure without
degrading performance.
For large-scale IoT sensingdeployments, this might shift
how we integrate sensors withwireless LAN.
(17:54):
So the analog embedding uh worksby it's trend it's transparent
to Wi-Fi and it works byoffering backscatter power to
some of these sensors that areout there.
Um the the sampling rate, thenoise is there, interference is
still going to be an issue,especially with Wi-Fi, and then
overall sensor fidelity andmaking sure it sensors work the
way that they're supposed to.
Uh, it might have some issuesright now moving into it.
(18:18):
But it's something to thinkabout if you're designing a
network, the future of whatWi-Fi is going to bring, not
just for Wi-Fi data, but for allof these other things, which
leads me into Doppler Radiancefield guided antenna selection,
which I'm not gonna talk aboutyet, but what I am gonna talk
about is 802.11 BF multibandpassive sensing.
(18:42):
This is reusing existing Wi-Fisignals for sensing.
Now, I'm gonna I gotta set mylittle screen share so you guys
can see what I'm looking athere.
If I tap this button rightthere, that's not gonna go
because now my freaking streamdeck isn't working the way that
I'm supposed to.
Give me a second, let me messwith my uh my settings on OBS.
(19:13):
Anyway.
Let's see here.
Let me open this up real quickand show you guys what I'm
looking at, because this ispretty this is pretty cool.
Come on.
There it is.
There it is.
Yay! The internet worked.
Multi-ban passive sensing,reusing Wi-Fi signals for
(19:34):
sensing.
So this is something that justwent through IEEE and IEEE uh uh
covers it.
And let me see, where is the isthis the link right there for
it?
Add the linking way.
So 80211 BF.
What this does is this leveragesexisting Wi-Fi signals, and this
is important to note becausethis does not interrupt your
(19:56):
Wi-Fi service.
It works.
I believe there's there'schipset modifications that need
to take place, and uh you know,absolutely firmware
modifications that need to takeplace.
But what's great about this isit's using existing Wi-Fi
infrastructure, and it's usingthese signals to do sensing
infrastructure.
Now we've heard about this andwe've talked about it.
This was shown off at Wi-Fi Now,it's been showed off at WBA.
(20:19):
A lot of people have seen this,but now the there's a there's a
IEEE 80211 BF standardizationeffort has been formally
submitted.
Um channel state informationfrom sub 7 gig and millimeter
wave enhances signal bandpassive sensing accuracy using a
novel model called uh Milagro,right?
Yeah, milagro, miracle, milagro.
(20:40):
Um the system demonstratesrobust performance across
different scenarios, includingmonitoring human presence in
workspaces and tracking movementin corridors.
Experimental results show how weimprove the performance of
single band passive sensingapproaches um uh sensing, uh
proposing measures to mitigatepotential risks.
The system addresses keysecurity issues.
The work advances the use ofWi-Fi for passive sensing by
(21:01):
reducing reliance on activesensing and extending the
capabilities of low-cost,non-intrusive environmental um
sensing.
So you can do this for homeautomation, remote health
monitoring, security, peoplethat are trying to break in.
Here's all the the deal, gesturerecognition, in-car sensing,
localization, and objecttracking.
This is now a thing, man.
(21:22):
It's it's coming out, and 802.11BF is in there.
So I wonder who the firstmanufacturer to start to support
this is gonna be.
Like who's gonna be the firstmanufacturer that says, hey,
we're gonna integrate this?
Is it gonna be uh enterprise?
Is it gonna be residential?
Is it gonna be small business?
I'm curious where this is gonnaland.
I would imagine residential.
(21:43):
Um, if you're thinking aboutsecurity systems, I would
imagine that this changes theway that security systems work
for sensing.
So, you know, and we've seendemos of this before, but now
that that this is actually athing, that's uh it's
fascinating to learn about.
Um, you know, I did ask, I didask uh the AIs right here about
(22:04):
this, and I asked uh if it if itinterferes with anything that's
happening, and uh according toAI, it doesn't, which is pretty
neat.
But again, smart home, humancompetitor computer interaction,
retail, augmented reality.
Um, product certification next,it says the Wi-Fi lines will
likely work on a certificationprogram to ensure
interoperability, market option,and then key privacy and
(22:27):
security concerns.
Um, passive sensing, Wi-Fisensing devices do not transmit
new signals, instead, theylisten to existing Wi-Fi signals
that are already part of normalnetwork communications, such as
beacon frames.
It has no impact on existingdata transfer because it uses
network traffic that is alreadypresent.
Dude, that is so boss.
You just need, I mean, do youjust need like a little box to
(22:48):
add on to your access point, ordoes it work on the same
firmware?
I have so many questions here,and I can't wait to see where
this goes.
Active sensing, new signals aretransmitted for more detailed
measurement.
The 80211 BF standard includesMAC layer modifications for
coordinating these sensingsessions, which if you have any
of these enterprise graderadios, or if you've got devices
that have multiple radios, Imean it's not a far stretch of
(23:10):
the imagination to think thatthese radios chipsets can now be
used, you know, when one's nottransmitting data, then the
other one can be doing Wi-Fisensing or vice versa.
Allow sensing devices tonegotiate for channel access,
ensuring that sensingtransmissions are scheduled to
prevent collisions andinterfere.
Sensing is performed using thesame radio frequencies, 2, 4, 5,
and 6 and 60 for you by Tsing60, maximizes the efficiency of
(23:33):
the spectrum.
And it's backwards compatible.
So check this out.
The standard provides basicsupport for sensing while
ensuring backwards compatibilitywith legacy 802.11 devices that
do not have sensingcapabilities.
Isn't that cool?
This is so cool, man.
And then, you know, it talksabout coexistence challenges for
high network, you know, highdensity networks.
If you think about dude, turnthis on a stadium.
Oh my god.
(23:53):
Nope, let's not do that.
I wonder what that would looklike.
Uh, so there's there's lotsgoing on there, and then on top
of that, you've got thebackscatter stuff that's
happening, and then you've gotDoppler Radiance field guided
antenna selections.
So there's this is another onethat I need to dig more into
before I start talking about it.
Like I know it, but it's anotherway for uh using Wi-Fi-based
(24:14):
human uh activity recognition.
So, you know, understandingwhere people are and how they
are.
There's uh there's a lot ofstuff that's that's that's
there, man.
So this is using the Wi-Fi notfor Wi-Fi, but for for other
things.
And, you know, if we look atwhether it's backscatter using
it to power devices, or whetherit's using uh, you know,
(24:35):
different types of antennaselections in order to find out
where people are, now we'restarting to see that Wi-Fi is
becoming more and more just acritical part of the
infrastructure that entireorganizations and companies and
services are going to be builtoff of.
Because, you know, who's gonnabe the first startup in the
sensing space that works withyou know existing equipment
(24:57):
manufacturers so that they cantake that data and do incredible
things with it, do peoplecounting, do tracking, do
telemetry, uh, understandenvironments, you know, um work
with with groups like you know,the what's the one that does
like all the motion sensinginside businesses to turn
Schneider, like SchneiderElectric, how are they gonna
leverage this thing to turnrooms on and off, to adjust
(25:20):
based on how many people arethere and change the thermostat?
I mean, there's so much that'sgonna be built on things like
this, where now that Wi-Fi hasbeen fully established as a
mechanism and a communicationsmedium, now what else can you do
with it, right?
And along those lines, you know,I'm having so much fun.
You guys know what I've beendoing with Signal Room, watching
Signal Room grow and do someincredible things with Signal
(25:42):
Roam as well, and using you knowthe whole YDAS component of it
and using cellular offload andbeing able to offload neutral
host networks onto Wi-Fi so thatyou could take advantage of this
robust Wi-Fi network that's beenbuilt to really offer high
quality of service in venue andout of venue.
You're looking, you're justseeing all these things that are
(26:04):
popping up that are Wi-Firelated but non-Wi-Fi related,
and it's just so encouraging aswe move into I feel like this
next life of where Wi-Fi is.
And part of that, right?
Uh you know, to be honest, partof that is understanding that
that we're at a point where allof the stuff that you had to do
(26:27):
to get Wi-Fi to work the waythat you needed it to do to
solve your problem, man, that'slike so 2005, right?
We're in this, we're in thisperiod now where Wi-Fi is just
supposed to work, right?
It's just supposed to do whatit's what it what it's meant to
do, and deployment should beeasy, and administration should
be easy, and we're we're at alevel where there's all these
(26:49):
companies that are doing it.
Why can't everybody just make itas simple as possible for Wi-Fi
to work the way that it'ssupposed to?
You know, I'm having a good timedoing the things that I'm doing
in that space, and there's othercompanies out there, meter, for
example, doing it in acompletely different way, where
they're automating all thethings that happen on the back
end to make it, you know, uheasy and and to do what it's
(27:10):
supposed to do.
And I think that we're enteringthis period now where networks
aren't the networks that theyused to be.
And you know, I don't want toharp on AI too much, but really
I love the idea that we're atthis period where you can
leverage simplicity and andultra-lible functionality of
devices because of lessonslearned with AI.
