Company details its 2022 growth strategy; global silicon market dynamics, partnerships, and alliances
January 27, 2021 – Ottawa, Canada – Edgewater Wireless Systems Inc. (TSXV: YFI) (OTC: KPIFF), the industry leader in Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing technology for residential and enterprise markets, is pleased to provide a corporate and operational update along with its strategic outlook for 2022.
“In 2021, our large-scale Proof of Concept (PoC) with a major Tier 1 established a need for Spectrum Slicing in most homes — significantly expanding our addressable market. Our successful pilot proved our ‘beta’ silicon unequivocally demonstrated the powerful capabilities of our silicon solutions and set us on a solid trajectory,” said Andrew Skafel, President and CEO. “We’re pleased with our progress and are well-positioned to accelerate our commercialization, manufacturing and scaling initiatives in 2022.”
Global Silicon Manufacturing Market Dynamics:
The global semiconductor shortage has been well-documented and has continued into 2022. The pandemic’s arrival in early 2020 saw factory shutdowns result in a sharp rise in cancelled work orders, affecting just-in-time manufacturing and delivery practices, and immediate decreases in silicon manufacturing output. At the same time, dramatic changes in the use of laptops, tablets, 5G phones, gaming equipment and other electronic devices due to work-from-home, online learning, and stay-at-home mandates significantly increased consumer demand for new computer equipment and mobile devices (and their requisite silicon chips). As lockdowns subsided, manufacturing orders returned, and semiconductor companies could not keep up. The Semiconductor Industry Association (“SIA”) has projected that worldwide semiconductor sales for 2021 will show a 25.6% increase from the 2020 total as demand for silicon chips continues to outpace manufacturing capacity[1].
Although fabrication plants ramped up production heading into 2021, order-to-delivery lead times for silicon wafers reached nearly eight months by the fall of 2021 compared to 1 – 1.5 months pre-pandemic. And while the industry, backed by government initiatives to on-shore the semiconductor industry, has responded with the promise of more semiconductor production and, crucially, domestic production in the future, the new fabs will not come online for years. The current 2022 production capacity is still generally fixed and unable to meet demand. However, the promise of more semiconductor production in the future offers Edgewater great opportunity with the manufacturers addressing industry headwinds just as the need for a viable alternative to existing Wi-Fi chip solutions becomes imperative.
Industry Drivers Aligned for Edgewater in 2022:
The massive shift in consumer behaviour since the early 2020 lockdowns has resulted in a significant increase in the number of devices connected to Wi-Fi. Globally, the market added over 4 billion Wi-Fi devices in the last 12 months[2], and networks are seeing a 60% spike in traffic[3]. The issues of contention and interference in Wi-Fi networks that Edgewater’s Spectrum Slicing technology addresses remain unsolved and exacerbated. Edgewater has been the inventor of next-generation Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing solutions, and the alignment of multiple industry drivers has the Company positioned for a promising 2022.
- Edgewater’s thought leadership in Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing. We make Wi-Fi. Better.
Edgewater’s long-standing focus has been to capitalize on the need for a next-generation silicon chip solution within the Wi-Fi spectrum market. The accelerated residential reliance on Wi-Fi for work-from-home, online learning, entertainment and smart home applications is significant. Incumbent Wi-Fi technology solutions, which have adhered to single-channel Wi-Fi radio architecture since 1999, are insufficient for the needs of today’s device-dense environments in the home, enterprise, commercial IoT and venues. High device density Wi-Fi environments are now the norm, not the exception, and single-channel Wi-Fi radio architectures, focused on improving a single physical medium’s efficiency, do not add essential device capacity. Remarkably, the new standards such as Wi-Fi6 and Wi-Fi6E provide little improvement at the physical layer where the capacity issue exists. Only more radio channels can improve spectral capacity, and Edgewater has the highest channel density available on the market today and will have it for the foreseeable future.
- Proven Disruptive Technology and Leadership in Multi-Channel Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing
Results from the PoC and pilot conducted with a major Tier 1 Service Provider in 2021 validated Edgewater’s technical superiority and unequivocally identified the market opportunity for Edgewater’s patented Spectrum Slicing technology in the home and positioned the Company for growth.
The PoC verified the performance benefits of Edgewater’s Spectrum Slicing Wi-Fi in most homes and provided a real-world view of residential Wi-Fi performance. The results, announced in March of 2021, clearly evidenced the capability of Edgewater’s Spectrum Slicing technology as the leading disruptive multi-channel Wi-Fi solution.
