OMG! Friggin Wi-Fi 7 is HERE! (Sorta)

Are you ready to get like 46 Gbps over Wi-Fi?

ARE YOU?

Because if you’re not, well, you’re just a big fat loser. You gotta know that Wi-Fi 7 is buckets of wireless awesome that will friggin rewrite the ENTIRE STORY of Wi-Fi as we know it, Jack!

Or not.

Big News from the Wi-Fi Alliance

All that silliness aside, today the Wi-Fi Alliance announced it’s Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7™ program. I also spoke with Kevin Robinson, the Alliance’s CEO, late last week about the news. Kevin is rightfully excited about the promise of Wi-Fi 7, but as a geezer who has been at this kind of juncture a few times before I can’t say that I’m all in. Kevin did share a bit about the benefit of the certification testing process in providing a modicum of “your product needs to support these specific things to wear our Certified 7 logo”, and the Alliance’s members will certainly benefit from the PR generated by the alliance.

But we’ve been here before, no?

Wi-Fi 7 is Interesting. But…

Let’s slow down the hype train for just a bit here. First, realize that “Wi-Fi 7” has no basis in any published IEEE standard, and it is the IEEE that defines the Wi-Fi standards- not the Wi-Fi Alliance. What the Alliance has decided to call Wi-Fi 7 is actually the 802.11be DRAFT standard. It’s not ratified yet. It’s not “here”, even though the Alliance is doing their CERTIFED 7™ thing.

That’s just how the WLAN industry goes… a lot of weird nuances. Speaking of weird nuances- the Alliance and it’s members are getting ready to promote the living hell out of 802.11be, and features like:

• 4K QAM
• 320 MHz wide channels
• Multilink MLO
• and more
  
  There’s not a lot of value in me creating yet another technical overview of these features, so let me refer you to Intel’s decent explainer. if you breeze through the Wi-Fi Alliance’s press release and the Intel Wi-Fi 7 tutorial, you might find yourself getting really jazzed about it all. Unfortunately, all is rarely what it seems in the world of Wi-Fi, where being a marketer means you get to live a fast and loose lifestyle often decoupled from reality.

I didn’t ask permission to use the response from the WLAN sage who gave it on X, so I chose to anonymize him or her for this blog. But this person is one of the single loudest and most articulate voices in the WLAN industry. The response reflects the skepticism that many of us feel when it comes to Wi-Fi 7.

With every single new standard, THE MARKETERS go right to the high end of what the standard technically allows under ideal conditions and with theoretical top-end hardware on both the infrastructure AND client sides, and they tend to promote the loftiest of numbers as if they were going to be the norm for everyone just by buying new products.

Newsflash: Wi-Fi 7 will be better, but it will be a fuzzy, hard-to-quantify kind of better. There are too many variables. For example, smartphones will stay at two spatial streams for the foreseeable future, but Wi-Fi 7’s biggest and sexiest numbers are based on the client and access points doing a whopping 16 spatial streams. And those 320 Mhz channels and 4K QAM? Neither will be commonplace. Both are more or less unicorns.

So what will be better about Wi-Fi 7?

MLO might be interesting- if it works. Meaning, if the many, many vendors that are part of the WLAN ecosystem can get it right individually.

More clients using the 6 GHz spectrum will be good thing. That’s an easy one.

Data rates and latency should be improved across the board, and client device battery life should also benefit. How do you reliably measure these beyond saying they will be better? 

You really can’t and have it be meaningful. Especially this early on.

What ISN’T Improving With the Wi-Fi Alliance’s CERTIFED 7™ Program?

Unfortunately, operational zingers that have caused us pain from the WLAN operations side for 20+ years don’t change with the new standard or the Alliance’s certification program. It’s still up to the vendors to define how their client devices roam, for example. There is still no clean delineation between Enterprise and Consumer client capabilities, but that line is palpable on the access point side and so Consumer-grade client devices brought into the Business WLAN can be a colossal pain in the ass.

Put it all together, and there ain’t nothing new under the wireless sun.

Related: I recently talked with David Coleman about the future of Wi-Fi. That’s right- David COLEMAN. I run in those circles, you realize.