(27:33):
And so when you take it, whetherit's in home or with whether
it's in enterprise, when youstart to leverage what the
network can do once a networkunderstands itself with AI, um,
I think we're at this reallycool period where everything is
just supposed to work.
And and and it does, you know,in some of these deployments, it
just does.
It does what it's supposed todo.
And uh, and that's that's reallyneat to see.
(27:54):
I'm looking forward to theadvances that are gonna come
out.
I know um meter has theirconference, meter up coming
coming up uh in November.
The meter up conference is gonnabe really interesting to watch
because there's lots of thoughtleaders that are gonna be there,
and they're all you know, a lotof people have aligned behind
this organization to watch whatthey're doing with the AI
components and with theautomated components and and
really extending that enterprisecapability of Wi-Fi networking
(28:17):
and networking overall forward.
It's a connectivity company,right?
It's not, it's it's we'regetting this age where companies
are connectivity companies.
They're not, it's not a Wi-Ficompany, it's a connectivity
company.
It's getting people connected,right?
And that's you know, that's theethos that we have at Eero.
That's that's what's we'reseeing in other organizations,
is just we're just gettingpeople connected, and it's such
a cool thing because now thatopens up opportunity to do a
(28:40):
whole lot of other stuff.
Uh oh, look, everybody's got acouple comments on here.
Let's see, Eva, I miss Eva.
Oh man, I miss you, Eva.
I saw the the uh the post uhwith the sad face where you were
asking about uh about who'scoming in for Wyco.
Um if you're in the DC area andand you want to go see something
cool and hang out with somenerds, go check out Wyco in DC.
I dude, I can't keep up with allthe Wycos.
(29:03):
I man, and I still have yet togo to one.
I I wish I had I wish I had thebandwidth to to make it out to
every single one of thoseevents, man.
But there's just I'm having likethis is this is the thing,
right?
I was thinking about this theother day.
I've been getting Instagram, youknow, my algorithm is talking
about the work-life balance.
(29:24):
Apparently it knows what mytravel schedule is.
And and the CEO of Pepsi, theex-CEO of Pepsi, I I got sent
this this comment uh from mywife about the ex-CEO of Pepsi,
how the work life balance wasridiculous, how you have to
work, how you have to be good atone thing at one time and be
good at another thing at anothertime.
And and part of that, right, usas nerds in the industry and in
(29:47):
the space, is how do you balanceout doing the stuff that you
want to do versus the stuff thatyou have to do, right?
And and part of that also is youknow, I take pride in having a
um I don't know if you'd see merubbing my hand.
I take pride in having calluseson my hand because it means that
I'm actually out doingsomething.
Uh, you don't get calluses froma keyboard unless they're on
(30:08):
your fingertips.
I've never gotten calluses on myfingertips, but uh maybe I don't
write that much code.
But I love the idea that thatI'm in a position where I get to
get out in the field and do thethings that to me matter.
I love getting hands-on, I lovebreaking stuff, I love seeing
things break and then fixingthem and then getting creative
on how to do it.
And I think that it not thework-life balance, but the
(30:31):
work-work balance, you know.
Uh I I know that there's acertain uh dreadful group of
people like myself, you know,sadistic people who love to get
out in the field and getsunburned installing stuff and
climb towers and still do thatso that we can go back and have
conversations about it.
But I'm wondering how much, Imean, how many of us are there?
Are there a lot of people likethat who just really still enjoy
(30:53):
everything?
And Eva, I think about you onthis because you, you know,
you've transitioned to a newrole and and and it's you know
it's fun to watch.
And I know a lot of us havemoved roles back and forth, but
how do you, you know, how do youbalance out getting into a
position like can you go fromworking in the field to behind a
desk?
Or how do you how do you maketime to go out in the field and
(31:16):
do things?
And then there's the other sideof it, which is how do you
continue, how do you find thetime to go to events like Wico?
How do you find the time to makethe time to go to events like
WLPC?
And how do you balance outlearning and networking?
And and let's be frank, some ofit is just sitting around table
and talking to friends andtalking to people that are you
know like-minded as you.
(31:37):
How do you balance out the work,the field work, the office work,
the learning, the education, thedowntime?
It can be a lot, man.
And I'm you know, I think we allhave our seasons, to quote my
wife.
Uh, we all have our seasons ofdifferent things.
Like right now, I feel like I'min the season where I'm just
like nose down, digging intogetting stuff up and running and
working with it and tearing itapart and putting it back
(31:59):
together again.
And I'm having a real good timedoing that.
I had, you know, the podcastseason, I try and keep up with
it.
It's I I guess I don't do it asmuch as I should, but it's
really it's really fascinatingto see it.
So I wish I had time to go outto the WICO stuff.
Um, but I did I there's just somany of them, they're just so
difficult to keep up with forme, just because it seems like
now there's an event happeningevery month, and it's like, oh,
I want to go, I want to go, Iwant to go.
(32:21):
But uh I'm being picky andchoosy.
It didn't, you know, again, theFOMO is gonna kick off because
Prague starts next week and I'mnot gonna be there.
Uh, but you know, I hopeeveryone that's going has a
tremendous time because WLPCprog is is nothing to shake a
stick at.
All right, let's see.
What else do I have going onhere in the news?
Those were uh I think those werelike last week's deal.
(32:44):
Backscatter, enterprise wirelessland jumping 16%.
That's that's pretty cool.
Private 5G to double share ofenterprise wireless sales by
2030.
Check this out.
Anless firm mobile expertsforecasts that private 5G will
grow its share of enterprisewireless infrastructure from 10%
to 20% by 2030, especially inindustrial verticals.
(33:06):
Uh yeah, I mean that gives usfour years, five years to figure
it out to go from 10 to 20.
That's that doesn't seem likethe hockey stick it was supposed
to be, right?
Doesn't seem like that'ssupposed to jump as high as it
was.
Private cellar gains ground.
There's gonna be overlapcompetition coordinated with
enterprise Wi-Fi.
I don't I don't necessarilyagree with that.
(33:28):
I still think I uh there's no 5Gversus you know 5G versus Wi-Fi.
I think they're bothcomplementary.
I think that that you need bothin a in a perfect world, you
have both.
What has been fascinating towatch is the whole 5G from outer
space thing and people thinkingthat uh a signal that's beamed
down from low earth orbitingsatellites can penetrate a roof
(33:50):
and get down, and now I don'thave a need for a terrestrial
carrier anymore because I'm justgonna talk to space all the
time.
That's awesome.
Good luck with that.
Talk to Iridium.
Uh, let them let me know howwell their phones work indoors
for now.
Don't know that that's gonna bea viable uh concept, but maybe
I'm missing something.
And and I've maybe I am.
Maybe there's a differentmodulation or a different thing
(34:12):
that they're doing, or it'sdifferent frequencies I'm not
thinking about.
But it's been fascinating towatch people think that uh space
is gonna save everything when itcomes to indoor coverage.
I'm like, oh, I don't know aboutall that.
Uh propagation rules being whatthey are, uh, I'm not really
sure that we haven't met awizard yet, but you know, I'd
love to meet a wizard soon whocan actually change what RF
(34:34):
does.
Um, what else is happening?
Oh, this is crazy, man.
88%.
That is the number of FCCemployees that are furloughed.
Due to the government shutdownbeginning October 1st, 2025,
where it's uh October 9th now,the FCC has furloughed 88% of
its workforce, haltingnon-essential functions,
(34:54):
including licensing andequipment authorization tasks,
the delay or suspension ofapprovals for new devices,
access points, models, testlabs, spectrum, validation, all
of that is now slowed down, uhprocurement slowed down,
regulatory compliance checks areslowed down, enterprise and
service provider information isslowed down.
Uh I mean, what are you gonnado?
(35:18):
This is the US, it's the USdoing the US thing, government
shutting down, uh, physics isundefeated, no joke, man.
Um, yeah, so if you're trying toget stuff through the FCC, I
hope you know somebody there.
Because right now, with 88% ofits workforce uh furloughed, uh,
that's crazy.
We we still don't know how longthe government shut down the
states is gonna take, but now'sa tough one.
(35:39):
You know, I was reading anarticle this morning about how
travelers are rethinking a lotof air travel because air
traffic control is beingaffected and furloughed by the
by this whole thing, also.
And I've got like three flightsnext week, so I hope it doesn't
hit me too hard.
Um, those are some some of thenews items that were taking
place.
What else?
Um Cambium networks cranking outnew Wi-Fi 7 APs and wired access
(36:01):
gear.
Um, this is part of that wholeXerus thing, and dude, the
naming convention is justbrutal.
X755X.
I don't know, man.
This this is a namingconvention, it's just tough.
Enterprise WLAN market up 16%.
We already talked about that.
Uh oh, check this out.
According to Wi-Fi now, oh, soKlaus has a roundup that was
(36:23):
cited here.
He was citing Del Oro.
So I'm gonna talk about Wi-Finow, talking about Del Oro 16
year over year growth.
Uh, we already know thatdoubling 13% to 26%.
Ubiquity Comscope Ruck isJuniper all make gains, pointing
to a uh bifurcation between costsensitive versus feature
licensing premium.
Okay, okay.