The PoC compared the current physical layer single-channel architecture offered by ALL of today’s Wi-Fi systems, up to and including Wi-Fi6E, to Edgewater’s patented, physical layer multi-channel Spectrum Slicing. The PoC was carried out on 750,000 homes with over 6-million devices. The results were impressive and demonstrated:
- 75% of homes surveyed experienced 7 to 18 times performance improvements while the remaining 25% also experienced demonstrated improvements. The most considerable improvement was seen in the houses with the most devices
- Eight or more devices were connected to the average home access point
- Traditional, single-channel Wi-Fi performance degraded with each device added while Edgewater solution retained performance under increasing device loads (Full release here)
Further validating the market opportunity for Edgewater’s next-generation Wi-Fi technology, the Company announced the successful completion of a pilot in November 2021. Using real-world scenarios based on the large-scale PoC, an independent test house conducted rigorous tests and, once again, Edgewater’s Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing technology demonstrated outstanding results:
- an impressive 50% improvement in latency
- 6-12 times throughput gains for Residential Service Provider use cases in the earlier PoC
The Tier 1 Service Provider tests compared the current physical layer single-channel architecture versus Edgewater’s multi-channel Spectrum Slicing. The independent test house applied rigorous testing to validate the impact of Spectrum Slicing in both commercial and residential applications. The Pilot Project offered Edgewater the opportunity to test its Spectrum Slicing technology under comprehensive real-world scenarios. The results validated what the Company has always been confident of – multi-channel outperforms single-channel, under even the most demanding technical scrutiny and testing.
- Wi-Fi Paradigm Shift to More Channels
For many years Edgewater has been one of the few advocates of the multi-channel physical layer approach as the only viable solution to meet the exponential growth in the use of, and the demands on, Wi-Fi. Its co-innovation partnership with CableLabs and the launch of the Dual Channel Wi-Fi standard, announced in June 2019, was a significant milestone and signalled industry interest in an alternative to traditional single-channel Wi-Fi technology.
Industry leaders have recently embraced multi-channel, adding momentum to the paradigm shift to more channels. Exiting this year’s CES, Intel has, for the first time, joined the chorus of silicon vendors moving away from the legacy, single-channel chip architecture and embracing the multi-channel approach similar to the Dual-Channel Wi-Fi standard we announced in 2019. Limited to a single-channel in each Wi-Fi band, Intel’s application contrasts to Edgewater’s Spectrum Slicing which allows multiple, concurrent channels per band and multi-band implementations. Spectrum Slicing acts as a force multiplier, delivering the highest channel density in the market today and for the foreseeable future.
Our long-standing advocacy for in-band multi-channel or the multi-lane highway has taken hold, proving that our approach is and has always been the answer to the proliferation of Wi-Fi devices globally. We forecasted the spectrum capacity issue, innovated and patented the solution, and brought that solution to market many years ahead of every advanced Wi-Fi chipmaker in the world. Edgewater Wireless is the prime-mover of multi-channel Wi-Fi technology, and all the other chipmakers are now trying to catch up. This fact alone is a bellwether to our opportunity to license our technology to other chipmakers.
- Demand for an Alternative Wi-Fi Solution from Tier-1 Service Providers
Reliable Wi-Fi is no longer a luxury and, in many countries, has been deemed a necessity. Service providers must adapt to the new reality of remote work and online learning, in addition to the increasing burden of the devices straining wireless networks. Wi-Fi generates over 40% of customer care calls to service providers who now require an alternative solution to legacy applications that can’t cope with today’s demands. Proven in the PoC and pilot, Edgewater’s Spectrum Slicing offers a cost-effective means to achieve superior Wi-Fi in the home and enterprises.
Strategic Focus – Key Growth Initiatives:
Edgewater’s patented approach to better Wi-Fi positions the Company as the market leader in Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing. Real-world market validation and proven performance have carved a position for silicons solution sales to service providers and vendors and licensing opportunities with Wi-Fi silicon vendors. Moreover, the growing paradigm shift to multi-channel presents partnership opportunities for Edgewater. Edgewater plans to focus on several key initiatives in 2022:
- New Silicon Partnerships and Alliances: Edgewater management continues to build alliances with several potential silicon partners to strengthen its move to capture the volume market for Spectrum Slicing. The ultimate goal is to create an ecosystem of world-class silicon partnerships to continue to move its strategic initiatives forward.