Contemplating the 2024 Wireless LAN Pros Conference

With 2024 fast approaching, my thoughts are on the February WirelessLAN Professionals Conference (WLPC, for you hipsters in the crowd). We’re looking at the tenth incarnation of this awesome event, which I can only describe as the singular best tech conference I have ever attended.

What do I like about WLPC? For starters, it’s wireless-focused. Under the heading of “wireless”, it’s mostly about Wi-Fi but with enough variety on other wireless topics to keep it interesting. It’s also a conference BY wireless people and FOR wireless people- with very little vendor influence in the mix. The majority of all presentations are by women and men who make their living DOING wireless, and not by sales folks pitching products. The breadth of the content is amazing, and those who will attend the event vote on submissions sent in by those who have something to say.

Like… me.

This year. I’ll be doing two talks- one on the “rules” of Wi-Fi that sometimes you gotta break in the real world, and one on the topic of changing vendors. Over the years, I’ve done a number of presentations, panel discussions, and even led a couple of deep dives. Each has been a privilege. Then there was this back in 2018:

And that was humbling, to say the least.

WLPC is also a fantastic opportunity for those of us who don’t get to a lot of other events to see old friends and to make new ones. It’s an intense few days, with a great mix of content, hands-on activities (I’m doing the Flipper Zero deep dive this time), and socializing with a profoundly diverse range of people. I treat every one of these events as “this might be my last one” and so try to take nothing for granted.

Maybe next year there won’t be budget for travel on my end… or COVID version 19 could scrap the event… or I could have health issues or schedule conflicts… or my books could take off and make me a millionaire (in which case you can all just kiss my arse, if I forget to say it at the time)… Few things in life are guaranteed, so I place great value and appreciation on every wireless-related thing I get to do whether it be conferences, webinars, articles, or good conversation with people who can make me think. But among all of that, WLPC is uniquely wonderful.

While the wireless industry itself continues to change, and those of us in it evolve (or age out), the reliability of WLPC is comforting, and is easy to look forward to. Hopefully I’ll see you there.

And no- they didn’t pay me to gush, so shut up about that.

Learn more about WirelessLAN Professionals here.

Thoughts on Cisco Presentation at Mobility Field Day 10

Now that I’ve wrapped up my trip out west and the dust is settling in my mind, it’s time to reflect on what I heard and took away from Mobility Field Day 10. Here’s at least some of my perspective on Cisco”s session, as written up as a LinkedIn article. Hint: Cisco and Meraki are now same-same.

More to come.

A Cheap Wireless and Solar Camera Proves Itself

You gotta love it when things just work- especially things like cameras that you rely on to help safeguard your property in this unfortunate age of what’s yours I want and so I will take. I really wasn’t expecting a lot when I took a chance a few years ago on a brand called Zumimall I somewhat randomly picked off of Amazon, but fast forward to today and I got praises to sing.

Zumimall solar-powered wireless camera standing guard at Wirednot HQ

Here’s what I bought- and I bought two:

The price does vary on this… like in $50-$75 range

Yeah, yeah… “But Lee, it only does 2.4 GHz!” It’s also just a 802.11n geezer device, but you just shush up about THAT. Where I use this camera, it’s old-school specs are just fine. And where exactly am I using it? Well, I first bought these to augment my Ubiquiti Protect system when I lived in upstate New York. I needed a camera I could put way up on my roof-mounted ham radio antenna mast to show how much snow I had on the roof in winter (we got a LOT up there) and to also cover parts of the yard and driveway. The other one was out in the backyard.

Did I mention these are SOLAR powered? Despite gloomy New York winters? That little solar panel has done a fantastic job of keeping the internal battery charged, I’m going into the third year with the Zumimalls, and they just don’t run out of juice regardless of weather.

We have since moved to Indiana, and the heat here can be intense. The bodies of the cameras are yellowing, but they continue to work wonderfully.

The latest version of the camera claims to have greatly improved resolution and clarity at 2K 3MP. My older units are adequate but not stellar, but were also bought more for their solar/Wi-Fi capabilities.

