The Wi-Fi 8 (802.11bn) specification has not yet been ratified by the IEEE, but manufacturers are pressing ahead with hardware development. Late last month, TP-Link opened preorders for its first Wi-Fi 8 consumer router, though a US ban tied to an FCC freeze kept it out of the American market. Now GFiber, Qualcomm, and contract manufacturer Gemtek have announced their own entry: the GFiber Wi-Fi 8 Premium Gateway.
Qualcomm’s Dragonwing NPro A8 Elite Platform powers the device, featuring a penta-core CPU and a neural processing unit (NPU) to handle both networking and local AI workloads. “We are bringing together premium Wi-Fi 8 connectivity, high-performance networking, and native edge AI in a single architecture,” said Gautam Sheoran, senior vice president and general manager for Connectivity, Broadband, and Networking at Qualcomm. “Combined with an open agentic AI framework, the platform provides a flexible foundation to deploy, customize, and scale agentic AI directly on the gateway.”
According to GFiber, customers already subscribed to the 25G-PON-based 20 Gig service—priced at $250 per month and available only in select US markets—will be the first to gain access. They currently use an Actiontec Wi-Fi 7 gateway and will be upgraded once the Wi-Fi 8 gateway completes certification. No images of the new gateway were provided, but GFiber says it features a “new aesthetic design” intended to be placed front and centre in the home for optimal signal propagation.
While multi-gigabit fiber connections are becoming more common, 20 Gig service remains a niche offering. GFiber’s push for a Wi-Fi 8 gateway suggests the company sees growing demand for ultra-high-speed home networking, even as the next-generation standard remains in development.