(36:45):
This is a this to me is thefascinating one.
Watching who's making gains inthe space and having the
ubiquities and the ingeniousesof the world growing in market
share and having the other bigcontenders either staying
stagnant or not growing as fastas they were supposed to.
Cost sensitive versus featurelicensing premium.
(37:06):
Dude, we knew this was coming.
WLPC two years ago, we knew thiswas coming, WLPC last year we
saw this one coming.
There's a lot of questionablethings that are happening in the
quote unquote big enterprisespace.
The Juniper Aruba HPE thing, theCisco Meraki thing, how all
that's playing out.
(37:26):
If we're starting to see somenumbers of how that's playing
out, uh we knew that was coming,man.
We knew that was coming.
Uh it's it's gonna beinteresting to watch um equip
people make equipment purchasingdecisions no longer based on
just like like overall brand uhnot awareness, but you know, uh
(37:53):
what loyalty.
Brand loyalty.
I think that we're in a spot nowwhere it's giving rise to to
companies who you wouldn'ttraditionally think are in those
spaces, or new companies thatare coming into the marketplace
where people just want Wi-Fithat works, they just want
connectivity that works, and nowthere's enough um variety in the
(38:17):
marketplace where people canmake decisions that that aren't
the same that they made and orthat they would have made had
all these companies maintainedstability over the last, you
know, over the last 10 years,right?
And part of that is it also goesback to learning curve,
administrative curve, you know,all these things that people
think about.
And when you when you thinkabout devices that are just
(38:39):
supposed to work, and in comesAI, you know, the great the the
great leveler, right?
In comes AI to say, hey, youdon't have to have a CCIE to
deploy a network that's capableof supporting everything that's
out there.
And hey, you may not even needall this crazy equipment in
order to do the things that youwant to do, and hey, you may not
even need all of these servicesthat you've been paying for.
(39:00):
Woo, buddy, we're getting into afun time.
So I'm curious to see uh how thenumbers start to flesh out
between what we assumed wasgonna happen in the industry and
uh and what it is now.
So d uh that's that's crazy,man.
What else do we have on here?
Um let's see, what's the heyDrew?
(39:20):
You should talk about things.
Oh man, speaking speaking of oldschool manufacturers, I was I I
took a trip to West Texas for mybirthday.
If you know me, you know that Ilove getting out in the middle
of nowhere in West Texas andwent out to Marfa with the
family and chilled out.
And we walked through the hotelRio Paisano, and if you look on
my Instagram or you look on myTwitter, I saw an original old
(39:41):
school Meraki access point.
The hotel still has theminstalled, not working, they're
installed, and it was justreally neat to walk up and see
something really, really oldwith the with the old blip logo
and and everything.
It was really cool to see that.
I almost asked if I could justtake one home, but I don't even
know like what if they wouldknow what I'm talking about or
if they would think I wascompletely weird.
(40:02):
But I got to see some old, oldRocky AP out in the wild.
Um that was kind of cool.
You know, it's always fun to getto get I get sentimental about
stuff, right?
And it's always fun to seesomething that just really takes
you back to the idea of whyyou're doing what you're doing
and how you started and what theindustry looked like when you
started and the things that youused to think were cool.
(40:23):
Dude, I remember, you know,before the I when I was a kid in
my room, I had a picture of anNEC 17-inch monitor on my wall
and a silicone graphics indigoright beside it.
And those that was like my goalboard.
(40:44):
I was like, I really want a17-inch monitor.
Uh I'm just turning it like a28-inch monitor right now.
I just wanted a 17-inch monitor,and then like it's someday I
just want an SGI desktop to beable to play with, and I
remember the feeling of all ofthe tech that I wanted and all
the things that I wish that Icould get my hands on.
(41:05):
Uh, and when I was just likeyearning or dying to be a part
of the tech industry, and nowit's you know, it's it's fun to
have a flashback to that and seesomething and be like, man, I
remember when when that cameout.
I remember you know hearingabout that product and thinking,
whoa, this is gonna changeeverything.
And now now I've worked there,you know, and now I've seen how
(41:26):
the sausage is made, and now I'min this unique position.
And I think that that's I thinkthat that's really cool.
So don't ever lose that thatspark when you see something
that reminds you of it.
Don't ever lose that spark,because it's really cool to see,
it's really cool to see thingsand you know take a minute to
appreciate where you are andwhat you're doing.
And that's kind of I thinkthat's part of the deal with you
know, to go back and talk aboutthat podcast.
(41:47):
Um the the uh Kevin, who I havenot met yet in person, uh that
uh that those two are working onbecause it's the the whole idea
that how did you get started,what are you doing, and and
where are you moving forward.
So the the podcast with Alexisand Kevin, I think is gonna be
really neat.
I hope there's some good somegood characters on there.
Um what else do we want to talkabout?
(42:08):
I think that's it.
There's a lot of there's just alot of stuff happening, and I
think I think that we're all ina really cool spot.
I think that the industry, and Imean that in the industry, and
if you if you're not working forsomeone that you wish you were
working for, um try.
Try.
Um re if if I know them, reachout to me.
(42:29):
If a friend of yours knows them,reach out to them.
Now's a great time to be in theindustry and to get to find a
position doing something thatyou love and that you're
passionate about.
There are a lot of openingsright now, there's a lot of
movement happening in theindustry at all sides, right?
You've got the big enterprisesides trying to figure out how
they're gonna maintain marketshare, and then you've got the
smaller sides that are gettingscrappy trying to figure out how
they can take that market sharefrom the big guys.
(42:51):
So you're seeing that now withthose numbers that were reported
by Del Oro, right?
So now's a cool time whenthere's a lot of movement
happening, and I hope that youall are having as much fun doing
wireless as I'm as I am, becauseI'm having a hell of a time
doing it, and and uh testamentto that is how I haven't had a
podcast in a while.
Uh Eva says the shutdown ispersonal for us, my other half
(43:11):
is furloughed without pay, butsuch is life in DC.
Yeah, dude, that's that's tough,man.
That's tough.
There's a lot of crazy thingshappening in in the US right
now.
Um, but you know, this this tooshall pass.
Anyway, I hope y'all have awonderful weekend.
Um I it's great to jump on andhave these conversations and
(43:33):
have people go back and forth.
Like I said, I'm gonna be superFOMO'd out next week when
everyone's out in Prague.
So I hope everybody at WLPCPrague has a great time.
Looking forward to seeingeverybody at WLPC Phoenix.
I will be the next couple showsI'm gonna be at, I'll be at the
MurTech Executive Conference inuh in Orlando talking about uh
Wi-Fi and hanging out with someold friends in that space.
(43:53):
I'll be at the Wispapalooza showuh on Tuesday, uh or I'm sorry,
uh Wednesday, Thursday of nextweek.
So if you're in Vegas atWispapalooza, come by and say hi
to me.
Um I'll be at those two, andthen Amazon's big show,
reInvent, is happening inDecember.
I'll be out there for that.
If you're if you uh are anAmazon customer, if you're doing
stuff with Amazon or if you'regonna be at ReInvent, drop me a
(44:14):
note and uh I'll send you aninvite to something really cool
that we're doing out there.
It's gonna be really neat.
Euros putting on a hell of ahell of a thing out there, so
send me a note.
And then uh next after that isthe crazy month of January.
CES, National Retail Federation,my anniversary, one of my kids'
birthdays, lots of stuffhappening in January.
(44:36):
If you've never gone to CES andyou want to go and you're
looking for people to go with,drop me a message.
Uh there's a little group of usthat gets together now and we go
just walk the show floor andstuff together.
So if you've never been to CES,you want to go see how all of
the technology that we work onevery day is going to be making
its way into people's homes andinto their pockets and whatnot,
CES is the spot to make thathappen.
If you're gonna be at NationalRetail Federation, NRF, in
(44:58):
January in New York, that'swhere you get to see how the
businesses and retail andrestaurants and stuff are gonna
use that tech.
So drop me a message if you wantto hang out at any of those.
Anyway, that is my 45 minutes.
Thank you for listening.
I do appreciate it.
Lots of steady listeners, lotsof people commenting.
Um, really neat.
Last comment here from Josh (45:16):
the enterprise Wi-Fi market is in a
period of transition, movingfrom what you've described to an
era of automated, intent-basednetworking with massive
telemetry streams, simplifiedinto actionable insights.
What companies will get fromthis is the ability to uh
reallocate internal technicalresources to projects and take
other than just babysittingnetworks.
I couldn't agree more.
(45:37):
This goes back to that wholeconversation of it's not AI
that's gonna take your job, it'speople that know how to
effectively use AI to offloadthe stuff that is the the boring
uh you know uh tasks in thenetwork so that they can focus
on really becoming informationtechnology specialists.
That's what AI is gonna do.
(45:57):
We're about to kick this wholefreaking thing into high gear,
uh, and I can't wait for it.
Can't wait for it.
Anyway, hope to see y'all soon.
What a happy morning, man.
What a week, dude.
What a week.
You know, it has been uh it'sbeen a crazy last couple weeks.
I've been out of the office,getting a lot of stuff done,
getting a lot of work done,having a really, a really good
time.