As you can imagine, I have pretty stellar Wi-Fi at the Wirednot Compound. My daughter here in Indiana and a son in Seattle do NOT have stellar wireless where there own Zumimalls are located, but the cameras do well even on weak signal.

Cloud storage is a paid option, but I have found the MicroSD card option to be just fine. Motion detection is surprisingly good, as are pretty much everything else you’d want to play with in a camera- especially at the low pice. I use the companion app on iOS and Android, and it works very well on both.

From the wireless network side, here‘s one glimpse- nothing special, but again it just works:

I wish Ubiquiti had a comparable option with solar and wireless- Zumimall has shown that it can be viable, and reliable. These aren’t enterprise-grade cameras, but for home and small business you simply can’t go wrong. And the solar power aspect is absolutely empowering. Get it here.

I have had these cameras connected to wireless networks using access points from a number of vendors including Aruba, Meraki, Mist, Ruckus, and Ubiquiti and they simply connect and go in each case.

________

Speaking of Indiana… there’s this.

Hamina, bitches…

So, how long HAS it been since a new WLAN design tool hit the market? Arguably, this has been a space long-dominated by de facto monopoly. And sure, most of us in WLAN Land created and supported the monopoly. It was working for everyone. But then circumstances changed. Companies were bought. People changed. And people have a way of making things great, or laying waste to years-cultivated credibility. Such is life.

But wait- I was talking about WLAN design tools. There’s a new one out there, you realize… Now, I know that you know that I know that a whole bunch of us already know about Hamina. It’s really a rather small community of wireless professionals, and people talk to each other. They share. And Hamina is definitely a hot topic right now.

Beyond just being weary of what an incumbent tool vendor might be doing under new management, I think many of us are ready for a more lightweight design experience. Lighter on the wallet, lighter on the hardware required to run the tool, and lighter on the fable that Wi-Fi design is something akin to rocket science that requires razor precision. After a while, some stories start to collapse under their own weight. That’s not to say existing tools aren’t still effective, but paying ever more to use to use them is in no way a privilege. The notion of who is working for who sometimes gets blurred,

So why look at Hamina? To start with, it is feature-packed for WLAN design, on par with any leading tool. It’s in version 1.0 currently, and feels very intuitive to use. Everything you’d expect to see for 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz are there. Bring in the CAD files if you’d like or do your walls and such manually. You can model your designs, and then model what a client (using various device types) would experience in the environment as they move around. It works well in my experience, so far as a design tool.

Differentiators? Hamina is browser-based. Run it on Windows, run it on Mac without installing software. Run it on a locked down corporate machine. And for me at least, the 12-month cost for the WLAN-only version is a fraction of what the competitor charges just for renewal after purchase. Add in 4G/5G features, and the cost is still quite comfortable for the higher tier. And it all seems to work well in my experienced opinion- even in the early versions. There are other niceties in the mix that I may or may not personally use- BLE and LoRaWAN planning, planning for cable runs and network switches and such.

Take a look at Hamina, says I.

Hamina, bitches!

We Shouldn’t Need Wyebot, But We Do

Just a taste of the Wyebot UI

Wireless network systems are expensive- like insanely expensive- and they are only one part of a given enterprise network environment. You can spend top dollar on market-leading WLAN hardware, switches, RADIUS servers, DNS and DHCP systems, Active Directory resources, security stuff and more You can have veteran IT craftspeople design, install and configure it all- and still have problems that are not only hard to solve but also hard to even start looking at when an end user tells you they aren’t happy. It is what it is, and many of the built-in tools that SHOULD help don’t do a particularly good job when you most need them.

Enter Wyebot.

I’ve been dipping toes in the Wyebot waters for a few years now, and was happy to see the Massachusetts-based company presenting at Mobility Field Day 8. Through the years I have been less than impressed after testing other 3rd party sensors and monitoring overlays (excluding 7signal, whose methodology I find to be quite effective), as false alarms are the norm and the systems frequently become just another high-cost glass of pain to ignore shortly after implementation.

