Ready to witness the wireless revolution of 2024? Join me, Drew Lentz, as I navigate through a year brimming with technological breakthroughs and pivotal industry shifts. You'll uncover how CBRS has transformed into a linchpin for full-stack solutions and the unstoppable rise of private wireless networks. This year, the tech world was buzzing with excitement at events like CES and the National Retail Federation, where IoT marvels and wireless convergence stole the spotlight. Plus, learn how AI is not just a buzzword; it's a game-changer, with giants like Cisco and Meter redefining the wireless game.
Wi-Fi 7 is not just a new number—it's a game-changer, revolutionizing both consumer and enterprise spheres. Talent migration due to industry layoffs has reshaped the workforce landscape, bringing fresh perspectives and opportunities. My personal experiences at events like Mobility Field Day and B-Sides underscored the ever-pressing need for wireless security and innovation. I also share exciting technological feats like Morse Micro's 80211AH Halo technology and my own explorations with EdgeCore equipment, showcasing the dynamic advancements within our field.
Looking ahead to 2025, there's so much to be optimistic about. Explore the promising future of CBRS and private cellular networks, coupled with neutral host solutions like Signal Roam and OpenRoaming. Wi-Fi's relevance endures, seamlessly coexisting with emerging technologies like network-in-a-box solutions and low Earth orbit satellite systems. As I reflect on my journey, including a transition to Amazon's Eero team, the industry's evolution becomes even more vivid. With personal growth and professional achievements, the wireless landscape continues to offer thrilling possibilities for the future.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, hello everybody , good afternoon.
It's about four o'clock centraltime in Texas and it is New
Year's.
It is the day before the end of2024, the beginning of 2025.
So happy early New Year toeverybody.
I hope it was a wonderful year.
It was a bit of a different year, I think, for some people.
(00:24):
There were some crazy thingsthat happened to a lot of people
and I wanted to just jump onreal quick and do a recap.
I wanted to look back at 2024and see what was happening, what
was going on, what it meant toyou, what it meant to me, what
it meant to everybody.
So, once again, I'm Drew Lentz,the Wireless Nerd, and this is
your 2024 recap.
What I did was a little bitdifferent.
(00:45):
I went back through all of myshow notes to see what I talked
about throughout the year.
I looked at some of the newsstories that were out there.
I went back on my Twitteraccount.
I guess in 2025, we're justgoing to call it X.
Okay, I'm just going to moveforward.
I don't think they're going tochange the name back to Twitter,
so henceforth.
I never wanted to change it,but what are you going to do?
(01:05):
So let's just go ahead andstart calling it X in 2025.
So I went back, I lookedthrough my X account, I looked
through LinkedIn, I listened toa bunch of different podcasts to
see what was going on and whatwere the stories that stood out.
I fed that all in the chat GPT,and I said give me some show
notes.
So let's see what happens,let's go with that.
You know, I made my own right.
I made my own notes because alot of stuff happened this year
(01:28):
and let's I mean, let's startthere.
January, almost exactly a yearago, things were let's see, ces
was coming up, national RetailFederation, nrf, was coming up
again.
The same two trade shows happenevery year, so that was pretty
cool.
And then, shortly after that,the announcements from cisco
(01:49):
with the first round of layoffscame through, and then some more
layoffs came through after that, and so this was an interesting
time.
You know, we I had hit theground running doing some great
stuff on on the cisco team andwas excited about nrf.
We had some a really goodshowing there.
I got to go out and support mybuddies at comcast business and
help them out.
There were Wi-Fi stands aplentyto be had downstairs at the
(02:10):
restaurant innovation area andsome of the things that came out
of that show were neat.
I remember talking to the teamat let's Chat, which now is part
of I guess they're moreintegrated with Comcast Business
where you can do live languagetranslations.
That was so cool, man, not justbeing able to pull up to a menu
board and talk in one languageand have it answer you in your
(02:31):
own language, but also you couldtake an order in a language and
it would translate it to thelanguage that the people in the
kitchen needed to hear.
That was pretty neat.
It was neat to see thattechnology come about.
January last year also gave us achance to go to CES, and CES is
always it's always fun.
I love CES.
I always enjoy CES.
(02:52):
It's such a good show, it'ssuch a great chance to get out
and see everything.
I think, if I go back and I tryto remember what I saw at CES
last year, oh man, there wasjust.
There was so much that wasthere.
I talked to the team at HaikuBox.
That was really cool, got tolearn about their little box.
I talked to Six Sigma and SixFab, another company out there.
(03:14):
I talked to a lot of IoT people, so there were some themes that
really started to set in at NRFlast year and at CES.
And if I think back also onJune RF last year and at CES,
and if I think back also on Junewell, not even June, sorry,
january if I think back overall,I think there were some key
(03:36):
themes that stood out to meacross 2024.
And I've got them written downhere.
Let's go through these.
So first, wireless convergence.
That was, you know, we've beentalking about it for a long time
seeing a lot of differentdevices that support multiple
protocols, that support multipletechnologies in one, and I
think that this was a reallygood year for that.
I think Meter making theannouncement about integrating
CBRS into their full stack andmaking it a one-stop solution.
(03:57):
That was really a very coolsign of the times.
You know, at Mobility Field Daythis year we saw the little
icon that had been there beforeon the Juniper dashboard with
Marvis where it said privatewireless.
And so this year privatewireless really was a core topic
and the way that it merged intowireless convergence I think
(04:18):
was really neat.
Cbrs was doing a lot of reallygood things happening.
Cbrs that's one of my noteshere.
I got to spend some time withthe team at Raman and had just a
great time with them playingwith their product this year and
giving them some feedback andgetting up to speed on what they
were doing.
There were some announcementsfrom them announcements from
Khajiit, announcements fromSolona on the private 4G and 5G
(04:40):
side, and so now you're seeingthis marketplace where it's not
just about the Wi-Fi, it's aboutthe Wi-Fi and it's about the 4G
, 5g story, it's about the IoTstory, it's about the Halo story
.
Announcements about Halo cameout this year as well.
Let's see there were so manygreat things and underlying a
lot of it was AI.
This was a good year for AI tobe front and center a lot of the
(05:03):
conversations when it came towireless.
So that was really neat to seeas well, whether it was with
Cisco doing what they're doingon the back end, whether it was
with Meter doing what they'redoing on the back end with their
technology, whether it's Marvis.
And can't ignore theacquisition the HPE Juniper
acquisition.
There were some goodacquisitions this year HPE
Juniper.
We also had the partnershipwith NetAlly and Hamina.
(05:28):
We had the Oseum and MetaGeekacquisition.
That was pretty cool.
There were some good thingsthat happened this year a little
bit of convergence in thewireless space not just of the
wireless but in the wirelessspace but a lot of that
revolving around those magicletters, ai and seeing AI work
and do things was really cool.
(05:49):
So I think that was part of thekey themes.
Industry shakeups, mergers,layoffs, acquisitions yeah man,
lots of layoffs, lots of goodtalent on the street right now
and lots of good talent gotmoved around.
Really neat to see people inthe last.
I feel like in the last month alot of jobs started to land.
It was really good to seepeople.
I feel like in the last month,a lot of jobs started to land.
It was really good to seepeople becoming part of teams
(06:10):
that they wanted to be a part of.
That was really neat.
Our big events last year we hadobviously Mobility Field Day to
me stood out.
We had MFD 11 and 12, and thatwas pretty cool.
I love those shows.
I love the Tech Field Day showsand MFD was really good.
This year Got to see my buddiesyou know Mark, commenting on
LinkedIn.
It's great to see you.
You know we had WLPC.
(06:30):
You know, can't go wrong withWLPC.
I'm still sad that I missedPrague, but that's okay.
Prague was really great, so itmakes me look forward to WLPC in
February, you know, next month,I guess.
After tomorrow it'll be nextmonth, WLPC 2025.
I got to present at B-Sidesagain.
I don't know if anybody isfamiliar with B-Sides, I don't
even know if I talked about thaton the podcast, but I've been a
(06:52):
strong supporter of our localB-Sides community, b-sides RGV
here in the Rio Grande Valley,and I got to present again and
show off all kinds of tools andbasically all the bad things
that can happen with wirelessand a little bit of how to
protect yourself against it, butmore about showing off.
Hey, here's the things that youmight not be thinking about.
Actually, I just talked aboutthat last week on the podcast,
(07:14):
but that was really fun to talkto a team of security-oriented
or security-minded people aboutwhat they're doing with wireless
and how it's going to affecttheir day-to-day lives.
I think that that's somethingthat we, as wireless
professionals, need to bethinking more and more about as
time goes on.
Yeah, I know I missed you inPrague too, man, but overall I
(07:35):
think it was a great year forenterprise.
I think consumer had a reallygood year, also One of the key
themes that kept coming out whenI would look up articles about
what was going on in 2024, wi-fi7.
I mean, wi-fi 7 really came out.