And so much has been happeningin the industry since then.
And oh my gosh, the FOMO isabout to be real, kicking in.
(00:24):
WLPC Prague is coming up.
Oh boy, oh boy, I'm not gonna bethere.
Already getting the textmessages.
So I hope everyone who's gonnabe on prog has a spectacular
time.
Looking forward to seeing thethe posts and the comments and
all the great data that's gonnabe coming out of that.
It's gonna be pretty, prettyawesome.
Let's do this.
Give me a second.
(00:48):
There we go.
Let's try and change this inputreal quick.
Make sure this is working.
I missed the last couple livepodcasts.
I guess I hopped on LinkedIn atthe right time today.
It's been a bit of forever.
Drew, how have you been?
Josh, I'm doing good, man.
It has been.
It has been uh the last coupleweeks have been have been really
nutty.
Uh but but good.
You know, uh, I'm glad that themajority of the people that
(01:10):
listen to this are people thatknow me or that are friends, so
it's always uh it's always agood time.
Um it's been crazy.
I you know, let's start withthat.
Let's talk about what's beengoing on.
I got to produce the the theWi-Fi at a VIP section called
the Palm Tree Club for an eventcalled the Palm Tree Music
(01:30):
Festival last weekend with JohnMayer and Kaigo and Sophie
Tucker, and this was an eventthat took place in Santa
Barbara, California, and it wasat the polo fields of the Santa
Barbara Polo Fields inMontecito.
It was in Montecito where one ofthe princes, Harry, William, I'm
not up to date on the princes,the one that's married to Megan
(01:51):
Markle, that one.
Apparently he was a polo playerthere.
Didn't see him, that's okay.
Uh, but I got to go uh help outwith the Wi-Fi there, and it was
pretty neat.
It was an interesting event.
A couple thousand people showedup for it, and it's a pretty
high-end event, and it's calledPalm Tree Music Fest.
So if you look them up online,you can see what they do.
They produce events all acrossthe United States and in these
(02:14):
funsi areas and the Hamptons andin Napa and in Montecito.
And so uh we got to provide theWi-Fi out there with Eero, set
everything up, got it up andrunning, supported.
I think in our section therewere like 50 tables of 10 people
each or something, all jumpingon watching John Mayer do the
John Mayer thing.
You know, I'm not I'm not not afan.
(02:35):
Uh I'd never seen him live.
He that dude can play theguitar, I'll tell you that much.
Um, that was pretty neat, butlots of lessons learned there.
You know, it's it's fun tocontinually go out and learn
about the way that people dothings.
And so I wanted to talk a littlebit about that.
Worked with a group out therethat was uh that that they used
to produce these events allacross the US and in different
(02:56):
places, and one of the guys thatwas out there with me uh did the
Wi-Fi Burning Man.
So I got to learn a little bitabout what they do at Burning
Man, what goes into that, andhow long it takes.
But for the nerds, I'll I'lltell you real quick the back end
of it was we had two uh circuitsthat were delivered, two gigabit
per second circuits that wereout there, uh one one gig and
one two gig circuits, and thenthose circuits were connected
(03:17):
into uh a gateway, and then fromthat gateway they branched out
into a point-to-multi-point 60gigahertz.
And so it was 60 gig connectingthe stage area, the the artist
trailer area, the VIP section,some of the merch, you know,
stuff like that was allconnected in via 60 gig.
These little uh these littledevices are about this big.
(03:38):
And it was neat the way thatthat uh that he did it because
you always learn something fromsome, you know, from watching
someone else do a deployment.
And in this case, it was neat tosee uh what he did is he you
know raised up the flag, theselike uh extendable poles, like
almost flag poles, and then atthe top put big orange flags on
them so you could see all acrossthe the park, you could see
wherever the orange flags were,there were connections that were
(03:59):
taking place.
And you know, I can only imaginethat that comes with having done
that hundreds and hundreds oftimes to make sure that you you
figure out the easiest way tofigure out where your points of
presence are.
Uh, and you know, overall itworked pretty well.
There were some issues with oneof the devices was on some of
the staging, so when peoplewould walk back and forth, the
thing would just wiggle aroundback and forth.
(04:19):
And so that I think that createda couple of issues, but for the
most part, it worked prettywell.
And uh it was a quick and rapiddeployment, and then from there
we branched off into one of uhinto a power over Ethernet
gateway, and from there intoaccess points providing access
right there in the VIP section.
But it was a pretty simpledeployment, and you know, just
from point to multi-point, andthen you know, back into by
(04:42):
fiber and then connected toWi-Fi on the front end.
So I'm curious if you've everdone events, you know, what
you've learned from doingevents, you know, channel
utilization was through theroof.
Five gig was was was super,super high.
Up uh, you know, up higher intothe spectrum was crazy.
No six, no outdoor six gig uhthat I saw that was deployed
there, and then uh 2.4.
(05:03):
2.4 is pretty trashed, as youcan imagine.
You know, and the tools that Iused when I was out there this
weekend or this past weekend, II have my go-tos and my kit.
Um, but you know what I used alot of on this one was Wi-Fi
Explorer Pro, obviously, andconnected to the OSIM uh device
for six gig scanning and forfive gig scanning.
So it was really that was themost simple kit I think that I'd
(05:26):
use in a while, where I justused my laptop as the main hub
for everything.
Didn't I I didn't fire up any ofthe other spectrum analyzers, I
was only doing two and fivegigs, so I didn't need anything
crazy.
Channel utilization getsreported on the dashboards of
the Euro access points I haddeployed out there, so I was
able to see that.
Um, but I didn't there wasn'tany crazy troubleshooting that
was going on because it just didwhat it was supposed to do.
(05:48):
So it was great to be out thereusing some simple tools to get a
network done uh as simply aspossible and stand it up and ran
it throughout the course of theevent.
And it was really, it was reallycool.
It was a lot of fun.
Um and then I got to see JohnMayer, which I had never seen
before.
So there was that.
Uh let's see, outdoor largeevents are wild, everything is
temporary and comes together atthe last minute.
Really fun to deploy andsupport.
Yeah, they are.
(06:09):
It's one of those where it'slike it's fun until something
breaks, yeah.
You know, uh luckily it's youknow, if you've done it enough
times, you you have it down pat,right?
You know exactly what toinstall, how to install it, and
what to do.
The one thing that was avariable that we were not
expecting, or two things thatwere variables.
One is a crazy windstorm came inand actually knocked the main
(06:29):
mast of that 60 gig point tomulti-point over.
And then the second was therewas a polo match the day of the
event.
So the whole morning was takenup by a polo match.
They have polo match at the polofields in Santa Barbara,
Montecito, you say.
Um, so that was prettyinteresting to see the crowds.
You had a polo crowd on oneside, and then you had all these
(06:49):
people that were like festivalgoers on the other side.
So that was pretty interestingto watch.
But overall, it was a prettyneat event.
Not the first live event I'vedone, not the last live event
that I'm sure that I'll do, butthat one, you know, there were
no big major challenges.
It was like a mini coachella, soyou're sitting in the middle,
you know, same same concept,right?
You're sitting in the middle ofa polo field, and you got to
stand up a network for a couplethousand people and then tear it
(07:12):
all down and pack it up.
And obviously, you know, settingit up took took about, you know,
took a couple hours to geteverything set up, and but
mostly running cables and makingsure it power was was where it
needed to be, and then tear downtook like 10 minutes.
Threw everything in a in aplastic, you know, case, a big
nanit case, and then ship thatthing off.
But it was a great, it was agreat show.
It was fun to be a part of.
(07:33):
And coming up, um, I've got somereally fun stuff coming up.
I'm doing an overnight install.
Uh, I like those where you thebusiness operates during the
day, so we've got to shut downand do everything at night.
So that's coming up uh nextweek.
I'll be at the Wispapaloozaevent next week um in Las Vegas.
So it's uh it's gonna be reallycool.
(07:55):
And if any of you know me fromthe old Wisp days, it's gonna be
neat to see some old faces thatare out there and be a part of
that event.
So I'm showing up Wednesdaymorning and I'll be there
Wednesday, Thursday forWispapalooza.
So it'll be good to see some oldfaces out there in the crowd,
some people that I haven't seenin a while.
Um but that's coming right outright on the heels of a of a
really neat install that I'llhave more details about later.
(08:17):
What else we got going on?
Um yeah, it's just been it'sbeen a lot of back and forth.
I know that resonates with witha lot of y'all.
And for those of y'all, ifanyone's out in the job market
and you're looking for a job andyou want to do something and get
involved with projects likethis, I have seen posting after
posting after posting onLinkedIn for jobs, which is such
a cool thing because for a whileit there was an issue where that
(08:41):
it didn't seem like there were alot of jobs to be had, and
people who are doing what we dodidn't have a place that they
could go and and do the thingsthat they love.
And I just keep seeing so manyjobs posted online.
Um, if something pops up andyou're in my network and you
need an introduction, let meknow.
I've been making introductionsfor a handful of y'all already.
I know that we're hiring where Iwork at Eero, and I know that
(09:02):
there's a lot of other peoplethat are hiring right now.