I’ve personally found Wyebot to work well in effectively characterizing the WLAN space it operates in, exposing all of the WLAN-oriented details a wireless admin needs to know about. What’s there? How are the SSIDs configured? Where is contention and the potential for trouble? Which Wi-Fi networks are deviating from best practices? That’s the easy stuff. It also does highly-reliable synthetic testing that you define (one area where other sensors just don’t get it right) to help tell when any of the non-WLAN parts of the network are misbehaving in ways that frequently tarnish the WLAN’s reputation. I like the information delivered from the monitoring of spectrum, client behavior, and testing of upstream network resources. I find Wyebot to be a force multiplier in that it watches and ACCURATELY reports on what I care about when my pricey wireless system can’t natively get it done.

All network problems feel wireless to wireless users.

I particularly like that Wyebot not only has a robust packet capture capability for problem analysis, but you can also import wireless pcap files taken outside elsewhere using Wireshark on a laptop (just one example) and display that capture through the graphical Wyebot UI for Wyebot’s analysis of that capture. I also like that I can do wireless backhaul from the Wyebot sensors if needed.

The company is generous with free trials, and has some interesting case studies that show how organizations are using the solution.

Have a look at the Mobility Field Day 8 presentations by Wyebot. Also, see my past blogs about Wyebot here,

Well-designed and maintained wireless networks ought to not need outside tools to help keep them running well. Unfortunately, WLAN professionals know that we live in a very imperfect world. Unfortunately, not all of those outside tools are particularly effective, but I personally like what I get out of Wyebot.

The Thing About Ventev

Having just participated in Mobility Field Day 8, I got to spend some quality time with Ventev– during which I had an epiphany of sorts. We’ll get to that in a moment.

I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in many of the Field Day events through the years. They know me out there in Silly Valley where vendors and Field Day delegates come together and discuss industry trends, new products, what works and what sucks, and so on.

Being a veteran Field Day-er, I understand the routine. Vendors present what they want the world to know, delegates ask questions and make comments to dig deeper or provide criticism (some constructive, some because often the vendors can be decoupled from the reality of what end users actually need). How effective a Field Day is depends on (in my opinion) how effective the vendors are at following the guidance given to them for their presentations by Field Day management, and the quality of the delegate’s questions and comments. There are human beings involved on both sides of the table, and sometimes one side or the other just makes a given presentation laborious. Maybe boring content is offered a mile wide and an inch deep, or perhaps a given delegate just cannot shut up as they enjoy the sound of their own voice as they redesign the vendor’s product for them in real time. Again, the human factor.

One prevailing theme from the vendor side is this: WE THINK THIS FEATURE OR THINGY IS TRULY INNOVATIVE AND SO WE WILL NOW TRY TO CONVINCE YOU DELEGATES AND THE FOLKS AT HOME SO YOU WILL PAY US LOTS OF MONEY FOR THE HARDWARE AND A SHITLOAD OF LICENSES BUT YOU MAY NOT IMMEDIATELY SEE THE VALUE SO WE GOTTA WALK YOU THROUGH IT WHILE WE HOPE YOU DON’T ASK TOO MANY QUESTIONS THAT COULD CUT INTO OUR STORY AND HENCE OUR BOTTOM LINE.

Nothing new here.

Let’s get back to Ventev, shall we? I promised you an epiphany.

So I’m listening to their Mobility Field Day 8 presentations about specialty enclosures, solar powered network “stations” (my word, not theirs) and antennas when a tidal wave of realization came over me. While network equipment vendors work hard to convince you that their often murky magic is worth the constantly elevating costs for what I often feel ought to be largely commoditized by now, Ventev sells fact. Ventev sells tangible reality. Ventev sells physics.

Whether it’s their Venvolt battery packs for survey work and temporary power needs or providing solutions for wireless access points to function out in the middle of Frozen Friggin Nowhere, Ventev doesn’t need to convince anyone of anything. When they talk about specialty antennas, their situational benefits are obvious and the physics of it all is instantaneously provable.