This was the year right whereWi-Fi 7 jumped out and and
started to be introduced inconsumer products a year ago at
(07:56):
CES.
And now there's more consumerproducts that have it, more
enterprise products that have it.
Lots of Wi-Fi 7 in 2024.
So that's very cool.
If 2023 was the year of 6 gig,then definitely 2024 was the
year of Wi-Fi 7.
So let's go back.
Let's see Key events andinnovations.
This is according to the chatGPTs, after I loaded it with
data January, a Morse Micro's80211AH Halo demo with a two
(08:19):
kilometer range.
Now I put that in therespecifically because Morse Micro
has already said that they'regoing to make some really good
announcements at CES, so that'sgoing to be really great to hear
.
I want to see what's happened ayear since the two kilometer
test that they put out there.
As I talk about Wi-Fi Halo,I've got the AP sitting right in
front of me from EdgeCore, theE112, right, I've got the Halo
antenna on it.
(08:39):
Having some registration issueswith it on the cloud service.
That's okay.
Firas already posted up a dealon LinkedIn.
If you haven't seen that.
Go follow Firas F-I-R-A-S andyou can see some of the stuff
that he's done with this exactequipment.
So I'm excited to see how mytest environment and test
procedures stack up against it.
This will be pretty neat.
(09:00):
That happened in May.
The Meters AI tool commandentered the scene.
That was really neat.
I got the chance to interviewthe team on the podcast and get
to talk about it and what it wasdoing and what it meant for the
industry as a whole, and thenthat was followed with the
MeterUp event.
That was such a pivotal momentfor me, I think in 2024, was
seeing the way that they hadimplemented AI in a really,
(09:23):
really usable fashion and howMeter had done this in a way
that really redefines the waythat networking is taking place
at an enterprise level.
So very cool to see that.
Shouts out to Neil and Suniland the whole team over there my
Sarahs Hi Sarahs, I miss theSarahs.
Great, great team, greatproduct, great launch, cool year
(09:44):
2024 for Meter.
That happened in May.
And then with Mobility, fieldDay, private Cellular took a
leap with Raman and Khajiit.
In October, ocm acquiredMetaGeek.
Netally and Humina partnered upfor the first time.
You get these two really coolpartnerships.
(10:04):
I think the tools scene has hada lot.
It's had a really good year in2024, whether it's Hamina and
Oseum or Hamina and NetAlly, orNetAlly just doing incredible
things.
I love NetAlly.
It's such a great company withsuch a vast amount of tools.
And then you had CEDOS, whomade their appearance.
I feel like it was two yearsago it may have only been a year
ago that they showed up at WLPC.
(10:27):
And then now their wavespectrum analyzer is out.
They've made some incredibleleaps and bounds with their
software in the cloud.
And then you've got Hamina,just constantly pushing and
pushing and pushing.
And we saw that at MobilityField Day 11.
And then again we saw it at 12,where they're bringing live
data from the network into theirplanning tool.
So it's no longer just aplanning tool, it's an
observation tool, atroubleshooting tool, and it's
finding that single source oftruth for the way that your
(10:48):
network should operate and theway that your network does
operate, and using data to buildthose models.
Just an incredible year fortooling in the Wi-Fi space.
Very neat.
And Eronia, you know, withtheir spectrum analyzer.
They've just continued to makeincredible equipment that's out
there.
I really want to get my handson it.
That's one of my 2025 goals isto get the Eronia spectrum
(11:12):
analyzer in my hands.
Really neat to see that.
Back on Event HighlightsMobility Field Day 11 and 12,
one of my key takeaways therewas that we saw vendors who came
in at MFD 10 and then came backin 11 and then came back in 12,
saying this is where we were,this is what we said we were
going to do, this is what we did, this is where we are, this is
where we're going, and then theywould follow that up with this
(11:33):
is what we said we were going todo.
Here we are the same thing.
What a very cool story to tellfor those vendors that have been
part of Mobility Field Day overand over again, for them to be
able to come back and say thisis what we promised, this is
what we delivered.
Well, nobody really promises,but this is what they said they
were going to do and this iswhat they aimed for and this is
what they did.
And we saw that from.
(11:57):
One of the cool groups thatshowed up was Ubiquity.
Seeing them at MFD11 was really, really cool and being able to
be a part of that audience wasincredible.
And have that feedback withUbiquity, who just normally
doesn't, who isn't out therewith everyone around, and to
have them come out and take thefeedback and then go and make
product.
I mean, looking back at it now,the feedback that we gave them
at MFD11 was a lot of thatproduct.
You know they teased outdifferent SKUs I think he said
(12:19):
12 different SKUs they weregoing to introduce in the
wireless space and having themactually follow through and put
in the things that we asked forand put in the things that the
community really wanted wasreally cool.
It showed a lot from Ubiquity.
It was neat to see that.
And I think it wasn't just themthough.
I mean, in talking to cisco andin talking to to salona, they,
(12:39):
they did a lot of the same thing.
Salona making that neutral hostannouncement, cbrs, was really
great at mfd.
But I, you know, I gotta say ifthere's one person that I
really got to give a shout outto at mobility field day, at
both of them, that I went tosuresh man.
You know, having one of theco-founders of Nile just take
candid questions and just giveabsolute, just bluntly candid
(13:02):
responses was so awesome.
It was just really cool.
And again, product aside, justbeing able to have a
conversation with a founder andhave them just answer honestly
was great.
Not that anyone really doesn't,it's just it's so rare to get
the founder standing on stage infront of you.
Bob Friday's always been realgood about being there and being
(13:23):
a part of it, you know, andhaving the people that are the
brains behind all of it andtalking about the reasons that
they did it and talking aboutwhy they're doing it Very cool.
So, suresh and Niall, thank youfor your candid responses there
.
Very cool.
So, suresh and Niall, thank youfor your candid responses there
.
Very, very neat.
We had Wi-Fi Now in Sarasota andI got to say that was a very
cool event.
Man.
The Wi-Fi Now, wi-fi GlobalCongress was there and it was
(13:51):
really cool to be out inSarasota of all places, it was
so green, but having theconversations there with
everyone in the industry andunderstanding where we were and
what was going on and listeningPeople were talking about AI
sensing and about using not AIsensing, ap sensing, wi-fi
sensing, so using access pointsand using the chipsets and the
access points to be able to havethose work as radar almost was
(14:16):
really neat, but then we didn'treally see anything, right, so
we heard about that but thenreally nothing.
Nothing really happened afterthat, no big announcements in
that space.
So that was a little bitinteresting.
But Wi-Fi Now in Sarasota wasgreat.
It was a great hotel, it was agreat space.
I would look forward to goingback to that.
And then later on in Dallas wehad the WBA event, the Wireless
(14:40):
Broadband Alliance event.
So a lot of the same speakersthat were there.
But the WBA event had more of afocus on open roaming and the
state of open roaming and whereit is and where it could go, and
it was great to see that growin 2024.
Open roaming has come a longway, so that was pretty neat.
In the consumer side a couple ofthings happened.
One I think it was in March Idon't have my timeline open,
(15:01):
sorry Was it March?
Let's open up the magictimeline here.
March the definition ofbroadband changed to 100, down
20 up by the FCC.
It was official and that wasreally good to see.
Now it's up to the equipmentmanufacturers in the industry to
be able to produce equipmentthat can get that speed and we
(15:21):
saw that this year.
We saw the Toronto equipmentthat was out there doing an
incredible just breakneck speeds.
Right A gig of it, 900 meg persecond a gig.
I got to go to a really coolroadshow.
I got to go out and getunderneath the tower, ride
around on a bus and get hands-onwithout equipment.
That was really great to see.
Wi-fi 7 again took off.
Starlink Mini launched, whichwas in and of itself, huge.
(15:42):
I think today's last day ifyou're a Starlink subscriber.
The Starlink Mini is $399 ifyou want to go purchase one, I
do believe today's the last dayfor that.
But Starlink Mini launching wasreally cool.
There's so much satellite newsthis year, so much happening in
the sat space and I don't Idon't expect that to slow down
as more providers come out, asmore technology comes out.
(16:04):
It'll be a great year forsatellite moving into 2025,
especially, you know, this year.
One of the things that happensthe fcc granted the ability for
for starlink to be mobilecarrier so that they can offer
sat to satellite to cell orsatellite to handheld coverage
direct from space to your cellphone it's not even a cell phone
(16:25):
at that point your mobiledevice from satellite to mobile.
That was pretty nuts to see theconvergence thing.
I keep going back in that in myhead.
It was interesting to see thatand I feel like I use the word
interesting a lot, but it wasfascinating for me to see those
that come together.
What else do we have that camein in 2024?
(16:47):
Professional milestones oh yeah, signal Roam.
I got to launch the Signal Roamproduct.
That was really neat.
We did that this year, workingoff of the technology of the
American bandwidth that's puttogether and launching that in a
number of different locationshere in the state of Texas and
well, actually all across the US.
