Javier del Prado, vice president of mobile connectivity at Qualcomm.
Javier del Prado, a 46-year-old telecommunications engineer from Barcelona, left the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in 2001 to pursue a master’s degree in New York and has never returned to Spain except for holidays. He has spent so much time abroad that it is difficult for him to become fluent in Spanish again. He has worked as a researcher for Philips in the USA, for NXP Semiconductors and for ST-Ericsson. Ten years ago, he landed at Qualcomm, the multinational company behind the processors behind some of the best-selling cell phones and home devices. In this company, of which he is vice president, he has worked to equip mobile phones with the best connectivity options. Now the work is underway to complement this potential with the new Wi-Fi standard, the wireless connection technology that has become a technological adoptee in 96% of households.
Questions. The company has been working on bringing Wifi 7 compatible connectivity features to mobile phones and now Qualcomm is aiming for the home router. Because?
R. We’ll start with retail cell phones and routers [directo al consumidor] a year ago and there are already quite a few designs on the market that support Wifi 7. However, the connecting step between the infrastructure and the services offered by the operator was missing.
Q. Operators say the price war makes it difficult to invest to take advantage of technological advances and meet growing demand for home services and data.
R. The same challenge exists with cell phones, whose prices do not increase every year, but the technology becomes more affordable as it is widely adopted. What we are also trying to do as an industry is to find new ways to monetize the service and give the operator the opportunity to gain benefits with certain applications and services that they can offer to the user. There may be a model change where the user no longer just buys the phone, but also certain services, such as their own entertainment package.
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Q. Does the user demand Wifi 7?
R. The user asks for an experience. Now you realize that certain things you do today work more or less, but the applications become more demanding and some don’t work well. For example, a mobile game shared with the rest of the family on a big screen at home will not work well without Wifi 7. And like this application, there are many of them. The multi-device experience, the ability to work with any device without leaving the same environment, is increasing. This places high demands on Wi-Fi as it requires many more connections between the phone and the laptop, desktop computer or tablet. Requires much more bandwidth and lower latency [tiempo de respuesta]. When you use wireless playback from a computer on a large screen, the computer mouse does not respond well because the latency is very high. With Wifi 7 we solve this problem and give the user the opportunity to work with external players as if they were connected via cable.
Q. The user spends 1,000 euros on the cell phone, but doesn’t want to spend 2.5 euros on a professional application. With the latest generation of routers, could it happen that the user doesn’t want to invest 500 or 600 euros in improving connectivity?
R. It’s a question of understanding. The user must understand what benefits new technologies bring to them in return for their money. When it comes to cameras, they understand it very well and know that more megapixels mean better quality. With wireless technologies it is more complicated. The operators must explain the resulting advantages to the user.
Users are becoming increasingly aware of the capabilities and limitations of their Wi-Fi and equipment. “There comes a time when you need to think about whether you have the right resources to meet your needs.”
Q. Why are they going so fast? Why have programming and processor companies like Qualcomm and device manufacturers chosen Wifi 7 when the Wifi Alliance has not yet certified it?
R. Certification is expected later this year, but we are moving so quickly because the demand is there. At Qualcomm we see that the transition between Wifi 6 and 7 is faster than from 5 to the later standard. And our customers demand it. They want to be the first to offer it, especially in the most demanding products, at a premium level. Wifi 6 was also introduced before its certification.
Q. Tech companies justified the massive layoffs by saying the return to normality after the Covid pandemic meant a decline in demand for equipment and services. Can home Wi-Fi technology suffer from the same problem?
R. Regardless of teleworking, the demand for streaming applications is increasing [retransmisión en línea de contenidos audiovisuales] or cloud services continue to increase. In the United States, many children have virtual reality headsets, almost no television is watched over the antenna, and all services are online. The demand for online gaming is increasing. Photos are stored in the cloud. Bluetooth places greater demands on us every day. Everything runs without cables over the Internet and requires constant data traffic between the PC or mobile phone. It is true that during the pandemic there was a need to update equipment and there was a great demand for online collaboration services. Now the demand for applications is different.
Q. Given this increased demand, is Wi-Fi below the sixth generation at risk of collapse?
R. It is clear that congestion is increasing and it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain connectivity as more and more devices are connected to the network. At least devices that are not compatible with Wifi 6 and have a lower capacity will not have sufficient access to the network and it is practically impossible to guarantee anything.
Q. Should the user now think about changing the device?
R. The phones have already been compatible with Wifi 6 since 2019. As for the rest of the home devices, work is underway to simplify migration without the user noticing the development and to provide them with the service they need. Users are becoming increasingly aware of the capabilities and limitations of their Wi-Fi and equipment. There are certain applications already on your computer that take a few minutes to load. They are aware that their bandwidth is not enough. At some point you need to think about whether you have the right media for your needs.
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