The Ventev narrative isn’t one of trying to out-AI or out-dashboard the other guy. They just make wireless environments better (or in some cases, even POSSIBLE). The Ventev story is end-to-end real, with no hype to sort through. No hyper-granular, squeeze-you-until-it-hurts-then-do-it-again-in-three-years-because-we-got-your-wallet–by-the-nuts-now licensing bullshit to hold your nose and pay for.

That is pretty sweet. And all too rare these days.

I suggest you get to know Ventev. Their presentations from Mobility Field Day 8 and earlier events are all found here.

A Wi-Fi Look at the GoPro MAX

That’s right, I said MAX. A hip guy like me isn’t going to have something called MIN junking up my life. I’m top shelf all the way. The GoPro MAX is a fascinating action camera that does what other GoPro cameras like the Hero 10, 9, 8, 7… all can do (which is a lot) PLUS lets you get freaky, like so:

You can do a heck of a lot more with a 360 camera- like Google street view kinda stuff. And… you can also control the camera via GoPro’s Quick app with a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi (it’s also got GPS in there, and voice command capability. It just impresses the heck out of me, but each one of these works against the battery life.)

So… what does it actually DO for Wi-Fi?
Being a wireless professional, I can’t leave well enough alone and simply enjoy the magic. I gotta know what’s in play with the MAX and it’s Wi-Fi capabilities. Anything and everything you’d like to know is here, but stay with me and I’ll boil it down for you.

It’s dual-band- works in both 5 GHz (.11ac) and 2.4 (.11n). It appears to default to 5 GHz, and it uses a whopping 80 Mhz channel width. That’s right, I said 80… Don’t believe me? Well maybe this will change your doubting mind:

For giggles, here’s the 2.4 GHz side of the MAX doing it’s thing:

It’s always interesting to me to see how they craft the WLAN antennas in various tight squeeze products, and the MAX is definitely a tight squeeze product. The complete take-it-apart views are here, but this is the antenna view from that series:

What about about power? This little guy isn’t as skimpy in that department as I expected it to be, at least not in some frequency slices:

I see no way to manually manipulate channel, channel width, or power output settings. So far I love the control via Wi-Fi, but I can also see where if you get a number of these and other late-model GoPros also doing wireless ops together at an event, they certainly could impact the business/visitor WLAN in a noticeable way. Such is Wi-Fi life.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to make a bunch of goofy round pictures that only I find interesting…

Wanna Blog? Then Blog Already

This post was created for a ten-minute talk for the Wireless LAN Professionals Conference (2018). Want help getting started in blogging? Hopefully this blog lights a little fire for you, and I’m always happy to answer questions if you reach out.

Want to blog about Wi-Fi?

1. Take the first step. Writing, like public speaking, puts you “out there” for praise and criticism. If you’re gonna do it, do it.

2. Be yourself. Your words, your thoughts, your style. It’s OK to be inspired by others, but the world needs YOU, not you copying someone else. Write from YOUR experiences and discoveries.

3. Have something to say, but don’t force it. When the time is right to get your shareable thoughts out, you’ll feel it.

4. Put a fresh angle on the topic, whatever it is. Find something else to lead with that others aren’t discussing, some under-told feature or use case, etc. It’s OK to write about what others are writing about, but find some way to make it fresh, even if just subtly so.

5. Write often enough to stay relevant. If you last wrote back in 2015, chances are you’ve fallen off of most people’s radar. Every few weeks is OK, every few months is acceptable. Beyond that, don’t expect a lot of readers. Bonus- the more you write, the better you will get at writing.

6. Blogs aren’t novels- people have limited reading time. Don’t write more than you need to on a topic.

7. Promote, and be promoted. Get proofreading help early on if you need it; your blogging “advisor” will likely promote your blog.

8. Don’t be thin-skinned, and keep your ego in check. BTW- none of us know everything. And “experts” aren’t omnipotent- know the difference when interacting with people.

9. Any comments/feedback are worth responding to (almost). Stay respectful, and try to foster healthy dialogue. But it’s better to delete hyper-caustic comments than to reply with rancor.

10. Money can be made writing for the right outlet (or company) but generally it takes a while to build up to that- and you might have to know someone to get in the game. Unless you’re truly gifted, you won’t get rich with blogging. But you might develop a nice side income, and get other writing gigs.