The MeterUp event was reallygreat.
In September I got to go out toAlaska for 10 days I want to
(17:10):
say I think it was 10 days,eight days, something like that
and go do some engineering andsite survey and that resulted in
a really cool project.
So I'm excited about the futureof that.
If you're ever in the port ofJuneau pretty soon, your Wi-Fi
is going to be workingspectacularly as well as your
(17:30):
cell signal right now is alittle funky there, but you're
going to have killer Wi-Ficoming up in Juneau here pretty
soon based on the work that wewere able to do and it was great
to just be out collecting dataand getting my hands dirty.
Personally, I think it was adifferent kind of year for me.
After the layoff announcementand after I found out that I had
been affected by it, I justchilled, man.
(17:51):
I just chilled and I got tochoose the projects that I
wanted to be a part of.
I got to do some really coolstuff.
I helped build a homecomingfloat.
I got to volunteer at my kid'sschool.
I got to volunteer at mydaughter's school.
I really started to work on myphotography, which is now
showing all these really awesomeside benefits of stuff.
(18:14):
If you ever see me now, you'reprobably going to see my camera
in my hand, which is something Iused to do all the time.
So getting back to that hasbeen really great.
I got to experience that sideof personal growth.
But my wife just for what it'sworth I don't really talk family
stuff on here too much, but mywife is just killing it at her
job.
She's so good at what she doesand I'm so proud of her and I
(18:35):
got to sit back and watch hergrow this year and that was
really really neat.
I had this strange moment whereI dropped her off at the
airport and she got out of thecar with her luggage and I said
okay, honey, I'm going to takethe kid to school and I've got
this and I'm going to do thisand I'll do that and do that and
(18:59):
have a.
That's what she's used to doingis dropping me off at the
airport and going and handlingthe day-to-day stuff.
And I got to spend basically ayear doing that and it was
really refreshing and cool.
I got to play with tech, I gotto work on the podcast, I got to
do all these wonderful things.
But now, diving back into it, itwas very refreshing and it's
given me a much bigger andgreater appreciation for the
work that we do on the wirelessside and how much it just really
affects our day-to-day lives.
And I think a lot of that wentinto my decision to move to the
(19:21):
Amazon team, to the Aero team atAmazon.
It's so great because these arethings that affect us every
single day.
I mean, the access pointsitting right behind me is the
working access point that I'mconnected to on this.
Well, okay, I'm on ethernet onthis computer, but you know what
I mean.
Like my phone and all mydevices are connected to that
and being able to get closer tohome with wireless.
(19:42):
I think that was one of mypushes into making the decision
to move over here.
So many great things y'all.
So many great things are gonnabe happening in 2025.
Eero has proven to be such acool team.
It's only been almost twomonths but some great things
happening, not just with NRFcoming up and CES coming up, but
after that y'all are going tosee, my Instagram is going to go
nuts.
(20:02):
I'm going to have some fun outworking on projects.
So professionally andpersonally, it was a really cool
year for me.
I hope it was a really coolyear for you as well.
I saw a lot of movement in theindustry.
A lot of people that I didn'tthink would get cut got cut and
a lot of people that I thoughtwould get cut didn't get cut.
There's lots of reorg happening, but I still you know, I've
said this, I guess, quietly withpeople around, friends and
(20:27):
whatnot and it's just such aweird time I feel like in the
industry, where there's justconfusion.
Big Enterprise has thisconfusion going on, man, and I
know I'm not the only one whofeels it.
It's like you know, there'sinnovation happening, right, and
there's stuff that's happeningwith new technology and there's
stuff that's happening with newaccess points, and we get that,
(20:47):
but organizationally it seemslike it seems kind of stale.
And I say that with beingcompletely objective here, right
, it's just really weird towatch all these good ideas and
all this stuff not making youknow, bubbling out to where it
needs to be and getting in thehands of people that use it, and
then you turn around and youwonder why?
(21:08):
And you look at theorganizations that are producing
the hardware and producing thesoftware and it's, you know,
it's been like kind of hazy andthen out flies Meter going.
Hey, we're going to do all thiscrazy stuff and it was great to
see.
But I think we're in for somereally cool times because as
things start to settle the HPJuniper acquisition, the stuff
that's going on with Cisco,meraki, the stuff that's going
(21:30):
on with all the different groupsthat are starting to play in
the space it's going to be adifferent playing field.
I feel like going into 2025,2026 and beyond, where it's like
we're getting a facelift.
Maybe it's just me, right.
Maybe it's just me because Iwas out, because I was hanging
out and my mind was elsewhere.
I was picking up kids and DJing, working on photography.
(21:53):
But I look at the industry nowand it doesn't look like the
same industry that it did acouple of years ago, and that's
a good thing.
I know that there are a lot ofshakeups, I know a lot of people
were affected by that and Iknow a lot of people still
haven't recovered from that andhaven't landed.
But I really feel like thewireless space is in a different
(22:20):
.
It's in a different season thanit has been, and I'm excited
for what I'm anticipating isgoing to happen.
I don't know what the right wayto say that is, but whatever
you get the point, there's a lotof really cool stuff happening
and it's neat, and I think we'regoing to see some of that
coming up at WLPC.
We're going to start to seepeople talking about how it's
all affected it, because WLPCagain and I harp on it I mean at
(22:43):
this point you would think thatI'm like you know, like I make
money off of them or somethingwhich I don't.
Nor would I want to Listen.
If you need your event produced, call Matthew Castile.
He's the guy who organizes WLPCfor Keith.
He does a bang-up job puttingthe whole thing together.
He's your guy if you want toput something together like that
.
But what it is to me and whatexcites me about it is not just
(23:03):
being able to see my friends andhang out, but it's such a good
touchpoint for everybody in theindustry to really understand
what's happening and are thethings that I'm feeling about
the industry, are other peoplefeeling them as well?
And I think that that's one ofthose things that happens only
when you get all of us together,only in an environment where we
feel like we can talk andthere's vendors there as well
but it's not a vendor'sconference where you have to use
(23:26):
our product and here's all thebenefit of using our product and
here's the ecosystem if you useour product.
It's not that, it's hey, we'rejust a bunch of nerds hanging
out talking, and I really wantto see what other people's
thoughts of 2024 were, becauseto me, it was a little bit
different.
Now.
Predictions and goals goinginto 2025, this is the segment
that I'm supposed to talk about.
(23:47):
According to ChatGPT, it's thenext one and it says anticipate
advancements in AI-drivennetworking yeah, no shit.
You think Obviously that'sgoing to continue to happen.
Been networking yeah, no shit.
If you think Obviously that'sgoing to continue to happen.
Growth of CBRS and privatecellular my gut tells me that
it's going to grow, but at whatrate, I don't know.
(24:08):
It just feels like it wouldhave ramped by now.
It feels like it really wouldhave started to just take off.
I'm not trying to discount itand say that CBRS and private
cellular isn't going to grow in2025.
I'm sure it will.
I just don't know what thatramp looks like.
I mean, is it straight up?
What's the degree of growthhere?
Because I love the neutral hoststuff.
You all know that.
I mean I love what we did withSignal Roam, I love what's
(24:30):
happening with Passpoint, I lovewhat's happening with
OpenRoaming.
I love that neutral hosts isbeing that there's CBS providers
, cbrs providers that are usingneutral hosts.
I love that.
That's really starting to takeoff.
I think it's cool.
I think it's going in the rightdirection, but I don't know at
what rate.
I don't think it's going toreplace Wi-Fi.
I don't think anything's goingto replace Wi-Fi.
(24:50):
I think Wi-Fi is still here tostay.
It has been here to stay.
The whole conversation of 5gversus wi-fi is just clickbait
in 2024 at this point.
I mean, so many people wrote somany articles that said the
exact same freaking thing.
Who's gonna replace wi-fi?
No, dude, it's not.
And now it's not even aconversation.
You know it's.
(25:10):
It's yeah, okay, it's justanother cellular technology.
Now halo is it going to replacewi-fi?
No, because he uses wi-fi.
But is there anything that'sgoing to come in and be a
contender against Wi-Fi?
No, and I think that that's aridiculous way to look at the
industry.
I think that Wi-Fi does whatit's supposed to do.
I think that 5G does what it'ssupposed to do.
I'm loving seeing the 4G and 5Gnetwork in a box.
(25:32):
Things pop up on my LinkedInfeed where people have figured
out that you can just throw allthis stuff in a single case and
turn it on.
I think that's pretty neat.
I think we'll hopefully seemore of that ability to just pop
up a network overnight veryquickly and easily using low
Earth orbiting satellite systemslike Starlink or any of the
other contenders out there.
(25:52):
I think that's really.
It's a good space to be in somuch.
It feels like there's so muchto talk about in 2024.
And, like I said, I tried towrite it all down, but when I
stop and think about it it canbe condensed pretty quickly.
Usf USAC deemed unconstitutional.
