March 2, 2026

Good morning. Wi-Fi 7 is currently cheaper than Wi-Fi 6 was at launch, Nvidia is treating photonics supply the same way it treated chip supply, and Starlink is growing faster than most mobile carriers. As always, thank you for reading - and hit us up with any feedback.

Today’s edition:

Let’s dive in.

New Relic is pushing observability beyond infrastructure health checks toward revenue-level signals, including abandoned carts and conversion rates tied directly to application performance. A new SRE agent automates root-cause analysis using telemetry, with AI agents eventually handling initial triage while engineers review recommended actions.

SpaceX is adding roughly 52,000 Starlink Mobile subscribers per day and expects to cross 25 million active users by year-end, well before its second-generation constellation launches. Gen2 satellites, slated for mid-2027 deployment via Starship, promise 100x the data density of current hardware and 5G-class throughput to unmodified phones using S-band spectrum acquired from EchoStar. The first-generation system already covers 32 countries, making Starlink the largest 4G provider by geographic area globally.

Nvidia is locking in long-term supply of advanced laser components by investing $2 billion in Lumentum, alongside a separate $2 billion stake in Coherent, as optical interconnect becomes a hard constraint on AI data center scaling. The Lumentum deal includes a multibillion-dollar purchase commitment and funds a new U.S. fabrication facility, signaling that Nvidia is treating photonics supply chain risk the same way it has treated chip supply: secure it before you need it.

Wi-Fi 7 prices are at a historic low, but the window is closing. Dell'Oro Group's latest WLAN forecast contains a clear near-term signal for enterprise buyers: Wi-Fi 7 access point pricing is currently below Wi-Fi 6 and 6E averages, an anomaly driven by Chinese vendors reaching market roughly a year ahead of North American competitors and pulling global prices down. Even Cisco responded by pricing Wi-Fi 7 at near-parity with older generations rather than at a premium.

Between the lines: The conditions behind that pricing are already reversing. Memory chip shortages are driving list price increases, channel partners are shrinking quote validity windows to weeks, and lead times are swinging day to day with no clear trend by vendor or product line. The favorable pricing was a function of market structure, not hardware economics, and that structure is correcting faster than most refresh cycles move.

The broader read: The technical case for Wi-Fi 7 stands on its own. Multi-link operation across the largely uncongested 6 GHz band addresses real congestion problems in dense enterprise environments. Dell'Oro expects 2026 to be the year enterprises start validating returns on AIOps features that most WLAN vendors now bundle into their platforms. For IT teams with refresh decisions pending, the price window and the AIOps maturity curve are converging at roughly the same moment.

Read the full report from Dell‘Oro here.

AT&T added Inseego's Wavemaker FX4200 to its Internet Air for Business device portfolio, expanding its fixed wireless access lineup with a mid-tier option that sits between basic consumer-grade hardware and full enterprise wireline deployments. The FX4200 supports Wi-Fi 7, LTE fallback, live WAN failover, and zero-touch provisioning, targeting locations like retail, restaurants, and government facilities where there is no on-site IT.

Why this matters now: The device choice tells you something about where AT&T is trying to take enterprise FWA. A mid-tier option with centralized management and built-in failover is designed for distributed enterprises that need consistent connectivity across many locations without the operational overhead of managing complex edge infrastructure. For branches and edge sites where fiber isn't available or deployment speed matters more than raw throughput, 5G is increasingly being positioned as a first-class access option rather than a backup.

The open question: FWA's credibility as a primary enterprise access technology depends on whether procurement teams actually treat it that way, or continue to view it as a stopgap while fiber builds out. AT&T's broader roadmap toward RedCap and eRedCap for lower-power devices suggests they're building for the long term. The economics at scale will determine whether enterprise buyers follow.

Learn more about this here.

🤖 Netskope added a low-latency AI traffic path that keeps security controls intact without pushing users to bypass them. (Network World)

☁️ Cloudflare became the first SASE platform with post-quantum encryption across its full stack, auto-pushed at no added cost (Cloudflare)

🏥 Versa launched sovereign SASE where every plane runs inside the customer's legal jurisdiction. (CRN)

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