So if you're still in the marketfor a job or if you want to make
a move or something's happening,please feel free to reach out.
Let me know what's going on,whether it's solution
architecture, systemengineering, uh, whatever's
happening.
So there's a lot of there's alot of really neat stuff that's
that's uh that's happening therein the space.
So, you know, I look forward toseeing you out in the field.
Um what else?
(09:23):
Very different crowds.
Did you see different take ratesand client device types between
the polo match and the musicfest?
So they were separate networks.
Um the network at the polo fieldwas a Meraki network, dude.
It was like an overbuilt Merakinetwork.
Whoever did the Meraki installat the Santa Barbara Polo Club,
that's a that's a lot.
There's a lot of Meraki in thatspot.
(09:44):
Uh and it, I mean it works, I'msure it does.
There's a lot of there's there'sprobably a lot of people to go
out there and take in the event,but um I didn't I didn't have
any access to that.
So no, I didn't I didn't see it.
Um yeah, uh there's golly, Imean there's just I feck there's
a lot going on.
So so I want to jump into someof the the headlines and stuff
(10:05):
that are out there.
LinkedIn seems to have reallytaken off in the last year, so
as a place for the Wi-Ficommunity to land online.
Uh I couldn't agree more, man.
Uh really.
That's you know, for a while wewere all on X and or you know,
Twitter at the time, X at thetime, whatever it is, and a lot
of us have moved past that.
I posted something the otherday, like yesterday, I wanted uh
I wanted to see if anyone had aninvite code to Sora.
(10:26):
So if you have an invite code,let me know because there's some
funny stuff that I want to make.
But um, but I posted it, andusually when you would post
something like that on X before,it would just like immediately
you've had 30 people that wouldrespond.
But there's so few people I feelthat are actually on that
platform anymore for variousreasons.
But part of it is that you know,a lot of us just don't.
(10:47):
I mean, let me try and fix mycamera here.
It's just been uh the place hasbeen kind of a suck lately, to
be honest.
And LinkedIn has done a reallygood job of connecting people
with work-only related stuff.
So I would agree.
I think that that LinkedIn hasreally has really shown uh its
colors.
And I, you know, I've been sobusy, I haven't even posted a
lot of stuff on social media.
I got to meet some social mediaexperts, uh, some crazy social
(11:11):
media nerds, man.
Sean Walchief and the team overat Cali Barbecue Media.
What a fun group of people towork with.
This guy started a barbecuerestaurant in Southern
California, and let me see if Idon't destroy the story.
Uh basically, he started abarbecue restaurant and started
posting a lot of content onsocial media, did a really good
job with it.
That content took off, and someof the manufacturers and vendors
(11:33):
he worked with started to usehim to produce more content.
And now this guy's like a crazyrestaurant influencer, and uh,
you know, he's he's so much funto hang out with.
I had a great time with theirteam.
You'll see some content beingpublished with with this ugly
mug on on some of it, uh, youknow, me and my my face for
radio.
Um you'll see you'll see somenew content being posted for
(11:55):
some of the events that we didat that uh at that event.
Uh, some some content postedfrom the John Mayer concert at
Palm Tree.
Um, they were out there with us.
I got to meet them and learn alittle bit and watch them.
It was, you know, if you aredoing any type of uh production
or or social media or anythingyou want to learn more about it,
the best thing you can do isfind some of these people and
watch them.
A lot of people don't mindsharing their stories and their
(12:17):
secrets or and whatnot.
Um, at least the ones that I'vemet, they're really fun to be
with, and they'll give you tipsand they'll say, hey, you know
what?
I watched your podcast, and whatyou should do is you know, don't
do this or do that.
And then of course I don'tlisten to them, but you know,
that's why I stick at a thousandsubs.
1,600 subs, I think we're at.
Although I do have one video onTikTok.
If you're not following me onTikTok, I have a video that has
(12:40):
66,000 views on there that Ididn't realize had 66,000 views,
and it's the video where I Ipretend to do the ASMR.
I'm gonna make my daughter'slunch today.
And instead of putting in lunch,I put in SFP connectors and
flipper zeros.
So if you haven't seen thatridiculous video, uh please go
(13:01):
watch it.
It's really dumb.
Uh, and it was a lot of fun.
And you know what?
I used to think that the peoplethat made a lot of these videos,
like the goofy, the goofyvideos, I was like, oh, they're
not taking it seriously, youknow, watching Alexis do her
dances and whatever.
And then it's like, and then I'mlike, hey, that's really fun.
You know, after after talking toAlexis and getting to know her a
(13:21):
little bit and watching what shedoes online, I'm like, that's
just looks like fun.
Like, who am I to judge?
That looks like you're having agood time.
Speaking of uh, speaking of uhfriends in the industry, there
is a new podcast, uh Life Lifein the Uptime, Life in Uptime,
is that what it's called?
I don't know.
Uh, there's uh um Kevin Nans andAlexis have a new podcast on the
(13:41):
Packet Pushers Network.
So go take a listen to them.
They're gonna be interviewingand talking to people about how
they got where they are and whatthey're doing, and how you know,
maybe sharing some stories abouthow that's getting there.
So kudos to them for launchingthe podcast.
And and uh you know, it wasfunny to listen to the first
episode and then watch some ofthe outtakes where they're like,
we suck at this and we don'tknow what we're doing.
Uh, you know what?
(14:01):
Everybody sucks at it, andnobody knows what they're doing
the first time they cut one ofthese things.
I've been, you know, I don'teven know how many episodes I
have out now, and nobody reallyever really knows what they're
doing unless you hire a fullproduction team to do
everything.
So so kudos to you guys for forkicking it off.
I'm really looking forward toseeing um seeing and hearing
more.
Um, it's a fun, a fun one tolisten to.
(14:22):
Packet Pushers does a reallygood job.
There's lots of great content onthat network.
JJ's got a podcast, Keith has apodcast, and now Alexis and
Kevin have theirs on there too.
So kudos to you guys for doingthat and uh to Packet Pushers
for for kicking that off.
Um but yeah, it's uh the guysfrom Cali Barbecue were a lot of
fun to hang out with.
So if you if you ever need agood contact in the restaurant
space, you need someone to shootsome video or do some media, the
(14:44):
Cali Barbecue team is pretty,pretty dope.
All right, let's see.
What do we got going on?
There there's a there's a fewthings I wanted to look at here,
and what I started to do, youknow, not for full transparency,
I started to run all theselittle scripts on Chat GPT and
you know, uh Anthropic Claudeand just trying to scrape and
find news and see if there's abetter way to do it than what
(15:05):
I've been doing historically inthe past, which is RSS feeds,
because I love RSS feeds, butthen at one point I was like,
Drew, you're a moron.
You could be using AI to lookthrough those RSS feeds for you
and pull out things that youwouldn't normally talk about.
So I have this, I'm I'm tryingto learn more about the way that
I that I get information aboutwhat's happening in the
industry.
(15:25):
And some of it's kind of lame uhand but important.
Like there's no fun, I don'tthink, in talking about it, but
it's still important.
Such as item number seven,enterprise wireless land market
jumps 16% in quarter two, andWi-Fi 7 shares double.
You know, it sounds like a lameheadline, but then you realize
that that's the industry that weall work in.
Uh Del Oro, our good friendSean, reports that the
(15:47):
enterprise wireless land marketgrew 16% year over year in Q2 of
25, driven by a jump in Wi-Fi 7adoption, shares doubling from
13% to 26%.
The pace of Wi-Fi 7 uptakesignals that many enterprises
will need to plan for mixedgeneration deployments, new APs,
license models, andinteroperability challenges.
A good talking point here, itsays that I should use is
(16:08):
creating upgrade paths where toinject Wi-Fi 7 without
disrupting legacy clients, costversus benefit.
When is the performance orfeatures of Wi-Fi 7 actually
justify the spin?
I don't know.
Uh you know, these are these arequestions for the audience, I
guess you will.
Um, but definitely keep an eyeon monitoring and analytics
tools to ensure that diagnosticscan support those multi and
mixed generation networks.
(16:29):
Um Corvo, Wi-Fi 8's quote, ultrahigh reliability quote, of focus
signal shift in next generationdirection.
So there was an interview aboutWi-Fi 8 and and what it consists
of.
And it's time, I guess, to starttalking more about Wi-Fi 8,
reliability, coordinationbetween multiple access points,
(16:50):
interference management, realworld performance peaks.
Um this is the whole missioncritical, latency sensitive
buzzword, buzzword, buzzword,um, deployment of what Wi-Fi 8
brings to the table versus whatwas seen in Wi-Fi 6, 6E, 7.
Now 8 is focused onultra-reliability.
So that should be coming out.
So look for that interview fromCorvo.
Q O R V O.
(17:11):
That's happening.
Um check this out.
I don't I don't know how to sayit.
I should have asked Chat GPT howto say it.
Legiro, Legiro, L E G G I E R O.
Legiro introduces an analogbackscatter method that embeds
analog sensor data into Wi-FiCSI measurements in real time
without using a microcontroller,achieving ultra low power, and
(17:32):
maintaining Wi-Fi throughputperformance using backscatter.
