As we pack our bags for the Mobile World Congress 2026, the CPE industry feels different this year. We’re no longer just talking about “faster speeds”, but rather fundamental shifts in how people live their digital lives and how network services providers can best support their customers.
Vantiva’s Chief Revenue Officer Steve Payne discusses where the industry is headed in 2026 and how Vantiva is moving the needle.
What’s the biggest change in what customers are asking for at the start of 2026 versus just a year ago?
For a long time, the industry was obsessed with peak speeds and simply playing the role of connectivity provider. But in 2026, the conversation has shifted to digital service platforms requiring a combination of advanced CPE and consistency of experience.
Our customers, global network operators, want to deliver compelling services that work so well the consumer forgets the gateway is even there. The goal for 2026 and beyond is ‘invisibility’ and reliability, whether you’re working from home, streaming your favorite tv show, or you’re wrapped up in an intense, bandwidth-heavy online game. Or potentially, your household is doing all three simultaneously.
Vantiva is leaning heavily into Wi-Fi 8 and FWA gateway improvements. Why the aggressive push now?
Because the ‘congested home’ is the new reality. With 20+ devices in a typical household, Wi-Fi 7 is a great start, and we will continue to focus heavily there as well as DOCSIS, but Wi-Fi 8 is where we will solve the latency puzzle. It’s not just about more bandwidth; it’s about smarter bandwidth that proactively and easily responds to the consumer’s needs. And most importantly – that it always works.
Similar to that, advancements in our 5G FWA solutions will unlock limitations and allow operators to reach more subscribers from the same tower while also providing seamless redundancy – a massive shift in ROI for our customers and their consumers.
Other than a product company, Vantiva is a services company. Apart from a physical gateway, what does your full suite of professional services look like for operators?
Before we get to the offering, its about culture – we are a customer-centric company from top to bottom. We have been committed to this space and our customers for a very, very long time. We understand their pain points and focus areas as well as anyone. So as part of that, we are very focused on their needs across the entire lifecycle.
This starts at the innovation and design phase where we co-create custom solutions. Then, we leverage our decades of global supply chain experience in high-quality, cost-competitive manufacturing at scale.
But the real differentiator is how we support ‘Day 2’ operations. Through our professional services framework and advanced software services, we give operators the agility to innovate in parallel to hardware. We manage complex multi-vendor ecosystems and ensure cybersecurity through secure-by-design architecture. We’re taking the operational burden off the operator so they can focus on their customers.
How is Vantiva using AI within its offerings to improve the user experience?
We’re using AI as a proactive orchestrator. Instead of waiting for a customer to call about a drop in signal, AI-integrated platforms can anticipate the need. It’s part of our ‘managed services’ mindset. The system analyzes data in real-time to optimize connectivity before the user even realizes there’s an issue. It’s the difference between reacting to an issue in the network vs anticipating one and healing itself. We’re also enabling AI at the edge, in the home or business, so that every AI use case doesn’t have to reach the cloud—this improves speed and data security for the end user.
How does sustainability and realiability fit into the bottom line for Vantiva?
For us, sustainability, realiability, and technology leadership are inseparable. This means while we are building units that address the technology requirements of our customers and the market, we’re also building units that will continue to perform to the consumers expectations and producing smaller, more efficient boxes that use less power and can ship more units per container. This leads to lower deployment costs and reduced energy bills for our operators. We’re also using up to 95% recycled plastics. All of this supports our customers’ own sustainability reporting. This strengthens partnerships.
How do your sales, engineering, and customer service teams actually help an operator go to market?
Our teams act as an extension of the operator’s own staff.
Our Field Engineers are in the labs with our customers, helping them navigate tech evaluations and mapping specific requirements to product specs. Our Sales and Account teams build long-term roadmaps to ensure the operator’s business goals match the technology we’re building.
And on the Customer Service side, we’re focused on ‘Day 2’ success—so when firmware updates roll out or standards change, we’re there with the technical backing to keep everything running smoothly and building products to align to these needs.
We’re alongside our customers helping them work through every step of going to market.