In alignment with North American geopolitical objectives, Edgewater plans to on-shore silicon development and near-shore production to ensure supply stability. Partners like CMC Microsystems are an integral part of Edgewater’s ecosystem and help create a platform for growth while promoting our groundbreaking approach. (See webinar).
- Additional Commercial Pilot Projects: Edgewater management continues to focus on expanding its pipeline of new Tier 1 Service Providers to take Edgewater’s Spectrum Slicing product through extensive lab testing. The Company anticipates providing status updates to the market in the coming months on the progress of new Pilot Project engagements.
- Proof of Concept (PoC) Pipeline Expansion: Management continues to target Tier 1 Service Providers and cultivate new relationships with Service Providers who have displayed a genuine interest in potentially participating in future Proof of Concepts for home Wi-Fi.
Corporate Objectives Outline (Short, Medium and Long Term):
Edgewater believes it is positioned to take advantage of the significant market opportunity presented by the coinciding service provider and consumer needs for better-performing Wi-Fi. The Company has set several milestones and stretch goals that it plans to accomplish over the next few years:
Short Term Objectives (3-12 Months)
- Secure a commercial MOU with a Tier 1 Customer
- Establish a production partnership with a leading silicon organization
- Execute on a long-term funding strategy to meet the growth requirements; customer engagements and manufacturing partnerships
Medium-Term Objectives (12-24 months)
- Finalize the design of next-generation of Spectrum Slicing silicon solutions
- Secure commercial agreement with a Tier 1 customer
- Sign a production agreement with a strategic partner
- Explore M&A opportunities to add software capabilities and expand geographic reach
Long term Objectives (24 months and beyond)
- Become the global leader in Wi-Fi Spectrum Slicing
- Monetization strategy primarily focused on IP Licensing and silicon solutions
- Ramp up significant volume production and revenue generation
Edgewater Wireless -Video Presentation Link:
A replay of the Edgewater CEO presentation at the SNN Network Canada Virtual Event is available at the link below:
For further information, please visit SEDAR.ca
About Edgewater Wireless
We make Wi-Fi. Better.
Edgewater Wireless (www.edgewaterwireless.com) is the industry leader in innovative Spectrum Slicing technology for residential and commercial markets. We develop advanced Wi-Fi silicon solutions, Access Points, and IP licensing designed to meet the high-density and high quality-of-service needs of service providers and their customers. With 24+ patents, Edgewater’s Multi-Channel, Single Radio (MCSR) technology revolutionizes Wi-Fi, delivering next-generation Wi-Fi today.
Edgewater’s physical layer Spectrum Slicing allows a frequency band to be divided, or sliced, to enable more radios to operate in a given area. Think of Spectrum Slicing like moving from a single-lane road to a multi-lane highway — regardless of Wi-Fi technology. The recently completed Proof of Concept (PoC) with a major Tier 1 Service Provider showed 7 to 18 times performance gains in 75% of homes surveyed. Interestingly, homes with the most devices saw the greatest improvements.
For more information, visit www.edgewaterwireless.com.
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Edgewater Wireless Contacts:
Andrew Skafel, President and CEO
E: andrews@edgewaterwireless.com
Bill Mitoulas, Investor Relations
T: +1.416.479.9547
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words “expect”, “anticipate”, “continue”, “estimate”, “objective”, “ongoing”, “may”, “will”, “project”, “should”, “believe”, “plans”, “intends” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information or statements. Although Edgewater Wireless believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information because Edgewater Wireless can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. By its nature, such forward-looking information is subject to various risks and uncertainties, which could cause Edgewater Wireless’ actual results and experience to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed. These risks and uncertainties, include, but are not limited to access to capital markets, market forces, competition from new and existing companies and regulatory conditions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information, which is given as of the date it is expressed in this news release or otherwise, and to not use future-oriented information or financial outlooks for anything other than their intended purpose. Edgewater Wireless undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
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[1] Source: https://www.eusemiconductors.eu/sites/default/files/ESIA_WSTS_AutumnForecast2021.pdf
[2] https://www.wballiance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Edgar-Figueroa-Wi-Fi-Alliance.pdf
[3] https://corporate.comcast.com/covid-19