Inseego recently added cloud-management and increased security capabilities to its enterprise-focused networking services, highlighting a growing market push toward integrating 5G technology into SD-WAN edge devices.

The Inseego 5G SD Edge platform is a hardware and software combination that includes a device that sits on-premises in an indoor edge location and a cloud-based service management layer. It’s targeted at providing connectivity options for distributed and edge locations.

Ritesh Mukherjee, SVP of enterprise networks at Inseego, explained in an interview with SDxCentral that the platform provides enterprises with the ability to better control the quality of those SD-WAN connections. Those enterprises can dynamically manage the router’s quality of service to maintain connection quality for different service levels.

“There's no reason why the corporate WiFi signal that we see when we go to work cannot be at our home as well,” Mukherjee said. “And we can bring all those same security and authentication capabilities to only allow the corporate devices at home to connect to that WiFi and everything else in the home can be on the existing or a guest WiFi network.”

Mukherjee also explained that the device can pair 5G transmission channels with on-premises WiFi channels to form a larger connection channel.

“Let's say you get 100 Mb/s from 5G, now you can have a 200 Mb/s connection in your home: 100 Mb/s existing from WiFi plus 100 Mb/s from 5G, so we can bond those connections and give you higher speeds,” he said.

The Inseego device also includes support for the C-Band spectrum being used by Verizon and AT&T to bolster their 5G network capacity and reach.

Verizon earlier this year integrated Inseego devices into its Response Team that provided equipment and logistical help to the Inglewood Police Department during Super Bowl public safety operations.

Inseego more recently provided its Wavemaker outdoor CPE device as part of U.S. Cellular’s deployment of millimeter wave (mmWave)-based 5G services.

From a security perspective, the cloud control supports zero-trust network access (ZTNA) capabilities that can be managed to fit corporate needs.

“We verify the user and the device,” Mukherjee said “We verify that the corporate laptop, which you're connecting to the WiFi network, is actually the laptop you say it is with MAC IDs and so on. And also the person who's logged into that network through that laptop is the person who's allowed, and then we give them limited privileges to connect to whatever their allowed to connect to.”

The Inseego product is part of an increasingly competitive market segment stoked by the dispersion of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mukherjee said the Inseego platform is more mature than similar offerings from rivals like Cisco, Juniper, Cradlepoint, and Fortinet.

“If you look at our 5G portfolio, you'll see it's much larger, we're already on our fourth iteration of the 5G product,” Mukherjee said. “If you look at some of these larger companies, they don't even have their first version or only have maybe one router, which is really 5G-ready and certified. We have got experience with this, we have worked on it, and developed it, and we are ready for that.”

He added that this experience allows Inseego to package its capabilities into a smaller form factor and easier to use platform.

“It's the secret sauce and how we have put it together,” Mukherjee said. “It's like combining the 5G security, the work from home and corporate WiFi everywhere outside of the office, that is the real secret sauce.”