That was crazy in July and westill haven't figured out what's
(26:14):
going to happen with that.
There's speculation that thatactually might all go away,
which I don't even want to getinto.
How terrifying that is for someof the bigger equipment
manufacturers and for the youknow, school kids and children
and and school districts.
God, I can't even imagine whatit'd be like to, just one you
know, overnight lose your budgetfor technology.
(26:35):
That's pretty nuts.
Cisco locationing UWB and FTMSuresh killing it.
Yeah, these are my notes.
Aws reInvent I had a good timeat reInvent.
I like that.
That's just a show I did InNovember.
I made my announcement that wascome over to Eero.
That was cool.
And then here we are inDecember the end of December
kind of a down month I got todeploy a Wi-Fi network up in a
(26:58):
community in Northern California.
That was pretty awesome.
I got to see the stuff.
I've got a whole garage labgoing.
Right now my garage is filthyso I won't post photos, but as
soon as I clean up a little bitI'll take some pretty photos and
post them.
I have a whole Eero labhappening in my garage.
For the last week I've justbeen building it and having a
blast at night 10 o'clock atnight, jamming out to Daft Punk
(27:20):
and teaching my eight-year-oldhow to rack equipment.
That's what I did for the lastcouple of days.
It was awesome, man, just a funtime.
But I think 2025 is going.
I think we're going to start tosee the industry changing in
2025.
I feel like 2024 was a yearthat needed to happen, to break
(27:42):
some stuff and to make peoplefeel uncomfortable and put
people in a comfortablesituation so that there could be
some interesting growth in 2025.
I think that's what we're goingto see.
2025 is going to start toredefine the expectations of
what we understand in wireless.
I feel, not just from a Wi-Fiperspective, but in a wireless
perspective.
Overall, there's a lot ofmovement that's happening and
(28:03):
it's great to see, and people'sexpectations of Wi-Fi are just
that it works really, reallyfast and very quickly anytime
they need it, and it's just agiven.
It was a given coming into thisyear and it's going to be a
given coming into 2025.
But at lightning fast speedswith very minimal latency, to be
(28:25):
able to do all the things thatpeople want to do.
And those things we don't evenknow what they are yet.
Right, if you go back a year,there was a rumor that Apple was
going to have their vr headsetand then they busted their
headset out and then it flopped.
You know, not a lot of peoplebought it.
I'm sure it was awesome, butI'm a dude, I'm a big ass nerd
and I didn't even buy one.
(28:46):
That's too rich for my bloodman I'm.
That's a lot of money rightthere.
And vr just kind of, you know,like that's what it did this
year.
It's kind of fell apart thisyear.
Not a lot happening.
Wow.
Mark just commented on LinkedIn.
He says losing budget is scary.
I might get out of educationtech if I can't afford to buy
the gear needed to support theschools.
Yeah, man, but that sucks,right, and I get it.
(29:09):
But man, that sucks for theschools.
And in Texas we have a wholeother thing going on with school
vouchers and all this stuff.
So I don't even know whatthat's going to look like.
I don't know what that's goingto look like coming into 2025.
And then there's all the againnot political, but there's the
new administration stuff comingin.
And what does that mean forbroadband?
I mean, I'm not the guy thatfollows what's happening at the
(29:30):
FCC.
Go look at broadband breakfast.
That's the other Drew, if youjust type in broadband breakfast
and I'm sure he calls me theother Drew also.
It's broadbandbreakfastcom.
That is a website.
Look, let me see if I can sharemy screen here.
(29:51):
Is this going to work or is itgoing to fall apart?
No, it's going to fall apart.
Good job, drew.
Broadband breakfast is great atthis and Drew over there does a
phenomenal job covering thepolitics behind broadband.
And if you want to learn moreabout it, just go follow that.
If I can give you a follow for2025, go follow
broadbandbreakfastcom.
Go, keep up with what they'redoing.
(30:11):
They have a lot of information.
They stream weekly onWednesdays at noon.
They have a lot of information.
They stream weekly onwednesdays at noon and they talk
all about the fcc and aboutregulation and policy and all
that.
And they're just a really greatchoice for it, because there's
so much happening that with thenew administration coming in,
we'll see what's doge gonna meanfor wireless dude.
(30:32):
I don't know, I can't.
I don't know what's gonna meanfor the wi-fi stand why.
You know, wi-fi stand had acool year.
I don't know.
I don't know what it's going tomean for Wi-Fi stand.
Wi-fi stand had a cool year.
Honestly, wi-fi stand, I didn'tlook at how well we did this
year versus last year or so, onand so forth.
I just know that we did someneat stuff and, as always, I
appreciate the business of Wi-Fistand Goes without saying.
Big time sponsor of the Wavespodcast.
I did some sponsorships thisyear.
(30:54):
If you want to sponsor in 2025,let me know.
I'll be happy to take yourmoney and sponsor this thing.
Very excited to help supportsponsors who support the show.
I would love to get some newequipment.
So if you're feeling generous,please let me know if you'd like
to sponsor and I'll be happy tomake you a sponsor of the show.
Yeah, I think that's all I got.
Man, I'm ready to go eat someblack-eyed peas.
(31:18):
Okay, let's talk completely offtopic.
Let's see, I live in SouthTexas, so I live in a city
called McAllen, down on theUS-Mexico border.
Whenever anyone asks me, I dothe little Texas symbol and I
stick my finger down there andshow people where I live.
And the traditions that we havedown here are a little bit
different and I'm curious ifanyone else has these same
traditions.
We do things like black eyedpeas.
(31:42):
I feel like that comes from mymom's side, from my mom's
family's market, so I feel likeblack eyed peas is like a
Southern thing.
So I make the black eyed peas,we do uvas.
So you put a grape in yourmouth.
You put 12 grapes in your mouth, one for every wish coming into
the new year.
I think that's more of aHispanic tradition, more of a
Mexican tradition coming intothe new year.
I think that's more of aHispanic tradition, more of a
Mexican tradition.
Then there's all the goofy stuff.
Like all the single people wearred chones, red canciones, red
(32:03):
underpants, if you will, redunderwear.
If they're looking for love,you take your luggage.
I want you to picture this.
Okay, picture me with 12 grapesin my mouth, wearing red
underwear, running out the frontdoor with luggage.
Don't picture it.
It's a terrible, terriblevisual.
But you take the luggage andyou run out across the street
and then you run back to signifythat you want travel in the new
(32:24):
year.
I used to do that and then I gota job where all I did was
travel.
So it might work.
I don't know.
It might work.
What else do we do?
You open the front door and yousweep out.
You sweep the front area ofyour house to sweep all the bad
out right, all the bad vibes,and then what else do you do?
You open up the front door andthe back door to let all the air
(32:45):
clean itself out.
Yeah, strange traditions, butyou know what it's fun.
What else do we do?
I'm trying to think of other.
It's red underwear, it'sluggage.
It's graves oh, it's redunderwear, it's luggage.
It's the graves of toastingwith champagne.
Obviously that's about it, man.
So that's what I'm going to bedoing tonight toasting champagne
, running around in red.
And I don't.
I'm not looking for love.
I have an amazing wife.
If you haven't met her in 2025,meet me in a trade show.
(33:07):
She usually hangs out at thosethings with me, or I do it with
her, so you might get to meether.
If you, if you need commercialinsurance, she's your person.
If you have a startup companyand you need insurance, let me
know.
She'll help you.
If you have an establishedcompany, let me know.
I'll put you in touch with herFree commercial.
That's it, man.
I hope you all had a wonderfulholiday season.
This is the end of 2024.
2025 is going to be spectacular.
(33:29):
I hope it's a wonderful yearfor you.
The next couple of shows I'll beat, I will be at CES I just got
a great.
Just the next couple of showsI'll be at.
I will be at CES.
I just got a great, just a coolmessage from Keith Parsons.
My buddy Keith will be at CESalso, so hopefully I'll have
some time to run around the showwith him.
I know there's some other nerdsthat are going to be out there
the guy from CleverFi, I thinkhe's going to be there.
He's going to be at NRF also.
So if you're at CES in Vegasfrom the 4th through the 10th,
(33:55):
Let me know, I'll be there forthat.
And then I will be in New YorkCity for the National Retail
Federation, nrf, from the 10ththrough the 14th, I believe.
And then I come home and thenI've got a trip coming up on the
25th that I haven't talkedabout yet, but it's gonna be so
freaking awesome.
The 25th through February 8thmore or less, I'm going to be
(34:18):
providing all of the Wi-Fi forthe World Surfing League World
Championships on behalf of Eeroand Amazon, you know, on the
company.
It's going to be really, reallyneat.
So I'm excited to be a part ofthat More to come there, and
then I'm going to come home forfour days and then go to WLPC in
Phoenix, actually for sevendays.
Golfing on the 17th.
(34:39):
Get in touch with Matt or Macor me or Rob Boardman if you
want to play golf with us onMonday, the 17th.
