Boingo touts Wi-Fi 7 savvy at CES

Network builder said it is kicking off CES by blanketing its Las Vegas innovation center with Wi-Fi 7 connectivity.

Phil Harvey, Editor-in-Chief

January 9, 2024

2 Min Read
A monorail train approaches the Las Vegas Convention Center Station, home of the Boingo Innovation Center.(Source: Phil Harvey | Light Reading)

As you may have heard, Wi-Fi 7 is ready for its close-up.

In preparation for that, Boingo said on Tuesday it has a pre-certified Wi-Fi 7 implementation running in its innovation center in Las Vegas. The company believes this is the first launch of Wi-Fi 7 in a public venue network.

The public venue is the Las Vegas Monorail Station at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Boingo said it will have a pre-certified version of Wi-Fi 7 running on access points from RUCKUS Networks during CES. 

"It's going to double the network bandwidth, increasing speeds to up to 40 Gbit/s," Boingo CEO Mike Finley told Light Reading late last week. He noted the technology's other attributes, notably lower latency and more efficient power consumption.

Finley expects that Wi-Fi 7 will be an important complementary part of service provider and enterprise networks. Using CES to show off the capabilities at the Boingo Innovation Center will help make that point, he said.

'Faster implementation'

Finley added that he thinks Wi-Fi 7 will see a faster commercial adoption than previous generations. "There's still some certification that needs to happen," he said. "But once this gets deployed, there are access points, there are devices that already have the capability, so we think it can be a little faster implementation than maybe some of the ones in the past."

Related:Wi-Fi 7 ready to hit the big time, org claims

The Boingo Innovation Center was announced in March 2022 and opened at CES a year ago to serve as a testing ground for neutral networks and advanced applications. 

Another high-profile Vegas destination may showcase Boingo's network savvy within the next two years. The Dream Las Vegas Hotel picked Boingo to handle its network design and will offer a "fully connected guest experience and smart hotel operations." Local media reports say the project was temporarily stalled to raise funding, and the hotel's revised opening has not been officially announced.

About the Author

Phil Harvey

Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading

Phil Harvey has been a Light Reading writer and editor for more than 18 years combined. He began his second tour as the site's chief editor in April 2020.

His interest in speed and scale means he often covers optical networking and the foundational technologies powering the modern Internet.

Harvey covered networking, Internet infrastructure and dot-com mania in the late 90s for Silicon Valley magazines like UPSIDE and Red Herring before joining Light Reading (for the first time) in late 2000.

After moving to the Republic of Texas, Harvey spent eight years as a contributing tech writer for D CEO magazine, producing columns about tech advances in everything from supercomputing to cellphone recycling.

Harvey is an avid photographer and camera collector – if you accept that compulsive shopping and "collecting" are the same.

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