Inseego, the San Diego-based wireless broadband innovator that invented the MiFi mobile hotspot category, is making waves in the enterprise 5G market with its latest announcement. The company has introduced the Wavemaker FX4200, a groundbreaking 5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) platform that represents several industry firsts, including the first FWA solution supporting Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby (DSDS) technology and Qualcomm’s latest X72 Dragonwing chipset. Coupled with major updates to its Inseego Connect software suite, this carrier-agnostic solution is designed specifically for small- and medium-sized enterprises, retail locations, branch offices, and other sites without dedicated IT resources.
Under new leadership, including CEO Juho Sarvikas (former Qualcomm president, North America) and a transformed executive team, Inseego is positioning itself at the intersection of a critical market gap. As 5G FWA emerges as the “killer app” for next-generation wireless networks – driven by 3GPP Release 17’s enhanced uplink capabilities and businesses’ growing need for flexible, rapidly deployable connectivity – the FX4200 addresses the void between overbuilt, costly enterprise solutions and underpowered consumer products. In this exclusive VMblog Q&A, Zack Kowalski, SVP of Business Development at Inseego, discusses how the platform’s combination of carrier-grade performance, enterprise security, and zero-touch deployment is defining an underserved market segment while capitalizing on the explosive growth trajectory from 2 billion 5G connections in 2024 to an expected 10 billion by decade’s end.
VMblog: Before we get started, can you give VMblog readers some quick background on Inseego and what it provides to the enterprise?
Zack Kowalski: Inseego (Nasdaq: INSG) is a global leader in wireless broadband, including 5G mobile broadband and 5G fixed wireless access (FWA) solutions. The company works closely with multiple carriers, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon (among others), and a robust group of channel partners, including MSPs, VARs, MSOs, and MVNOs, to provide a mix of both consumer and business solutions to their customers.
The company is headquartered in San Diego, California, and is known for its history of wireless innovation. It invented the Wi-Fi mobile hotspot product category with its MiFi products and has traditionally been a first mover with technologies like mmWave and others. In fact, the company was the first to showcase a working product leveraging Qualcomm’s latest X85 Dragonwing platform.
In addition to our wireless innovation, the company has an entirely new leadership team. I joined this summer, alongside a transformed leadership team, including a new CMO, CFO, and CPO, and our new CEO, Juho Sarvikas (most recently Qualcomm’s president, North America), came on board in January of this year. Big things are happening here, and you can expect a lot of activity in the coming weeks and months ahead.
VMblog: What is Inseego announcing today?
Kowalski: Inseego is introducing a new model for enterprise 5G FWA with a completely new 5G hardware platform – the Inseego Wavemaker FX4200 – and major updates to its software suite, Inseego Connect. This new platform is all about bridging the gap between the power and functionality of enterprise network solutions and the simplicity and ease-of-management of small- and medium-sized (SMB) or consumer-oriented solutions. As a result, this solution is ideal for locations that may not have dedicated onsite IT resources, including small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), retail locations, restaurants, branch offices, temporary locations such as pop-ups and kiosks, as well as state and local government offices. This solution set has a lot of industry “firsts,” including the first FWA solution supporting Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby (DSDS) and the latest Qualcomm Dragonwing chipset, the X72.
Just as importantly, this platform is carrier-agnostic, so combined with its features and functionality, it is perfect for our channel partners, including Managed Service Provider (MSPs), Value-Added Resellers (VARs), Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), and other service providers that need an easy, but powerful, 5G FWA option.
VMblog: It’s clear that FWA is under the spotlight right now, as carriers are reporting significant growth among their business customers. Why do you think that is?
Kowalski: With networks based on 5G-Advanced from 3GPP Rel 17 and beyond becoming available to businesses, it seems that FWA has really become 5G’s “killer app” as it can deliver all the benefits of wireless connectivity (flexibility, speed of deployment, etc.), but with the performance and reliability that used to be the purview of wired connections. In particular, 3GPP Rel 17 significantly increases the capacity of the “uplink,” which is essential for businesses that rely on video or require uploading large amounts of data to the cloud. When you combine these technical capabilities with a proliferation of remote sites, enterprise FWA just makes sense.
That said, today’s IT leaders face a clear gap between advanced, overbuilt solutions that are both costly and difficult to deploy and manage, and low-end consumer products that lack manageability and security. The FX4200 bridges this divide with a full-stack wireless platform combining carrier-grade performance, enterprise security, and zero-touch setup that any business can afford and deploy with ease. As a result, we believe we are really expanding and defining a relatively underserved market segment with this launch.
VMblog: You mentioned you had made significant updates to the software as well. What are they, and why are these so important?
Kowalski: Part of making this new platform enterprise-ready means giving both enterprises and their channel partners the ability to manage the end-to-end deployment of thousands of wireless devices across diverse use cases. With these new updates, Inseego Connect continues to meet the needs of multi-tenant networks for MSPs and larger enterprises and has also been redesigned to aid non-technical users through deployment, making it easy to manage deployments of any size.
VMblog: How does this news fit into Inseego’s broader vision for wireless networks in the enterprise?
Kowalski: Put simply, we believe that wireless is quickly becoming the dominant communications paradigm, even beyond wired solutions such as fiber. The average cost of laying fiber has reached $60,000 to $80,000 per mile, conservatively. Wireless can be deployed at a fraction of this cost, utilizing existing wireless infrastructure. As a result, numbers of global 5G connections are expected to explode, increasing from 2 billion in 2024 to 10 billion by the end of the decade. This has led to significantly greater data consumption through video and cloud computing. In fact, data consumption in the calendar year 2024 alone exceeded the entire 4G era. To address this growth, we’re confident that more spectrum is forthcoming: government initiatives, including spectrum allocation and subsidies for network expansion (upper mid-band in the 7-24GHz range), have provided a strong foundation for the sustained growth of the 5G market and paving the way for 6G and future generations. As 5G-Advanced comes online and provides even more features and efficiency, it becomes clear that applications like FWA are the future of connectivity. Our solution today is the first of many to capitalize on these trends.
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Zack Kowalski serves as Senior Vice President, Business Development at Inseego, where he is responsible for indirect sales and strategic partnerships. He brings over 17 years of experience building and scaling strategic partnerships, business operations, and supply chains across the wireless and IoT industries. He joins Inseego from Kajeet, where he spent 13 years helping transform the company from a consumer Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) into a leading IoT service provider in the education, healthcare, and transportation markets. During his tenure at Kajeet, Mr. Kowalski was instrumental in expanding the adoption of Inseego (formerly Novatel Wireless) products into new verticals, while forging meaningful partnerships across the ecosystem. Mr. Kowalski also played a leading role in launching Kajeet’s in-vehicle connectivity solutions and has significant experience serving that market segment. Mr. Kowalski holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Business Management and Supply Chain Management from Northern Arizona University.
