Monday, April 12th 2021
Global Chip Shortage Takes Another Toll... Now Your Home Router?
The global supply of semiconductor processors has been at risk lately. Starting from GPUs to CPUs, the demand for both has been much greater than the available supply. Manufacturing companies, such as TSMC, have been expanding capacities, however, they have not yet been able to satisfy the demand. We have seen the results of that demand in a form of the scarcity of the latest generation of graphics cards, covering NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3000 series Ampere, and AMD' Radeon RX 6000 series Big Navi graphics cards. Consumers have had a difficult time sourcing them and they have seen artificial price increase that is much higher than their original MSRP.
However, it doesn't seem like the situation will improve. According to the latest reporting from Bloomberg, the next victim of global chip shortage is... you guessed it, your home internet router. The cited sources have noted that the waiting list to get a batch of ordered routers has doubled the waiting time, from the regular 30 weeks to 60-week waiting time. This represents a waiting list that is more than a year long. With the global COVID-19 pandemic still going strong, there is an increased need for better home router equipment, and delays can only hurt broadband providers that supply routers. Taiwan-based router manufacturer Zyxel Communications, notes that the company has seen massive demand for their equipment. Such a massive demand could lead to insufficient supply, which could increase prices of routers well above their MSRP and bring scarcity of them as well.
Source:
Bloomberg
However, it doesn't seem like the situation will improve. According to the latest reporting from Bloomberg, the next victim of global chip shortage is... you guessed it, your home internet router. The cited sources have noted that the waiting list to get a batch of ordered routers has doubled the waiting time, from the regular 30 weeks to 60-week waiting time. This represents a waiting list that is more than a year long. With the global COVID-19 pandemic still going strong, there is an increased need for better home router equipment, and delays can only hurt broadband providers that supply routers. Taiwan-based router manufacturer Zyxel Communications, notes that the company has seen massive demand for their equipment. Such a massive demand could lead to insufficient supply, which could increase prices of routers well above their MSRP and bring scarcity of them as well.
32 Comments on Global Chip Shortage Takes Another Toll... Now Your Home Router?
Wait someone is knocking at my door . . .
I recently got my ISP to swap out the device they provide (free of charge at that), as it was starting to play up. It was a combo cable modem/router/Wi-Fi AP device, but it was only a dual band 802.11n device and around 7-8 years old. It's not as if the ISP is going to refurbish that and give it to another customer at that point.
The issue when it comes to routers is most likely not down to actual chip shortage as such, but rather a shortage of some of the other components that are required to make a router, as even certain capacitors, resistors, transformers (no, not the robot kind) etc. are in short supply.
there is law to force people work at home if possible
20 million of ps5 and xbox sold
logitech sold 300% more product this year.
And its not the same as the cpu and gpu situation as someone that is technical can build a router and go PFsense, or repurpose an older machine into a router there are options. No one is building their own cpu or gpu.
Not my home router, because my home router, actually it's a gateway, is in my home .. working
Also, when my personal router failed I had to use my old one for three weeks until replacement was available.
For me it's a very "first world problem" - big whoop, I had to use my old RB3011 instead of the RB4011 and will have to contend with my gigabit internets going through copper instead of lazors through glass, boo-hoo. For people who just moved into a new place and will have to wait for a few weeks until the ISP gets the ordered DOCSIS bridges or ONTs it might be actually an issue.
Realistically though, it's a rather rare occurrence.
Global silicon shortage is global.