Navigating the Changing Wireless Landscape: Celebrating Community with our WLPC Hangover and Forecasting the Future Networks as Services

I'm damn for hoes . You can tell by my pace . Still my nigga's gettin' rice , smoking weed with dirty spray . I'm cool , wild for the night . Been a wild night for the weed . Check , check , check , check , one , two , check , one , two , check . Hey , it's me in the place to be , number 183 , how you do , how about me ?

Let's go , let's go , let's go , let's go , alright . Oh , let's see what happens when we activate a couple of things . Here we go , here we go , pew , pew , pew and away we go . Good afternoon everybody . It's Drew Lentz , the wireless nerd , and today I don't even know what day it is .

It's Thursday , leap year , february 29th , 2024 , also known as the day the Dune Part II premieres at the local movie theater , cinemaplex in IMAX . I can't wait to go . I hope y'all are as nerdy as I am about this stuff . Oh man , that and that show gun is coming to FX or something like that . I don't know . I'm totally excited . Anyway , what's up ?

What a week . Oh my God , man , I don't even know where to start . What a week last week . And then this week and WLPC happened . And what a show . I don't even know where to go with it . God , it was just so good to see everybody there , to see all our old friends , see all the new friends . So many new people there .

I think that's always one of the coolest parts , right Is that you show up and there's so many people that you don't know or people that you've talked to online , people that you've talked to on Twitter , people you've talked to on LinkedIn or that you've connected with , and all of a sudden , there they are , standing in front of you in Phoenix with a beer in a

hand and a smile on their face . Well , this is the WLPC Hangover Edition . I need to like cue the sound effects . What a show , man . Some cool statistics from the show 30% new attendees again , usually there's a decent amount of a return attendees and this year was no exception .

So much love that was out there and so much love for me personally from the community . I've gotta say , man , what a just , all circumstances included . How cool was it just to be around everyone and just relax and have a great time and see where the industry's going . I got a really good chance to just take it all in man .

I sat through the sessions , I listened to the stuff , I went to my deep dives , I did all of the WLPC things . I sat down with random people . I had a great time and just so good to see everyone that was out there and I think if I had to pick an overarching statement that really defined a lot of this , kudos to Keith right the 10 year anniversary .

We knew something was coming . I mean , we knew it was gonna be a lot of fun . We knew that there were some special surprises hitting up a couple of two , three sleeves there . But to see it all come to fruition and see Keith's family walk out and the kids that were there and then hearing all the speeches and everybody saying such wonderful things was great .

And Keith posting the epiphany that he had about it's okay to just be you has not resonated with me more than it ever has this week and after this show . So , keith , thank you so much for saying that , putting into words what so many of us are feeling because that was such a great theme at WLPC this year .

It was everyone talking about how they were around their people , how you can be around all the other networking people in your business and you're the weird wireless one , right ? You're the person who walks into the store and looks up for the access point or who points out an antenna on somebody's roof . You know like so crazy .

But once you got there , once you got around the people , what a spot to be in . We had a fantastic time . Is he Jamie ? Hi , jamie , jamie's already online . Got to hang out with so many great people . We got to do the Waves podcast , combined with Clear to Sin and Cisco Connected our unplugged connectivity on the main stage .

That was what a riot man had a great time doing that , and just to see all of the people there and all the love that was shared , it was really cool . It was good to be around the normies . We were the normies for once , if you will , and it is okay to just be us . So I'm not gonna bring the house down like Keith did , but that's okay .

Notable appearances I have in parentheses , right , oh my God . So check this out . The guys from Ubiquiti were there . That was awesome . You know and I say it like just might as well talk about the elephant in the room , right ?

You know , when you've got the show that's gone on for this long and you have so many people that use certain pieces of equipment and they just they're not there . This is like Apple not being at CES . All of a sudden Two guys from Ubiquiti show up with an access point , going hey , we got some MLO , you guys want to try it ? Like how awesome is that ?