Wi-Fi backscatter.
Fantastic.
Um, this is a path for passivesensors, battery, battery-free
sensors, or the ones that justhave the little loop in them,
uh, to piggyback onto existingWi-Fi infrastructure without
degrading performance.
For large-scale IoT sensingdeployments, this might shift
how we integrate sensors withwireless LAN.
(17:54):
So the analog embedding uh worksby it's trend it's transparent
to Wi-Fi and it works byoffering backscatter power to
some of these sensors that areout there.
Um the the sampling rate, thenoise is there, interference is
still going to be an issue,especially with Wi-Fi, and then
overall sensor fidelity andmaking sure it sensors work the
way that they're supposed to.
Uh, it might have some issuesright now moving into it.
(18:18):
But it's something to thinkabout if you're designing a
network, the future of whatWi-Fi is going to bring, not
just for Wi-Fi data, but for allof these other things, which
leads me into Doppler Radiancefield guided antenna selection,
which I'm not gonna talk aboutyet, but what I am gonna talk
about is 802.11 BF multibandpassive sensing.
(18:42):
This is reusing existing Wi-Fisignals for sensing.
Now, I'm gonna I gotta set mylittle screen share so you guys
can see what I'm looking athere.
If I tap this button rightthere, that's not gonna go
because now my freaking streamdeck isn't working the way that
I'm supposed to.
Give me a second, let me messwith my uh my settings on OBS.
(19:13):
Anyway.
Let's see here.
Let me open this up real quickand show you guys what I'm
looking at, because this ispretty this is pretty cool.
Come on.
There it is.
There it is.
Yay! The internet worked.
Multi-ban passive sensing,reusing Wi-Fi signals for
(19:34):
sensing.
So this is something that justwent through IEEE and IEEE uh uh
covers it.
And let me see, where is the isthis the link right there for
it?
Add the linking way.
So 80211 BF.
What this does is this leveragesexisting Wi-Fi signals, and this
is important to note becausethis does not interrupt your
(19:56):
Wi-Fi service.
It works.
I believe there's there'schipset modifications that need
to take place, and uh you know,absolutely firmware
modifications that need to takeplace.
But what's great about this isit's using existing Wi-Fi
infrastructure, and it's usingthese signals to do sensing
infrastructure.
Now we've heard about this andwe've talked about it.
This was shown off at Wi-Fi Now,it's been showed off at WBA.
(20:19):
A lot of people have seen this,but now the there's a there's a
IEEE 80211 BF standardizationeffort has been formally
submitted.
Um channel state informationfrom sub 7 gig and millimeter
wave enhances signal bandpassive sensing accuracy using a
novel model called uh Milagro,right?
Yeah, milagro, miracle, milagro.
(20:40):
Um the system demonstratesrobust performance across
different scenarios, includingmonitoring human presence in
workspaces and tracking movementin corridors.
Experimental results show how weimprove the performance of
single band passive sensingapproaches um uh sensing, uh
proposing measures to mitigatepotential risks.
The system addresses keysecurity issues.
The work advances the use ofWi-Fi for passive sensing by
(21:01):
reducing reliance on activesensing and extending the
capabilities of low-cost,non-intrusive environmental um
sensing.
So you can do this for homeautomation, remote health
monitoring, security, peoplethat are trying to break in.
Here's all the the deal, gesturerecognition, in-car sensing,
localization, and objecttracking.
This is now a thing, man.
(21:22):
It's it's coming out, and 802.11BF is in there.
So I wonder who the firstmanufacturer to start to support
this is gonna be.
Like who's gonna be the firstmanufacturer that says, hey,
we're gonna integrate this?
Is it gonna be uh enterprise?
Is it gonna be residential?
Is it gonna be small business?
I'm curious where this is gonnaland.
I would imagine residential.
(21:43):
Um, if you're thinking aboutsecurity systems, I would
imagine that this changes theway that security systems work
for sensing.
So, you know, and we've seendemos of this before, but now
that that this is actually athing, that's uh it's
fascinating to learn about.
Um, you know, I did ask, I didask uh the AIs right here about
(22:04):
this, and I asked uh if it if itinterferes with anything that's
happening, and uh according toAI, it doesn't, which is pretty
neat.
But again, smart home, humancompetitor computer interaction,
retail, augmented reality.
Um, product certification next,it says the Wi-Fi lines will
likely work on a certificationprogram to ensure
interoperability, market option,and then key privacy and
(22:27):
security concerns.
Um, passive sensing, Wi-Fisensing devices do not transmit
new signals, instead, theylisten to existing Wi-Fi signals
that are already part of normalnetwork communications, such as
beacon frames.
It has no impact on existingdata transfer because it uses
network traffic that is alreadypresent.
Dude, that is so boss.
You just need, I mean, do youjust need like a little box to
(22:48):
add on to your access point, ordoes it work on the same
firmware?
I have so many questions here,and I can't wait to see where
this goes.
Active sensing, new signals aretransmitted for more detailed
measurement.
The 80211 BF standard includesMAC layer modifications for
coordinating these sensingsessions, which if you have any
of these enterprise graderadios, or if you've got devices
that have multiple radios, Imean it's not a far stretch of
(23:10):
the imagination to think thatthese radios chipsets can now be
used, you know, when one's nottransmitting data, then the
other one can be doing Wi-Fisensing or vice versa.
Allow sensing devices tonegotiate for channel access,
ensuring that sensingtransmissions are scheduled to
prevent collisions andinterfere.
Sensing is performed using thesame radio frequencies, 2, 4, 5,
and 6 and 60 for you by Tsing60, maximizes the efficiency of
(23:33):
the spectrum.
And it's backwards compatible.
So check this out.
The standard provides basicsupport for sensing while
ensuring backwards compatibilitywith legacy 802.11 devices that
do not have sensingcapabilities.
Isn't that cool?
This is so cool, man.
And then, you know, it talksabout coexistence challenges for
high network, you know, highdensity networks.
If you think about dude, turnthis on a stadium.
Oh my god.
(23:53):
Nope, let's not do that.
I wonder what that would looklike.
Uh, so there's there's lotsgoing on there, and then on top
of that, you've got thebackscatter stuff that's
happening, and then you've gotDoppler Radiance field guided
antenna selections.
So there's this is another onethat I need to dig more into
before I start talking about it.
Like I know it, but it's anotherway for uh using Wi-Fi-based
(24:14):
human uh activity recognition.
So, you know, understandingwhere people are and how they
are.
There's uh there's a lot ofstuff that's that's that's
there, man.
So this is using the Wi-Fi notfor Wi-Fi, but for for other
things.
And, you know, if we look atwhether it's backscatter using
it to power devices, or whetherit's using uh, you know,
(24:35):
different types of antennaselections in order to find out
where people are, now we'restarting to see that Wi-Fi is
becoming more and more just acritical part of the
infrastructure that entireorganizations and companies and
services are going to be builtoff of.
Because, you know, who's gonnabe the first startup in the
sensing space that works withyou know existing equipment
(24:57):
manufacturers so that they cantake that data and do incredible
things with it, do peoplecounting, do tracking, do
telemetry, uh, understandenvironments, you know, um work
with with groups like you know,the what's the one that does
like all the motion sensinginside businesses to turn
Schneider, like SchneiderElectric, how are they gonna
leverage this thing to turnrooms on and off, to adjust
(25:20):
based on how many people arethere and change the thermostat?
I mean, there's so much that'sgonna be built on things like
this, where now that Wi-Fi hasbeen fully established as a
mechanism and a communicationsmedium, now what else can you do
with it, right?
And along those lines, you know,I'm having so much fun.
You guys know what I've beendoing with Signal Room, watching
Signal Room grow and do someincredible things with Signal
(25:42):
Roam as well, and using you knowthe whole YDAS component of it
and using cellular offload andbeing able to offload neutral
host networks onto Wi-Fi so thatyou could take advantage of this
robust Wi-Fi network that's beenbuilt to really offer high
quality of service in venue andout of venue.
You're looking, you're justseeing all these things that are
(26:04):
popping up that are Wi-Firelated but non-Wi-Fi related,
and it's just so encouraging aswe move into I feel like this
next life of where Wi-Fi is.
And part of that, right?
Uh you know, to be honest, partof that is understanding that
that we're at a point where allof the stuff that you had to do
(26:27):
to get Wi-Fi to work the waythat you needed it to do to
solve your problem, man, that'slike so 2005, right?
We're in this, we're in thisperiod now where Wi-Fi is just
supposed to work, right?
It's just supposed to do whatit's what it what it's meant to
do, and deployment should beeasy, and administration should
be easy, and we're we're at alevel where there's all these
(26:49):
companies that are doing it.
Why can't everybody just make itas simple as possible for Wi-Fi
to work the way that it'ssupposed to?
You know, I'm having a good timedoing the things that I'm doing
in that space, and there's othercompanies out there, meter, for
example, doing it in acompletely different way, where
they're automating all thethings that happen on the back
end to make it, you know, uheasy and and to do what it's
(27:10):
supposed to do.
And I think that we're enteringthis period now where networks
aren't the networks that theyused to be.