We're all playing on Flying Inon Sunday and we're going to go
play a round of golf on Monday.
The first annual WLPC Classic,brought to you by I don't know
insert sponsor name here.
I think we're all going tobring some swag to give out, so
that should be fun.
And then that's February, thenMarch I'm not sure and then up
(35:01):
comes everything else.
So those are my plans.
If you're going to be anywherearound those areas, please drop
me a note, come by and say hello.
If not, that's supposed to bealso during that whole polar
vortex, so we'll see how thatgoes.
Anyway, this is the lastpodcast of 2024 for me.
That puts us in the books.
I appreciate everybodylistening.
Have yourself a wonderful andhappy new year and I will talk
to you all in 2025.
(35:22):
See ya.
Well, hello everybody , good afternoon.
It's about four o'clock centraltime in Texas and it is New
Year's.
It is the day before the end of2024, the beginning of 2025.
So happy early New Year toeverybody.
I hope it was a wonderful year.
It was a bit of a different year, I think, for some people.
(00:24):
There were some crazy thingsthat happened to a lot of people
and I wanted to just jump onreal quick and do a recap.
I wanted to look back at 2024and see what was happening, what
was going on, what it meant toyou, what it meant to me, what
it meant to everybody.
So, once again, I'm Drew Lentz,the Wireless Nerd, and this is
your 2024 recap.
What I did was a little bitdifferent.
(00:45):
I went back through all of myshow notes to see what I talked
about throughout the year.
I looked at some of the newsstories that were out there.
I went back on my Twitteraccount.
I guess in 2025, we're justgoing to call it X.
Okay, I'm just going to moveforward.
I don't think they're going tochange the name back to Twitter,
so henceforth.
I never wanted to change it,but what are you going to do?
(01:05):
So let's just go ahead andstart calling it X in 2025.
So I went back, I lookedthrough my X account, I looked
through LinkedIn, I listened toa bunch of different podcasts to
see what was going on and whatwere the stories that stood out.
I fed that all in the chat GPT,and I said give me some show
notes.
So let's see what happens,let's go with that.
You know, I made my own right.
I made my own notes because alot of stuff happened this year
(01:28):
and let's I mean, let's startthere.
January, almost exactly a yearago, things were let's see, ces
was coming up, national RetailFederation, nrf, was coming up
again.
The same two trade shows happenevery year, so that was pretty
cool.
And then, shortly after that,the announcements from cisco
(01:49):
with the first round of layoffscame through, and then some more
layoffs came through after that, and so this was an interesting
time.
You know, we I had hit theground running doing some great
stuff on on the cisco team andwas excited about nrf.
We had some a really goodshowing there.
I got to go out and support mybuddies at comcast business and
help them out.
There were Wi-Fi stands aplentyto be had downstairs at the
(02:10):
restaurant innovation area andsome of the things that came out
of that show were neat.
I remember talking to the teamat let's Chat, which now is part
of I guess they're moreintegrated with Comcast Business
where you can do live languagetranslations.
That was so cool, man, not justbeing able to pull up to a menu
board and talk in one languageand have it answer you in your
(02:31):
own language, but also you couldtake an order in a language and
it would translate it to thelanguage that the people in the
kitchen needed to hear.
That was pretty neat.
It was neat to see thattechnology come about.
January last year also gave us achance to go to CES, and CES is
always it's always fun.
I love CES.
I always enjoy CES.
(02:52):
It's such a good show, it'ssuch a great chance to get out
and see everything.
I think, if I go back and I tryto remember what I saw at CES
last year, oh man, there wasjust.
There was so much that wasthere.
I talked to the team at HaikuBox.
That was really cool, got tolearn about their little box.
I talked to Six Sigma and SixFab, another company out there.
(03:14):
I talked to a lot of IoT people, so there were some themes that
really started to set in at NRFlast year and at CES.
And if I think back also onJune RF last year and at CES,
and if I think back also on Junewell, not even June, sorry,
january if I think back overall,I think there were some key
(03:36):
themes that stood out to meacross 2024.
And I've got them written downhere.
Let's go through these.
So first, wireless convergence.
That was, you know, we've beentalking about it for a long time
seeing a lot of differentdevices that support multiple
protocols, that support multipletechnologies in one, and I
think that this was a reallygood year for that.
I think Meter making theannouncement about integrating
CBRS into their full stack andmaking it a one-stop solution.
(03:57):
That was really a very coolsign of the times.
You know, at Mobility Field Daythis year we saw the little
icon that had been there beforeon the Juniper dashboard with
Marvis where it said privatewireless.
And so this year privatewireless really was a core topic
and the way that it merged intowireless convergence I think
(04:18):
was really neat.
Cbrs was doing a lot of reallygood things happening.
Cbrs that's one of my noteshere.
I got to spend some time withthe team at Raman and had just a
great time with them playingwith their product this year and
giving them some feedback andgetting up to speed on what they
were doing.
There were some announcementsfrom them announcements from
Khajiit, announcements fromSolona on the private 4G and 5G
(04:40):
side, and so now you're seeingthis marketplace where it's not
just about the Wi-Fi, it's aboutthe Wi-Fi and it's about the 4G
, 5g story, it's about the IoTstory, it's about the Halo story
.
Announcements about Halo cameout this year as well.
Let's see there were so manygreat things and underlying a
lot of it was AI.
This was a good year for AI tobe front and center a lot of the
(05:03):
conversations when it came towireless.
So that was really neat to seeas well, whether it was with
Cisco doing what they're doingon the back end, whether it was
with Meter doing what they'redoing on the back end with their
technology, whether it's Marvis.
And can't ignore theacquisition the HPE Juniper
acquisition.
There were some goodacquisitions this year HPE
Juniper.
We also had the partnershipwith NetAlly and Hamina.
(05:28):
We had the Oseum and MetaGeekacquisition.
That was pretty cool.
There were some good thingsthat happened this year a little
bit of convergence in thewireless space not just of the
wireless but in the wirelessspace but a lot of that
revolving around those magicletters, ai and seeing AI work
and do things was really cool.
(05:49):
So I think that was part of thekey themes.
Industry shakeups, mergers,layoffs, acquisitions yeah man,
lots of layoffs, lots of goodtalent on the street right now
and lots of good talent gotmoved around.
Really neat to see people inthe last.
I feel like in the last month alot of jobs started to land.
It was really good to seepeople.
I feel like in the last month,a lot of jobs started to land.
It was really good to seepeople becoming part of teams
(06:10):
that they wanted to be a part of.
That was really neat.
Our big events last year we hadobviously Mobility Field Day to
me stood out.
We had MFD 11 and 12, and thatwas pretty cool.
I love those shows.
I love the Tech Field Day showsand MFD was really good.
This year Got to see my buddiesyou know Mark, commenting on
LinkedIn.
It's great to see you.
You know we had WLPC.
(06:30):
You know, can't go wrong withWLPC.
I'm still sad that I missedPrague, but that's okay.
Prague was really great, so itmakes me look forward to WLPC in
February, you know, next month,I guess.
After tomorrow it'll be nextmonth, WLPC 2025.
I got to present at B-Sidesagain.
I don't know if anybody isfamiliar with B-Sides, I don't
even know if I talked about thaton the podcast, but I've been a
(06:52):
strong supporter of our localB-Sides community, b-sides RGV
here in the Rio Grande Valley,and I got to present again and
show off all kinds of tools andbasically all the bad things
that can happen with wirelessand a little bit of how to
protect yourself against it, butmore about showing off.
Hey, here's the things that youmight not be thinking about.
Actually, I just talked aboutthat last week on the podcast,
(07:14):
but that was really fun to talkto a team of security-oriented
or security-minded people aboutwhat they're doing with wireless
and how it's going to affecttheir day-to-day lives.
I think that that's somethingthat we, as wireless
professionals, need to bethinking more and more about as
time goes on.
Yeah, I know I missed you inPrague too, man, but overall I
(07:35):
think it was a great year forenterprise.
I think consumer had a reallygood year, also One of the key
themes that kept coming out whenI would look up articles about
what was going on in 2024, wi-fi7.
I mean, wi-fi 7 really came out.
This was the year right whereWi-Fi 7 jumped out and and
started to be introduced inconsumer products a year ago at
(07:56):
CES.
And now there's more consumerproducts that have it, more
enterprise products that have it.
Lots of Wi-Fi 7 in 2024.
So that's very cool.
If 2023 was the year of 6 gig,then definitely 2024 was the
year of Wi-Fi 7.
So let's go back.
Let's see Key events andinnovations.
This is according to the chatGPTs, after I loaded it with
data January, a Morse Micro's80211AH Halo demo with a two
(08:19):
kilometer range.
Now I put that in therespecifically because Morse Micro
has already said that they'regoing to make some really good
announcements at CES, so that'sgoing to be really great to hear
.
I want to see what's happened ayear since the two kilometer
test that they put out there.