It was great to see them there . It was great to see Shasta Cloud there , some people Ron Gill it took me a second . I was like that's Ron . I haven't seen Ron in forever . To see Tim and Ron and the crew from Shasta there . So cool to see what was happening and not just showing up to show up .

It was like showing up to hang out and talk and have a good time and push new code . We got to see MLO working in the wild on a Wi-Fi 7 device negotiated 2.8 gig per second . That was so neat . We couldn't find a switch port fast enough to test it . That was hilarious .

Lance from Meter I had no idea Lance had even gone to Meter , but then having Meter there was really cool .

I didn't plan that , which was phenomenal , because my entire talk was about how AI is changing site surveys and the way that we do what we do , and to have some of the people that are at the forefront of that technology , of AI in our networking technology , in the crowd while I was talking kind of blew me away .

The team from Eno that was there Eno , I know God , I still can't say it Paymon , I don't know how to say it . It's here Eno or Eno , I don't know what are . And then Cidos or Psydos or whatever it is All these cool new names . It's like we've run out of domain names .

People are trying to figure out creative ways to come up with stuff , but having these tools there and having this technology there was so different . Some great presentations . I mean the standout for me . I love seeing a lot of really cool stuff . How I'm gonna do in the open do an AFC thing where you could drag the access point around it .

We'd immediately identify where it was and go out and it would receive that clearance to operate on that channel , and then the next day AFC is approved by the FCC . Seven AFC of Inders were approved , so that was pretty cool to happen . Didn't think that that was gonna happen , but it was just so neat .

I mean , the usual specs were that I want a sidekick too . That's getting delivered today , which is pretty dope . Can't go wrong with a sidekick too . You know , I want an access point . Got a little access point over there . So many giveaways . The guys from Mist were giving away access points as well .

That was really well received , freaking awesome , and just to see so many people from the community come together was great . What I will say is I have one here that says RG Nets shits the bed , and I don't even have to elaborate . If you were there , you saw what happened .

You know , like the memes were flying on plenty in the background as soon as those dudes were up on the stage . Not a product that I've ever been a fan of , gotta say , but that's okay , good for them . You know they're doing their thing or whatever .

But any product that RG stands for revenue generating , that's not really something I want to park in front of my customer to kick the conversation off . So that was an interesting show for them to be there . What else ? The CyberScope Air was introduced . So Net Ally dumping tools on everybody for the 10th anniversary . That was pretty , pretty cool .

The Flipper Zero class I've got my Flipper Zero somewhere hiding in this office unless one of my kids stole it again . We're having a great time with the Flipper Zero Having . What a cool class that was too . It just it went really well . It was a great show and the people were there . And you know , like I said , it's the Hangover Edition , right .

I mean , I really I know that a lot of us are feeling it because it was such a blast when your kids start sending you pictures of access points . Kenneth Bernanthus says man , I didn't see him there this year . And Melissa Roland from CWMP freaking great , all the CWNEs in the house .

It was crazy seeing the picture of the CWNEs and there were more CWNEs and attendants at WLPC this year than there were attendees at the first WLPC event . So that was kind of cool to see what else man it's . I can't , I can't Say how happy I am about the event this year . I didn't participate as much as I normally do with Wifi Stand .

I don't know if anyone noticed , but I didn't do a scavenger hunt , I didn't have a big party , I didn't bring a lot of product , I was just going there I was just doing Drew man and it was cool and I was totally cool with that and it gave me some time to reflect and catch up with some people and really look at what's going on in the industry with a

very open set of eyes . And I think that when you take that perspective especially having everyone in the same area for the same amount of time it really I hope everyone saw . What I saw is all I'm going to say , so I'm going to leave that one alone and then let you wonder what the hell I'm talking about .

A couple of interesting things that are going on AFC Update Seven providers approved , let the games begin . And again with the Hamina integration , that was so cool to see . Interesting things news coming out of Mobile World Congress .

