Can hardware and software for Wi-Fi infrastructure be disaggregated – meaning, can the two be made independent or even open-sourced? If you ask the Wi-Fi subgroup of the Telecom Infra Project (TIP), the answer is yes.

The TIP OpenWi-Fi project is working to remove the lock-in effects of proprietary Wi-Fi hardware, software, and general architectures, with a view to reducing network costs and increasing ubiquity.

Thus far, the collaborative project – which is widely supported by, e.g., Facebook – is mostly working to develop disaggregated residential Wi-Fi service architectures.

OpenWiFi is a community-developed, open-source software for Wi-Fi. It includes both a cloud controller SDK and an Enterprise-grade Access Point (AP) firmware.  Both are designed and validated to work seamlessly together.

TIP is also working on improved collaborative schemes to facilitate mobile and Wi-Fi convergence, including Wi-Fi offload.

The work by TIP may lend itself well to reducing the cost and complexity of deploying carrier Wi-Fi networks.