Will Reliability Be Prioritized Before Wi-Fi’s Whizzbang Future Gets Here?

This blog looks forward, but before we go there we need to zoom back to 1983 where I will corrupt John Mellencamp’s “Crumblin Down“:

Some features ain’t no damn good
You can’t trust ’em, you can’t love em
No good deed goes unpunished
And I don’t mind being their whipping boy
I’ve had that pleasure for years and years

Indeed. I too have had that pleasure for years and years. Whether it’s what comes out of mechanisms that are supposed to ensure that standards and interoperability testing bring harmony to the wireless world (but don’t), or code suck that flows like an avalanche coming down a mountain, I’ve been there and suffered that a-plenty. Somewhere during one of many wireless system malfunctions, the opening lyrics of “Crumblin’ Down” started blaring in my head, usually followed up Annie Lennox singing this line from 1992’s “Why”:

Why can’t you see this boat is sinking
(this boat is sinking this boat is sinking)

But enough of the musical ghosts trapped in my head, waiting to sing to me when the network breaks. We’re going forward, and as Timbuk3 sang in 1986- The future is so bright I gotta wear shades.

Maybe, maybe not on that.

Super-Systems Become Super-Terrific Systems

Soon, market-leading WLAN vendors will likely unveil grand strategies that finally bring real SDN kinda stuff to the Wi-Fi space. And just like the day is fast coming where you can’t just buy a simple RADIUS server from the same folks (you have to invest in a NAC system then simply NOT use the parts that aren’t RADIUS to get a RADIUS server), one day some Grand Orchestrator of All Networky Things will get it’s tentacles into our wireless access points and controllers and you might not have a say in that. (Some of this is already happening with specific vendors, but it’s all just warm-up for the big show, in my opinion.)

This magic in the middle will promise API-enabled everything network-wide, so provisioning and on-going operations on LAN and WLAN will be child’s play. The frameworks will have spiffy marketing names, and get pushed heavy as “where our customers should be going”.

Some of you are probably thinking “So what? This is evolution. Deal with it.” I’m down with that, to a point.

What If They Don’t Fix What’s Broke First?

I know well that I’m not alone in feeling a bit behind the 8-ball when it comes to our networking vendors. There are far too many code bugs impacting far too many components, end users, and networking teams. There’s also an entrenched culture that keeps chronically problematic operating systems alive when they should arguably be scrapped and the bug factories in full production.

I personally shudder to think what might happen if that grand vision for the future meets the Culture of Suck, and a whole new species of bug is unleashed on end users. Ideally, vendors would take a hard look at their code bases, their developers, and their cultures and ask if what’s in place today is worth rigging up a bunch of APIs to as part of The New Stuff.

As an end user, it terrifies me.

A House Built on Suck Can Not Stand

As a man-of-action-living-in-the-world, I’ve been around.  I’ve seen first-hand what happens during earthquakes to buildings and people when there are no rules governing building quality. I’ve seen carnage and devastation in multiple situations “out there” that all could have been prevented, and when I became Deputy Mayor of my village, I was able to appreciate what our Code Enforcement Officer does to keep people and buildings safe. Often it’s just curbing somebody’s foolish way of doing something.

As silly as it sounds, I’d love to see independent Code Enforcement Officers  for the network industry who enforce… well, code quality.  They would audit developers, their track records, and the pain inflicted on end users. Any vendor that gets too sloppy gets fined, or has to probably clean up their mess before they can keep developing. Like I said, I know how silly that sounds- but the current culture of poor Quality Assurance and protracted debug sessions at customer expense does not serve as a suitable foundation for the Super-Terrific Systems that are coming our way.

What’s really scary is that vendors tend to go all-in on these initiatives. It’s not like they leave a de-bloated, scalable option (key phrase) for those who don’t want all the Terrific Superness as they develop these monster frameworks of complex functionality.

I’d like to put on my sunglasses for the future of wireless, but if things aren’t cleaned up first for certain vendors, the current cloud over their wireless units is just going to get darker.