And you know, I don't want toharp on AI too much, but really
I love the idea that we're atthis period where you can
leverage simplicity and andultra-lible functionality of
devices because of lessonslearned with AI.
(27:33):
And so when you take it, whetherit's in home or with whether
it's in enterprise, when youstart to leverage what the
network can do once a networkunderstands itself with AI, um,
I think we're at this reallycool period where everything is
just supposed to work.
And and and it does, you know,in some of these deployments, it
just does.
It does what it's supposed todo.
And uh, and that's that's reallyneat to see.
(27:54):
I'm looking forward to theadvances that are gonna come
out.
I know um meter has theirconference, meter up coming
coming up uh in November.
The meter up conference is gonnabe really interesting to watch
because there's lots of thoughtleaders that are gonna be there,
and they're all you know, a lotof people have aligned behind
this organization to watch whatthey're doing with the AI
components and with theautomated components and and
really extending that enterprisecapability of Wi-Fi networking
(28:17):
and networking overall forward.
It's a connectivity company,right?
It's not, it's it's we'regetting this age where companies
are connectivity companies.
They're not, it's not a Wi-Ficompany, it's a connectivity
company.
It's getting people connected,right?
And that's you know, that's theethos that we have at Eero.
That's that's what's we'reseeing in other organizations,
is just we're just gettingpeople connected, and it's such
a cool thing because now thatopens up opportunity to do a
(28:40):
whole lot of other stuff.
Uh oh, look, everybody's got acouple comments on here.
Let's see, Eva, I miss Eva.
Oh man, I miss you, Eva.
I saw the the uh the post uhwith the sad face where you were
asking about uh about who'scoming in for Wyco.
Um if you're in the DC area andand you want to go see something
cool and hang out with somenerds, go check out Wyco in DC.
I dude, I can't keep up with allthe Wycos.
(29:03):
I man, and I still have yet togo to one.
I I wish I had I wish I had thebandwidth to to make it out to
every single one of thoseevents, man.
But there's just I'm having likethis is this is the thing,
right?
I was thinking about this theother day.
I've been getting Instagram, youknow, my algorithm is talking
about the work-life balance.
(29:24):
Apparently it knows what mytravel schedule is.
And and the CEO of Pepsi, theex-CEO of Pepsi, I I got sent
this this comment uh from mywife about the ex-CEO of Pepsi,
how the work life balance wasridiculous, how you have to
work, how you have to be good atone thing at one time and be
good at another thing at anothertime.
And and part of that, right, usas nerds in the industry and in
(29:47):
the space, is how do you balanceout doing the stuff that you
want to do versus the stuff thatyou have to do, right?
And and part of that also is youknow, I take pride in having a
um I don't know if you'd see merubbing my hand.
I take pride in having calluseson my hand because it means that
I'm actually out doingsomething.
Uh, you don't get calluses froma keyboard unless they're on
(30:08):
your fingertips.
I've never gotten calluses on myfingertips, but uh maybe I don't
write that much code.
But I love the idea that thatI'm in a position where I get to
get out in the field and do thethings that to me matter.
I love getting hands-on, I lovebreaking stuff, I love seeing
things break and then fixingthem and then getting creative
on how to do it.
And I think that it not thework-life balance, but the
(30:31):
work-work balance, you know.
Uh I I know that there's acertain uh dreadful group of
people like myself, you know,sadistic people who love to get
out in the field and getsunburned installing stuff and
climb towers and still do thatso that we can go back and have
conversations about it.
But I'm wondering how much, Imean, how many of us are there?
Are there a lot of people likethat who just really still enjoy
(30:53):
everything?
And Eva, I think about you onthis because you, you know,
you've transitioned to a newrole and and and it's you know
it's fun to watch.
And I know a lot of us havemoved roles back and forth, but
how do you, you know, how do youbalance out getting into a
position like can you go fromworking in the field to behind a
desk?
Or how do you how do you maketime to go out in the field and
(31:16):
do things?
And then there's the other sideof it, which is how do you
continue, how do you find thetime to go to events like Wico?
How do you find the time to makethe time to go to events like
WLPC?
And how do you balance outlearning and networking?
And and let's be frank, some ofit is just sitting around table
and talking to friends andtalking to people that are you
know like-minded as you.
(31:37):
How do you balance out the work,the field work, the office work,
the learning, the education, thedowntime?
It can be a lot, man.
And I'm you know, I think we allhave our seasons, to quote my
wife.
Uh, we all have our seasons ofdifferent things.
Like right now, I feel like I'min the season where I'm just
like nose down, digging intogetting stuff up and running and
working with it and tearing itapart and putting it back
(31:59):
together again.
And I'm having a real good timedoing that.
I had, you know, the podcastseason, I try and keep up with
it.
It's I I guess I don't do it asmuch as I should, but it's
really it's really fascinatingto see it.
So I wish I had time to go outto the WICO stuff.
Um, but I did I there's just somany of them, they're just so
difficult to keep up with forme, just because it seems like
now there's an event happeningevery month, and it's like, oh,
I want to go, I want to go, Iwant to go.
(32:21):
But uh I'm being picky andchoosy.
It didn't, you know, again, theFOMO is gonna kick off because
Prague starts next week and I'mnot gonna be there.
Uh, but you know, I hopeeveryone that's going has a
tremendous time because WLPCprog is is nothing to shake a
stick at.
All right, let's see.
What else do I have going onhere in the news?
Those were uh I think those werelike last week's deal.
(32:44):
Backscatter, enterprise wirelessland jumping 16%.
That's that's pretty cool.
Private 5G to double share ofenterprise wireless sales by
2030.
Check this out.
Anless firm mobile expertsforecasts that private 5G will
grow its share of enterprisewireless infrastructure from 10%
to 20% by 2030, especially inindustrial verticals.
(33:06):
Uh yeah, I mean that gives usfour years, five years to figure
it out to go from 10 to 20.
That's that doesn't seem likethe hockey stick it was supposed
to be, right?
Doesn't seem like that'ssupposed to jump as high as it
was.
Private cellar gains ground.
There's gonna be overlapcompetition coordinated with
enterprise Wi-Fi.
I don't I don't necessarilyagree with that.
(33:28):
I still think I uh there's no 5Gversus you know 5G versus Wi-Fi.
I think they're bothcomplementary.
I think that that you need bothin a in a perfect world, you
have both.
What has been fascinating towatch is the whole 5G from outer
space thing and people thinkingthat uh a signal that's beamed
down from low earth orbitingsatellites can penetrate a roof
(33:50):
and get down, and now I don'thave a need for a terrestrial
carrier anymore because I'm justgonna talk to space all the
time.
That's awesome.
Good luck with that.
Talk to Iridium.
Uh, let them let me know howwell their phones work indoors
for now.
Don't know that that's gonna bea viable uh concept, but maybe
I'm missing something.
And and I've maybe I am.
Maybe there's a differentmodulation or a different thing
(34:12):
that they're doing, or it'sdifferent frequencies I'm not
thinking about.
But it's been fascinating towatch people think that uh space
is gonna save everything when itcomes to indoor coverage.
I'm like, oh, I don't know aboutall that.
Uh propagation rules being whatthey are, uh, I'm not really
sure that we haven't met awizard yet, but you know, I'd
love to meet a wizard soon whocan actually change what RF
(34:34):
does.
Um, what else is happening?
Oh, this is crazy, man.
88%.
That is the number of FCCemployees that are furloughed.
Due to the government shutdownbeginning October 1st, 2025,
where it's uh October 9th now,the FCC has furloughed 88% of
its workforce, haltingnon-essential functions,
(34:54):
including licensing andequipment authorization tasks,
the delay or suspension ofapprovals for new devices,
access points, models, testlabs, spectrum, validation, all
of that is now slowed down, uhprocurement slowed down,
regulatory compliance checks areslowed down, enterprise and
service provider information isslowed down.
Uh I mean, what are you gonnado?
(35:18):
This is the US, it's the USdoing the US thing, government
shutting down, uh, physics isundefeated, no joke, man.
Um, yeah, so if you're trying toget stuff through the FCC, I
hope you know somebody there.
Because right now, with 88% ofits workforce uh furloughed, uh,
that's crazy.
We we still don't know how longthe government shut down the
states is gonna take, but now'sa tough one.
(35:39):
You know, I was reading anarticle this morning about how
travelers are rethinking a lotof air travel because air
traffic control is beingaffected and furloughed by the
by this whole thing, also.
And I've got like three flightsnext week, so I hope it doesn't
hit me too hard.
Um, those are some some of thenews items that were taking
place.
What else?
Um Cambium networks cranking outnew Wi-Fi 7 APs and wired access
(36:01):
gear.
Um, this is part of that wholeXerus thing, and dude, the
naming convention is justbrutal.
X755X.
I don't know, man.
This this is a namingconvention, it's just tough.
Enterprise WLAN market up 16%.
We already talked about that.
Uh oh, check this out.
According to Wi-Fi now, oh, soKlaus has a roundup that was
(36:23):
cited here.
He was citing Del Oro.
So I'm gonna talk about Wi-Finow, talking about Del Oro 16
year over year growth.