As I talk about Wi-Fi Halo,I've got the AP sitting right in
front of me from EdgeCore, theE112, right, I've got the Halo
antenna on it.
(08:39):
Having some registration issueswith it on the cloud service.
That's okay.
Firas already posted up a dealon LinkedIn.
If you haven't seen that.
Go follow Firas F-I-R-A-S andyou can see some of the stuff
that he's done with this exactequipment.
So I'm excited to see how mytest environment and test
procedures stack up against it.
This will be pretty neat.
(09:00):
That happened in May.
The Meters AI tool commandentered the scene.
That was really neat.
I got the chance to interviewthe team on the podcast and get
to talk about it and what it wasdoing and what it meant for the
industry as a whole, and thenthat was followed with the
MeterUp event.
That was such a pivotal momentfor me, I think in 2024, was
seeing the way that they hadimplemented AI in a really,
(09:23):
really usable fashion and howMeter had done this in a way
that really redefines the waythat networking is taking place
at an enterprise level.
So very cool to see that.
Shouts out to Neil and Suniland the whole team over there my
Sarahs Hi Sarahs, I miss theSarahs.
Great, great team, greatproduct, great launch, cool year
(09:44):
2024 for Meter.
That happened in May.
And then with Mobility, fieldDay, private Cellular took a
leap with Raman and Khajiit.
In October, ocm acquiredMetaGeek.
Netally and Humina partnered upfor the first time.
You get these two really coolpartnerships.
(10:04):
I think the tools scene has hada lot.
It's had a really good year in2024, whether it's Hamina and
Oseum or Hamina and NetAlly, orNetAlly just doing incredible
things.
I love NetAlly.
It's such a great company withsuch a vast amount of tools.
And then you had CEDOS, whomade their appearance.
I feel like it was two yearsago it may have only been a year
ago that they showed up at WLPC.
(10:27):
And then now their wavespectrum analyzer is out.
They've made some incredibleleaps and bounds with their
software in the cloud.
And then you've got Hamina,just constantly pushing and
pushing and pushing.
And we saw that at MobilityField Day 11.
And then again we saw it at 12,where they're bringing live
data from the network into theirplanning tool.
So it's no longer just aplanning tool, it's an
observation tool, atroubleshooting tool, and it's
finding that single source oftruth for the way that your
(10:48):
network should operate and theway that your network does
operate, and using data to buildthose models.
Just an incredible year fortooling in the Wi-Fi space.
Very neat.
And Eronia, you know, withtheir spectrum analyzer.
They've just continued to makeincredible equipment that's out
there.
I really want to get my handson it.
That's one of my 2025 goals isto get the Eronia spectrum
(11:12):
analyzer in my hands.
Really neat to see that.
Back on Event HighlightsMobility Field Day 11 and 12,
one of my key takeaways therewas that we saw vendors who came
in at MFD 10 and then came backin 11 and then came back in 12,
saying this is where we were,this is what we said we were
going to do, this is what we did, this is where we are, this is
where we're going, and then theywould follow that up with this
(11:33):
is what we said we were going todo.
Here we are the same thing.
What a very cool story to tellfor those vendors that have been
part of Mobility Field Day overand over again, for them to be
able to come back and say thisis what we promised, this is
what we delivered.
Well, nobody really promises,but this is what they said they
were going to do and this iswhat they aimed for and this is
what they did.
And we saw that from.
(11:57):
One of the cool groups thatshowed up was Ubiquity.
Seeing them at MFD11 was really, really cool and being able to
be a part of that audience wasincredible.
And have that feedback withUbiquity, who just normally
doesn't, who isn't out therewith everyone around, and to
have them come out and take thefeedback and then go and make
product.
I mean, looking back at it now,the feedback that we gave them
at MFD11 was a lot of thatproduct.
You know they teased outdifferent SKUs I think he said
(12:19):
12 different SKUs they weregoing to introduce in the
wireless space and having themactually follow through and put
in the things that we asked forand put in the things that the
community really wanted wasreally cool.
It showed a lot from Ubiquity.
It was neat to see that.
And I think it wasn't just themthough.
I mean, in talking to cisco andin talking to to salona, they,
(12:39):
they did a lot of the same thing.
Salona making that neutral hostannouncement, cbrs, was really
great at mfd.
But I, you know, I gotta say ifthere's one person that I
really got to give a shout outto at mobility field day, at
both of them, that I went tosuresh man.
You know, having one of theco-founders of Nile just take
candid questions and just giveabsolute, just bluntly candid
(13:02):
responses was so awesome.
It was just really cool.
And again, product aside, justbeing able to have a
conversation with a founder andhave them just answer honestly
was great.
Not that anyone really doesn't,it's just it's so rare to get
the founder standing on stage infront of you.
Bob Friday's always been realgood about being there and being
(13:23):
a part of it, you know, andhaving the people that are the
brains behind all of it andtalking about the reasons that
they did it and talking aboutwhy they're doing it Very cool.
So, suresh and Niall, thank youfor your candid responses there
.
Very cool.
So, suresh and Niall, thank youfor your candid responses there
.
Very, very neat.
We had Wi-Fi Now in Sarasota andI got to say that was a very
cool event.
Man.
The Wi-Fi Now, wi-fi GlobalCongress was there and it was
(13:51):
really cool to be out inSarasota of all places, it was
so green, but having theconversations there with
everyone in the industry andunderstanding where we were and
what was going on and listeningPeople were talking about AI
sensing and about using not AIsensing, ap sensing, wi-fi
sensing, so using access pointsand using the chipsets and the
access points to be able to havethose work as radar almost was
(14:16):
really neat, but then we didn'treally see anything, right, so
we heard about that but thenreally nothing.
Nothing really happened afterthat, no big announcements in
that space.
So that was a little bitinteresting.
But Wi-Fi Now in Sarasota wasgreat.
It was a great hotel, it was agreat space.
I would look forward to goingback to that.
And then later on in Dallas wehad the WBA event, the Wireless
(14:40):
Broadband Alliance event.
So a lot of the same speakersthat were there.
But the WBA event had more of afocus on open roaming and the
state of open roaming and whereit is and where it could go, and
it was great to see that growin 2024.
Open roaming has come a longway, so that was pretty neat.
In the consumer side a couple ofthings happened.
One I think it was in March Idon't have my timeline open,
(15:01):
sorry Was it March?
Let's open up the magictimeline here.
March the definition ofbroadband changed to 100, down
20 up by the FCC.
It was official and that wasreally good to see.
Now it's up to the equipmentmanufacturers in the industry to
be able to produce equipmentthat can get that speed and we
(15:21):
saw that this year.
We saw the Toronto equipmentthat was out there doing an
incredible just breakneck speeds.
Right A gig of it, 900 meg persecond a gig.
I got to go to a really coolroadshow.
I got to go out and getunderneath the tower, ride
around on a bus and get hands-onwithout equipment.
That was really great to see.
Wi-fi 7 again took off.
Starlink Mini launched, whichwas in and of itself, huge.
(15:42):
I think today's last day ifyou're a Starlink subscriber.
The Starlink Mini is $399 ifyou want to go purchase one, I
do believe today's the last dayfor that.
But Starlink Mini launching wasreally cool.
There's so much satellite newsthis year, so much happening in
the sat space and I don't Idon't expect that to slow down
as more providers come out, asmore technology comes out.
(16:04):
It'll be a great year forsatellite moving into 2025,
especially, you know, this year.
One of the things that happensthe fcc granted the ability for
for starlink to be mobilecarrier so that they can offer
sat to satellite to cell orsatellite to handheld coverage
direct from space to your cellphone it's not even a cell phone
(16:25):
at that point your mobiledevice from satellite to mobile.
That was pretty nuts to see theconvergence thing.
I keep going back in that in myhead.
It was interesting to see thatand I feel like I use the word
interesting a lot, but it wasfascinating for me to see those
that come together.
What else do we have that camein in 2024?
(16:47):
Professional milestones oh yeah, signal Roam.
I got to launch the Signal Roamproduct.
That was really neat.
We did that this year, workingoff of the technology of the
American bandwidth that's puttogether and launching that in a
number of different locationshere in the state of Texas and
well, actually all across the US.
The MeterUp event was reallygreat.
In September I got to go out toAlaska for 10 days I want to
(17:10):
say I think it was 10 days,eight days, something like that
and go do some engineering andsite survey and that resulted in
a really cool project.
So I'm excited about the futureof that.
If you're ever in the port ofJuneau pretty soon, your Wi-Fi
is going to be workingspectacularly as well as your
(17:30):
cell signal right now is alittle funky there, but you're
going to have killer Wi-Ficoming up in Juneau here pretty
soon based on the work that wewere able to do and it was great
to just be out collecting dataand getting my hands dirty.
Personally, I think it was adifferent kind of year for me.
After the layoff announcementand after I found out that I had
been affected by it, I justchilled, man.