I've been reading , I've been trying to catch up with what's going on at MWC because that happened , it's happening this week , just wrapped up in Barcelona . Interesting things to note Edge compute on the RAN . I thought that that was really interesting . Ai RAN featuring NVIDIA , arm .

Major vendors like Ericsson and Nokia are talking about now using the processing power of the radio network to run AI applications and Edge compute on the nodes themselves . So down , way , way , way down as far as the stack as I can go , and there's been some interesting commentary about that . Dean Bubli , mr Dean , everybody loves Dean .

I think I love Dean had some really cool words to say about that . So if you don't follow him on LinkedIn , it's Dean B-U-B-L-E-Y . Go read his breakdown on Edge compute and what's going on with the RAN network . I thought that was pretty interesting , but that was nowhere as interesting as the scathing article that I have just lost the link to .

Oh my goodness . There was some heated words about Mobile World Congress and about AI and about the way that things are happening , and let me see if I can dig it up real quick while I'm chit-chatting . But definitely some chit-chat , some chatter , if you will , let me see . I just clicked on it .

I want to make sure that I don't talk about it the wrong way , but right here , mwc Barcelona , are you ready ? Stinks of quiet desperation .

Wow , light reading with the scathing article Mike Dano just ripped it apart talking about . There's plenty of noise and crowds and announcements in the global wireless industry's annual contract , but there's plenty of discussion about hot topics and there's a little undercurrent of quiet desperation . People know that 5G isn't living up to the high sky expectations .

People know that it's not working the way . People are looking for jobs . People are freaking out . So light reading Mike , just freaking man . I don't know what he drank on the plane , but you should definitely go read that before he changes his mind and decides to take it down , because it is an interesting perspective .

Rich Tarani old buddy Rich posted a counterpoint , also saying ah , that's not really what we saw there . So some very contradictory opinions about some of the announcements that are coming out of Mobile World Congress , which is interesting . Out of just 5G working for you , it's working for me .

We've deployed some really cool stuff and I've seen it work really well , and that goes along with some of the trends , some of the things that I saw that were going on that were making poking their heads up at WLPC , with the whole network as a service stuff .

So you've got 5G as a service , network as a service , private LTE as a service , all these as a service , as a service . What does that mean ? What does it mean and how can it help you ?

These are fun things that we're starting to explore and they're making their way into our day to day lives more so than they have been before and it's really , really great to see . Does it mean that they all work perfectly ? I don't know . I haven't tried any of them . So that is going to be . My goal is to start trying some of these .

Nile popped out yesterday , by the way , at Network Field Day 34 and did their presentation talking about what they're bringing to the industry and network as a service . So if you're following the whole meter discussion , nile discussion , that's something you should look at . I got to give a shameless plug .

I said I wasn't going to talk about , but I have to talk about it . I got to talk to the CEO of Meter today . What a cool dude man Like just made a random appearance in one of my phone calls . It was great , and I got to learn a lot about Meter and what a product . They're doing things differently than some of the other groups that are out there .

So when you think about traditional infrastructure and you think about network as a service and as a service infrastructure , there's a lot of things that people want .

There's a lot of things that people don't want , and so to see how there's these different opportunities for people that are trying to move into the next generation of networking , whether that means purchasing equipment and having equipment on Prim or cloud control , or doing the entire thing as a service or handing it all to a managed service provider .

I said it before and I'll say it again right now is a very , very interesting time in the wireless industry . I have never stopped and looked and seen so much Opportunity happening at every level of the spectrum . So I'm excited about what I'm seeing . I'm excited about the technology that's out there that that people are gonna be able to get their hands on .

So that's pretty cool . That's a little bit of what's new and what's now . What else do we have ? What's coming up ? Wi-fi Explorer for Windows . Adrian , you did it , man , so stoked . If you have not been a user of Wi-Fi Explorer , it has been the tool that we have all been using on Mac . It makes me want to buy a Mac just to use the tool .