Uh, we already know thatdoubling 13% to 26%.
Ubiquity Comscope Ruck isJuniper all make gains, pointing
to a uh bifurcation between costsensitive versus feature
licensing premium.
Okay, okay.
(36:45):
This is a this to me is thefascinating one.
Watching who's making gains inthe space and having the
ubiquities and the ingeniousesof the world growing in market
share and having the other bigcontenders either staying
stagnant or not growing as fastas they were supposed to.
Cost sensitive versus featurelicensing premium.
(37:06):
Dude, we knew this was coming.
WLPC two years ago, we knew thiswas coming, WLPC last year we
saw this one coming.
There's a lot of questionablethings that are happening in the
quote unquote big enterprisespace.
The Juniper Aruba HPE thing, theCisco Meraki thing, how all
that's playing out.
(37:26):
If we're starting to see somenumbers of how that's playing
out, uh we knew that was coming,man.
We knew that was coming.
Uh it's it's gonna beinteresting to watch um equip
people make equipment purchasingdecisions no longer based on
just like like overall brand uhnot awareness, but you know, uh
(37:53):
what loyalty.
Brand loyalty.
I think that we're in a spot nowwhere it's giving rise to to
companies who you wouldn'ttraditionally think are in those
spaces, or new companies thatare coming into the marketplace
where people just want Wi-Fithat works, they just want
connectivity that works, and nowthere's enough um variety in the
(38:17):
marketplace where people canmake decisions that that aren't
the same that they made and orthat they would have made had
all these companies maintainedstability over the last, you
know, over the last 10 years,right?
And part of that is it also goesback to learning curve,
administrative curve, you know,all these things that people
think about.
And when you when you thinkabout devices that are just
(38:39):
supposed to work, and in comesAI, you know, the great the the
great leveler, right?
In comes AI to say, hey, youdon't have to have a CCIE to
deploy a network that's capableof supporting everything that's
out there.
And hey, you may not even needall this crazy equipment in
order to do the things that youwant to do, and hey, you may not
even need all of these servicesthat you've been paying for.
(39:00):
Woo, buddy, we're getting into afun time.
So I'm curious to see uh how thenumbers start to flesh out
between what we assumed wasgonna happen in the industry and
uh and what it is now.
So d uh that's that's crazy,man.
What else do we have on here?
Um let's see, what's the heyDrew?
(39:20):
You should talk about things.
Oh man, speaking speaking of oldschool manufacturers, I was I I
took a trip to West Texas for mybirthday.
If you know me, you know that Ilove getting out in the middle
of nowhere in West Texas andwent out to Marfa with the
family and chilled out.
And we walked through the hotelRio Paisano, and if you look on
my Instagram or you look on myTwitter, I saw an original old
(39:41):
school Meraki access point.
The hotel still has theminstalled, not working, they're
installed, and it was justreally neat to walk up and see
something really, really oldwith the with the old blip logo
and and everything.
It was really cool to see that.
I almost asked if I could justtake one home, but I don't even
know like what if they wouldknow what I'm talking about or
if they would think I wascompletely weird.
(40:02):
But I got to see some old, oldRocky AP out in the wild.
Um that was kind of cool.
You know, it's always fun to getto get I get sentimental about
stuff, right?
And it's always fun to seesomething that just really takes
you back to the idea of whyyou're doing what you're doing
and how you started and what theindustry looked like when you
started and the things that youused to think were cool.
(40:23):
Dude, I remember, you know,before the I when I was a kid in
my room, I had a picture of anNEC 17-inch monitor on my wall
and a silicone graphics indigoright beside it.
And those that was like my goalboard.
(40:44):
I was like, I really want a17-inch monitor.
Uh I'm just turning it like a28-inch monitor right now.
I just wanted a 17-inch monitor,and then like it's someday I
just want an SGI desktop to beable to play with, and I
remember the feeling of all ofthe tech that I wanted and all
the things that I wish that Icould get my hands on.
(41:05):
Uh, and when I was just likeyearning or dying to be a part
of the tech industry, and nowit's you know, it's it's fun to
have a flashback to that and seesomething and be like, man, I
remember when when that cameout.
I remember you know hearingabout that product and thinking,
whoa, this is gonna changeeverything.
And now now I've worked there,you know, and now I've seen how
(41:26):
the sausage is made, and now I'min this unique position.
And I think that that's I thinkthat that's really cool.
So don't ever lose that thatspark when you see something
that reminds you of it.
Don't ever lose that spark,because it's really cool to see,
it's really cool to see thingsand you know take a minute to
appreciate where you are andwhat you're doing.
And that's kind of I thinkthat's part of the deal with you
know, to go back and talk aboutthat podcast.
(41:47):
Um the the uh Kevin, who I havenot met yet in person, uh that
uh that those two are working onbecause it's the the whole idea
that how did you get started,what are you doing, and and
where are you moving forward.
So the the podcast with Alexisand Kevin, I think is gonna be
really neat.
I hope there's some good somegood characters on there.
Um what else do we want to talkabout?
(42:08):
I think that's it.
There's a lot of there's just alot of stuff happening, and I
think I think that we're all ina really cool spot.
I think that the industry, and Imean that in the industry, and
if you if you're not working forsomeone that you wish you were
working for, um try.
Try.
Um re if if I know them, reachout to me.
(42:29):
If a friend of yours knows them,reach out to them.
Now's a great time to be in theindustry and to get to find a
position doing something thatyou love and that you're
passionate about.
There are a lot of openingsright now, there's a lot of
movement happening in theindustry at all sides, right?
You've got the big enterprisesides trying to figure out how
they're gonna maintain marketshare, and then you've got the
smaller sides that are gettingscrappy trying to figure out how
they can take that market sharefrom the big guys.
(42:51):
So you're seeing that now withthose numbers that were reported
by Del Oro, right?
So now's a cool time whenthere's a lot of movement
happening, and I hope that youall are having as much fun doing
wireless as I'm as I am, becauseI'm having a hell of a time
doing it, and and uh testamentto that is how I haven't had a
podcast in a while.
Uh Eva says the shutdown ispersonal for us, my other half
(43:11):
is furloughed without pay, butsuch is life in DC.
Yeah, dude, that's that's tough,man.
That's tough.
There's a lot of crazy thingshappening in in the US right
now.
Um, but you know, this this tooshall pass.
Anyway, I hope y'all have awonderful weekend.
Um I it's great to jump on andhave these conversations and
(43:33):
have people go back and forth.
Like I said, I'm gonna be superFOMO'd out next week when
everyone's out in Prague.
So I hope everybody at WLPCPrague has a great time.
Looking forward to seeingeverybody at WLPC Phoenix.
I will be the next couple showsI'm gonna be at, I'll be at the
MurTech Executive Conference inuh in Orlando talking about uh
Wi-Fi and hanging out with someold friends in that space.
(43:53):
I'll be at the Wispapalooza showuh on Tuesday, uh or I'm sorry,
uh Wednesday, Thursday of nextweek.
So if you're in Vegas atWispapalooza, come by and say hi
to me.
Um I'll be at those two, andthen Amazon's big show,
reInvent, is happening inDecember.
I'll be out there for that.
If you're if you uh are anAmazon customer, if you're doing
stuff with Amazon or if you'regonna be at ReInvent, drop me a
(44:14):
note and uh I'll send you aninvite to something really cool
that we're doing out there.
It's gonna be really neat.
Euros putting on a hell of ahell of a thing out there, so
send me a note.
And then uh next after that isthe crazy month of January.
CES, National Retail Federation,my anniversary, one of my kids'
birthdays, lots of stuffhappening in January.
(44:36):
If you've never gone to CES andyou want to go and you're
looking for people to go with,drop me a message.
Uh there's a little group of usthat gets together now and we go
just walk the show floor andstuff together.
So if you've never been to CES,you want to go see how all of
the technology that we work onevery day is going to be making
its way into people's homes andinto their pockets and whatnot,
CES is the spot to make thathappen.
If you're gonna be at NationalRetail Federation, NRF, in
(44:58):
January in New York, that'swhere you get to see how the
businesses and retail andrestaurants and stuff are gonna
use that tech.
So drop me a message if you wantto hang out at any of those.
Anyway, that is my 45 minutes.
Thank you for listening.
I do appreciate it.
Lots of steady listeners, lotsof people commenting.
Um, really neat.
Last comment here from Josh (45:16):
the enterprise Wi-Fi market is in a
period of transition, movingfrom what you've described to an
era of automated, intent-basednetworking with massive
telemetry streams, simplifiedinto actionable insights.
What companies will get fromthis is the ability to uh
reallocate internal technicalresources to projects and take
other than just babysittingnetworks.
I couldn't agree more.
(45:37):
This goes back to that wholeconversation of it's not AI
that's gonna take your job, it'speople that know how to
effectively use AI to offloadthe stuff that is the the boring
uh you know uh tasks in thenetwork so that they can focus
on really becoming informationtechnology specialists.
That's what AI is gonna do.
(45:57):
We're about to kick this wholefreaking thing into high gear,
uh, and I can't wait for it.
Can't wait for it.
Anyway, hope to see y'all soon.
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