(17:51):
I just chilled and I got tochoose the projects that I
wanted to be a part of.
I got to do some really coolstuff.
I helped build a homecomingfloat.
I got to volunteer at my kid'sschool.
I got to volunteer at mydaughter's school.
I really started to work on myphotography, which is now
showing all these really awesomeside benefits of stuff.
(18:14):
If you ever see me now, you'reprobably going to see my camera
in my hand, which is something Iused to do all the time.
So getting back to that hasbeen really great.
I got to experience that sideof personal growth.
But my wife just for what it'sworth I don't really talk family
stuff on here too much, but mywife is just killing it at her
job.
She's so good at what she doesand I'm so proud of her and I
(18:35):
got to sit back and watch hergrow this year and that was
really really neat.
I had this strange moment whereI dropped her off at the
airport and she got out of thecar with her luggage and I said
okay, honey, I'm going to takethe kid to school and I've got
this and I'm going to do thisand I'll do that and do that and
(18:59):
have a.
That's what she's used to doingis dropping me off at the
airport and going and handlingthe day-to-day stuff.
And I got to spend basically ayear doing that and it was
really refreshing and cool.
I got to play with tech, I gotto work on the podcast, I got to
do all these wonderful things.
But now, diving back into it, itwas very refreshing and it's
given me a much bigger andgreater appreciation for the
work that we do on the wirelessside and how much it just really
affects our day-to-day lives.
And I think a lot of that wentinto my decision to move to the
(19:21):
Amazon team, to the Aero team atAmazon.
It's so great because these arethings that affect us every
single day.
I mean, the access pointsitting right behind me is the
working access point that I'mconnected to on this.
Well, okay, I'm on ethernet onthis computer, but you know what
I mean.
Like my phone and all mydevices are connected to that
and being able to get closer tohome with wireless.
(19:42):
I think that was one of mypushes into making the decision
to move over here.
So many great things y'all.
So many great things are gonnabe happening in 2025.
Eero has proven to be such acool team.
It's only been almost twomonths but some great things
happening, not just with NRFcoming up and CES coming up, but
after that y'all are going tosee, my Instagram is going to go
nuts.
(20:02):
I'm going to have some fun outworking on projects.
So professionally andpersonally, it was a really cool
year for me.
I hope it was a really coolyear for you as well.
I saw a lot of movement in theindustry.
A lot of people that I didn'tthink would get cut got cut and
a lot of people that I thoughtwould get cut didn't get cut.
There's lots of reorg happening, but I still you know, I've
said this, I guess, quietly withpeople around, friends and
(20:27):
whatnot and it's just such aweird time I feel like in the
industry, where there's justconfusion.
Big Enterprise has thisconfusion going on, man, and I
know I'm not the only one whofeels it.
It's like you know, there'sinnovation happening, right, and
there's stuff that's happeningwith new technology and there's
stuff that's happening with newaccess points, and we get that,
(20:47):
but organizationally it seemslike it seems kind of stale.
And I say that with beingcompletely objective here, right
, it's just really weird towatch all these good ideas and
all this stuff not making youknow, bubbling out to where it
needs to be and getting in thehands of people that use it, and
then you turn around and youwonder why?
(21:08):
And you look at theorganizations that are producing
the hardware and producing thesoftware and it's, you know,
it's been like kind of hazy andthen out flies Meter going.
Hey, we're going to do all thiscrazy stuff and it was great to
see.
But I think we're in for somereally cool times because as
things start to settle the HPJuniper acquisition, the stuff
that's going on with Cisco,meraki, the stuff that's going
(21:30):
on with all the different groupsthat are starting to play in
the space it's going to be adifferent playing field.
I feel like going into 2025,2026 and beyond, where it's like
we're getting a facelift.
Maybe it's just me, right.
Maybe it's just me because Iwas out, because I was hanging
out and my mind was elsewhere.
I was picking up kids and DJing, working on photography.
(21:53):
But I look at the industry nowand it doesn't look like the
same industry that it did acouple of years ago, and that's
a good thing.
I know that there are a lot ofshakeups, I know a lot of people
were affected by that and Iknow a lot of people still
haven't recovered from that andhaven't landed.
But I really feel like thewireless space is in a different
(22:20):
.
It's in a different season thanit has been, and I'm excited
for what I'm anticipating isgoing to happen.
I don't know what the right wayto say that is, but whatever
you get the point, there's a lotof really cool stuff happening
and it's neat, and I think we'regoing to see some of that
coming up at WLPC.
We're going to start to seepeople talking about how it's
all affected it, because WLPCagain and I harp on it I mean at
(22:43):
this point you would think thatI'm like you know, like I make
money off of them or somethingwhich I don't.
Nor would I want to Listen.
If you need your event produced, call Matthew Castile.
He's the guy who organizes WLPCfor Keith.
He does a bang-up job puttingthe whole thing together.
He's your guy if you want toput something together like that
.
But what it is to me and whatexcites me about it is not just
(23:03):
being able to see my friends andhang out, but it's such a good
touchpoint for everybody in theindustry to really understand
what's happening and are thethings that I'm feeling about
the industry, are other peoplefeeling them as well?
And I think that that's one ofthose things that happens only
when you get all of us together,only in an environment where we
feel like we can talk andthere's vendors there as well
but it's not a vendor'sconference where you have to use
(23:26):
our product and here's all thebenefit of using our product and
here's the ecosystem if you useour product.
It's not that, it's hey, we'rejust a bunch of nerds hanging
out talking, and I really wantto see what other people's
thoughts of 2024 were, becauseto me, it was a little bit
different.
Now.
Predictions and goals goinginto 2025, this is the segment
that I'm supposed to talk about.
(23:47):
According to ChatGPT, it's thenext one and it says anticipate
advancements in AI-drivennetworking yeah, no shit.
You think Obviously that'sgoing to continue to happen.
Been networking yeah, no shit.
If you think Obviously that'sgoing to continue to happen.
Growth of CBRS and privatecellular my gut tells me that
it's going to grow, but at whatrate, I don't know.
(24:08):
It just feels like it wouldhave ramped by now.
It feels like it really wouldhave started to just take off.
I'm not trying to discount itand say that CBRS and private
cellular isn't going to grow in2025.
I'm sure it will.
I just don't know what thatramp looks like.
I mean, is it straight up?
What's the degree of growthhere?
Because I love the neutral hoststuff.
You all know that.
I mean I love what we did withSignal Roam, I love what's
(24:30):
happening with Passpoint, I lovewhat's happening with
OpenRoaming.
I love that neutral hosts isbeing that there's CBS providers
, cbrs providers that are usingneutral hosts.
I love that.
That's really starting to takeoff.
I think it's cool.
I think it's going in the rightdirection, but I don't know at
what rate.
I don't think it's going toreplace Wi-Fi.
I don't think anything's goingto replace Wi-Fi.
(24:50):
I think Wi-Fi is still here tostay.
It has been here to stay.
The whole conversation of 5gversus wi-fi is just clickbait
in 2024 at this point.
I mean, so many people wrote somany articles that said the
exact same freaking thing.
Who's gonna replace wi-fi?
No, dude, it's not.
And now it's not even aconversation.
You know it's.
(25:10):
It's yeah, okay, it's justanother cellular technology.
Now halo is it going to replacewi-fi?
No, because he uses wi-fi.
But is there anything that'sgoing to come in and be a
contender against Wi-Fi?
No, and I think that that's aridiculous way to look at the
industry.
I think that Wi-Fi does whatit's supposed to do.
I think that 5G does what it'ssupposed to do.
I'm loving seeing the 4G and 5Gnetwork in a box.
(25:32):
Things pop up on my LinkedInfeed where people have figured
out that you can just throw allthis stuff in a single case and
turn it on.
I think that's pretty neat.
I think we'll hopefully seemore of that ability to just pop
up a network overnight veryquickly and easily using low
Earth orbiting satellite systemslike Starlink or any of the
other contenders out there.
(25:52):
I think that's really.
It's a good space to be in somuch.
It feels like there's so muchto talk about in 2024.
And, like I said, I tried towrite it all down, but when I
stop and think about it it canbe condensed pretty quickly.
Usf USAC deemed unconstitutional.
That was crazy in July and westill haven't figured out what's
(26:14):
going to happen with that.
There's speculation that thatactually might all go away,
which I don't even want to getinto.
How terrifying that is for someof the bigger equipment
manufacturers and for the youknow, school kids and children
and and school districts.
God, I can't even imagine whatit'd be like to, just one you
know, overnight lose your budgetfor technology.
(26:35):
That's pretty nuts.
Cisco locationing UWB and FTMSuresh killing it.
Yeah, these are my notes.
Aws reInvent I had a good timeat reInvent.
I like that.
That's just a show I did InNovember.
I made my announcement that wascome over to Eero.
That was cool.
And then here we are inDecember the end of December
kind of a down month I got todeploy a Wi-Fi network up in a
(26:58):
community in Northern California.