Adrian really does a great job with Intuit bits and the software that he runs . And now Adrian has launched Wi-Fi Explorer for Windows . If you are a Windows user , this is a must-have if you're in the wireless industry , so congratulations on that . One thing also that popped up I saw his wife Frost . Does anybody remember TV white spaces ?

You know , years ago I got the chance to go up and see Jim Carlson at Carlson wireless up in Arcada , california , and do a test of TV white space equipment TV White space transmission equipment and now I saw this thing pop up in 2024 with 5g in 77 , in 78 , plus TV white space 1.2 gigabit per second download and 300 megabit per second upload using TV white

space . I don't know much about this . I want to learn more . So if you know anything about why frost and why frost LTE and what they're doing in the TV white space Spectrum , that would be . I'm very keen to find out what's happening there .

Four by four and eight by configurations 470 to 670 megahertz you're talking like really really low frequency shooting really really far . Tv channels are between six and eight megahertz each , or they are six or eight megahertz each , I should say , and every one megahertz a spectrum can give you five to ten mega mega bit per second speeds .

So interesting , because TV white space coverage is two to three times that of three and a half gig of gig , so you know 3.5 gig . So this is something that everyone's always like . We've talked about TV white space forever and I haven't seen a very viable product of anyone using it at massive scale .

And the thing that caught my eye about why frost is the guy from Airband , which was the Microsoft initiative , is one of the advisors to why frost . So if you're doing anything in TV white space , I thought that that was totally worth a mention .

I love , I love that technology and I think in in undeveloped , in a rural environments , I think you go a really long way , so , excited to see that . What I will say is two quick , short plugs . Next , we've got Wisp America in Oklahoma City .

If you want anything to do with outdoor wireless , if you're gonna be anywhere near Oklahoma City or you're looking for an excuse To just go hang out with a bunch of wireless nerds , wisp America is a really good place to do that . So , wireless internet service provider associations They've got two conferences every year .

One is Wisp America and their one is Wisp of Palooza . If you can make it to Wisp America , if you're interested in that that stuff in Oklahoma City . And then Mertek One of my favorite shows , angela Diffley , the crew over at Mertek , the restaurant technology network , are holding down the fort next week in Vegas . I really wish I could be there .

However , I really am okay not being there because I am going to be out of town Watching my family ski I'm not a skier like my knees and stuff and also there's hot toddies I could be drinking . So there's that . But we will be going on a crazy road trip . I don't . I don't know when I'm gonna do the podcast next week .

I'm sure I'll do it sometime , but we're gonna be driving from South Texas up to Salt Lake City . So we might try and pop in and say I had mr Parsons up there , but we are going for a little cruise . But if you're around and you're near Vegas , go check out Mertek , reach out to Angela online . If you are near Oklahoma City , go check out Wisp America .

Other than that , there's just there's . There's a whole lot of other stuff going on and if you , if you know me and you know what's going on with me right now , you know that there's just a couple things going on . So that's all I got for the podcast this week , but hopefully , hopefully , I've got some really cool things to talk about here pretty soon .

What a time to be alive and what a time to be in the industry . With that , I think , let me check and see if anyone sent a couple more messages here for nays online live is in live right now . Yes , I mean , I like Dean , he's where it's coupling . These are good comments . These are good comments have . Anyway , I appreciate you all sharing this out .

I appreciate the likes , the subscribes and everything else . You know this is . This has proven to be a lot of fun , a lot more fun Than I thought it was gonna be and and I know that you know , with you all supporting me and going out , I , I love it . I can't say thank you enough .

You know , not not to piggyback off of the emotional stuff at WLPC , but seriously it is . It's sometimes it's just okay to be you and and and everything that that means . And that's my lesson that I got from Keith . That's my lesson I got from WLPC . That's a lesson you need to take home with you . I am gonna get ready to go watch dune .

I hope you all have a wonderful week . I will catch up with you next week at some point in time . Until then , have a wonderful week and enjoy all of the all of the wonderful Wireless's that we all provide . Have a great week . We'll see y'all take .