Delhi-based networking-as-a-service (NaaS) provider Spectra is bringing Telecom Infra Project’s (TIP) OpenWiFi solution to its network in India.

Spectra is using the OpenWifi hardware and software to expand its end-to-end network platform and improve broadband services for residential and enterprise customers. The company is also installing access points and a cloud controller using technology from New Delhi-based Inventum.

“Spectra’s choice of using TIP OpenWiFi is a proof point to the industry that standards-based Wi-Fi software, cloud controllers, and access points offer a great customer experience and industry-leading innovation,” Sandeep Kohli, connectivity technologies and ecosystems manager for the India market at Meta, stated in the press release, adding that Wi-Fi is a “ripe” area of open-source solutions for broadband market disruption.

Kohli told SDxCentral, "OpenWiFi drives competitive pricing through disaggregation of the Wi-Fi stack, separating hardware from firmware running on the access point, and with a compatible cloud controller. This allows the development tax for the firmware and cloud management software to be shared amongst the OpenWiFi community members, that traditionally would have each had to bear this cost individually. That way, we let the hardware vendors focus on what they do best."

The Spectra expansion follows Boingo Wireless' commercial deployment of TIP OpenWiFi 6E software in the U.S. late last year, as well as recent trials in Dublin, where Ireland’s Dublin City Council and internet service provider Virgin Media Business implemented a Wi-Fi 6 trial compliant with TIP’s OpenWiFi. That group hopes to build a free public Wi-Fi network for the city center.

“Open source is the perfect solution as it facilitates rapid propagation of the architecture amongst both existing and new participants, and it allows collaboration between participants to swiftly implement new features in a way that is simply not possible from proprietary, traditional Wi-Fi implementations,” Neil Bullock, TIP technical program manager for smart cities, told SDxCentral in an earlier interview.

Both announcements further TIP’s move for disaggregated Wi-Fi adoption.

Wi-Fi 6 has been gaining momentum, backed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) allocating 1,200 megahertz of spectrum in the 6 GHz band for unlicensed Wi-Fi use. That was the largest swath of spectrum approved for Wi-Fi since 1989.

TIP’s mission to propel open, standards-based solutions recently expanded into the metaverse, with the group forming a metaverse-ready project group to prepare the architectures, APIs, and mechanisms needed for the technology’s end-to-end network demands. T-Mobile, Microsoft, Telefónica, Meta Platforms, and Sparkle are all co-chairs of the group, with Intel and Analog Devices having since joined the work.