That was pretty awesome.
I got to see the stuff.
I've got a whole garage labgoing.
Right now my garage is filthyso I won't post photos, but as
soon as I clean up a little bitI'll take some pretty photos and
post them.
I have a whole Eero labhappening in my garage.
For the last week I've justbeen building it and having a
blast at night 10 o'clock atnight, jamming out to Daft Punk
(27:20):
and teaching my eight-year-oldhow to rack equipment.
That's what I did for the lastcouple of days.
It was awesome, man, just a funtime.
But I think 2025 is going.
I think we're going to start tosee the industry changing in
2025.
I feel like 2024 was a yearthat needed to happen, to break
(27:42):
some stuff and to make peoplefeel uncomfortable and put
people in a comfortablesituation so that there could be
some interesting growth in 2025.
I think that's what we're goingto see.
2025 is going to start toredefine the expectations of
what we understand in wireless.
I feel, not just from a Wi-Fiperspective, but in a wireless
perspective.
Overall, there's a lot ofmovement that's happening and
(28:03):
it's great to see, and people'sexpectations of Wi-Fi are just
that it works really, reallyfast and very quickly anytime
they need it, and it's just agiven.
It was a given coming into thisyear and it's going to be a
given coming into 2025.
But at lightning fast speedswith very minimal latency, to be
(28:25):
able to do all the things thatpeople want to do.
And those things we don't evenknow what they are yet.
Right, if you go back a year,there was a rumor that Apple was
going to have their vr headsetand then they busted their
headset out and then it flopped.
You know, not a lot of peoplebought it.
I'm sure it was awesome, butI'm a dude, I'm a big ass nerd
and I didn't even buy one.
(28:46):
That's too rich for my bloodman I'm.
That's a lot of money rightthere.
And vr just kind of, you know,like that's what it did this
year.
It's kind of fell apart thisyear.
Not a lot happening.
Wow.
Mark just commented on LinkedIn.
He says losing budget is scary.
I might get out of educationtech if I can't afford to buy
the gear needed to support theschools.
Yeah, man, but that sucks,right, and I get it.
(29:09):
But man, that sucks for theschools.
And in Texas we have a wholeother thing going on with school
vouchers and all this stuff.
So I don't even know whatthat's going to look like.
I don't know what that's goingto look like coming into 2025.
And then there's all the againnot political, but there's the
new administration stuff comingin.
And what does that mean forbroadband?
I mean, I'm not the guy thatfollows what's happening at the
(29:30):
FCC.
Go look at broadband breakfast.
That's the other Drew, if youjust type in broadband breakfast
and I'm sure he calls me theother Drew also.
It's broadbandbreakfastcom.
That is a website.
Look, let me see if I can sharemy screen here.
(29:51):
Is this going to work or is itgoing to fall apart?
No, it's going to fall apart.
Good job, drew.
Broadband breakfast is great atthis and Drew over there does a
phenomenal job covering thepolitics behind broadband.
And if you want to learn moreabout it, just go follow that.
If I can give you a follow for2025, go follow
broadbandbreakfastcom.
Go, keep up with what they'redoing.
(30:11):
They have a lot of information.
They stream weekly onWednesdays at noon.
They have a lot of information.
They stream weekly onwednesdays at noon and they talk
all about the fcc and aboutregulation and policy and all
that.
And they're just a really greatchoice for it, because there's
so much happening that with thenew administration coming in,
we'll see what's doge gonna meanfor wireless dude.
(30:32):
I don't know, I can't.
I don't know what's gonna meanfor the wi-fi stand why.
You know, wi-fi stand had acool year.
I don't know.
I don't know what it's going tomean for Wi-Fi stand.
Wi-fi stand had a cool year.
Honestly, wi-fi stand, I didn'tlook at how well we did this
year versus last year or so, onand so forth.
I just know that we did someneat stuff and, as always, I
appreciate the business of Wi-Fistand Goes without saying.
Big time sponsor of the Wavespodcast.
I did some sponsorships thisyear.
(30:54):
If you want to sponsor in 2025,let me know.
I'll be happy to take yourmoney and sponsor this thing.
Very excited to help supportsponsors who support the show.
I would love to get some newequipment.
So if you're feeling generous,please let me know if you'd like
to sponsor and I'll be happy tomake you a sponsor of the show.
Yeah, I think that's all I got.
Man, I'm ready to go eat someblack-eyed peas.
(31:18):
Okay, let's talk completely offtopic.
Let's see, I live in SouthTexas, so I live in a city
called McAllen, down on theUS-Mexico border.
Whenever anyone asks me, I dothe little Texas symbol and I
stick my finger down there andshow people where I live.
And the traditions that we havedown here are a little bit
different and I'm curious ifanyone else has these same
traditions.
We do things like black eyedpeas.
(31:42):
I feel like that comes from mymom's side, from my mom's
family's market, so I feel likeblack eyed peas is like a
Southern thing.
So I make the black eyed peas,we do uvas.
So you put a grape in yourmouth.
You put 12 grapes in your mouth, one for every wish coming into
the new year.
I think that's more of aHispanic tradition, more of a
Mexican tradition coming intothe new year.
I think that's more of aHispanic tradition, more of a
Mexican tradition.
Then there's all the goofy stuff.
Like all the single people wearred chones, red canciones, red
(32:03):
underpants, if you will, redunderwear.
If they're looking for love,you take your luggage.
I want you to picture this.
Okay, picture me with 12 grapesin my mouth, wearing red
underwear, running out the frontdoor with luggage.
Don't picture it.
It's a terrible, terriblevisual.
But you take the luggage andyou run out across the street
and then you run back to signifythat you want travel in the new
(32:24):
year.
I used to do that and then I gota job where all I did was
travel.
So it might work.
I don't know.
It might work.
What else do we do?
You open the front door and yousweep out.
You sweep the front area ofyour house to sweep all the bad
out right, all the bad vibes,and then what else do you do?
You open up the front door andthe back door to let all the air
(32:45):
clean itself out.
Yeah, strange traditions, butyou know what it's fun.
What else do we do?
I'm trying to think of other.
It's red underwear, it'sluggage.
It's graves oh, it's redunderwear, it's luggage.
It's the graves of toastingwith champagne.
Obviously that's about it, man.
So that's what I'm going to bedoing tonight toasting champagne
, running around in red.
And I don't.
I'm not looking for love.
I have an amazing wife.
If you haven't met her in 2025,meet me in a trade show.
(33:07):
She usually hangs out at thosethings with me, or I do it with
her, so you might get to meether.
If you, if you need commercialinsurance, she's your person.
If you have a startup companyand you need insurance, let me
know.
She'll help you.
If you have an establishedcompany, let me know.
I'll put you in touch with herFree commercial.
That's it, man.
I hope you all had a wonderfulholiday season.
This is the end of 2024.
2025 is going to be spectacular.
(33:29):
I hope it's a wonderful yearfor you.
The next couple of shows I'll beat, I will be at CES I just got
a great.
Just the next couple of showsI'll be at.
I will be at CES.
I just got a great, just a coolmessage from Keith Parsons.
My buddy Keith will be at CESalso, so hopefully I'll have
some time to run around the showwith him.
I know there's some other nerdsthat are going to be out there
the guy from CleverFi, I thinkhe's going to be there.
He's going to be at NRF also.
So if you're at CES in Vegasfrom the 4th through the 10th,
(33:55):
Let me know, I'll be there forthat.
And then I will be in New YorkCity for the National Retail
Federation, nrf, from the 10ththrough the 14th, I believe.
And then I come home and thenI've got a trip coming up on the
25th that I haven't talkedabout yet, but it's gonna be so
freaking awesome.
The 25th through February 8thmore or less, I'm going to be
(34:18):
providing all of the Wi-Fi forthe World Surfing League World
Championships on behalf of Eeroand Amazon, you know, on the
company.
It's going to be really, reallyneat.
So I'm excited to be a part ofthat More to come there, and
then I'm going to come home forfour days and then go to WLPC in
Phoenix, actually for sevendays.
Golfing on the 17th.
(34:39):
Get in touch with Matt or Macor me or Rob Boardman if you
want to play golf with us onMonday, the 17th.
We're all playing on Flying Inon Sunday and we're going to go
play a round of golf on Monday.
The first annual WLPC Classic,brought to you by I don't know
insert sponsor name here.
I think we're all going tobring some swag to give out, so
that should be fun.
And then that's February, thenMarch I'm not sure and then up
(35:01):
comes everything else.
So those are my plans.
If you're going to be anywherearound those areas, please drop
me a note, come by and say hello.
If not, that's supposed to bealso during that whole polar
vortex, so we'll see how thatgoes.
Anyway, this is the lastpodcast of 2024 for me.
That puts us in the books.
I appreciate everybodylistening.
Have yourself a wonderful andhappy new year and I will talk
to you all in 2025.
(35:22):
See ya.
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