Dive Brief:
- Cambium Networks cut 53% of its workforce last week as its U.K. subsidiary filed for an administration process citing insolvency, according to an securities filing published Monday. The fixed wireless network hardware provider did not offer severance to the 260 laid-off employees.
- Restructuring team members at RSM UK Restructuring Advisory LLP were appointed to find buyers for “some or all of the company’s business lines,” according to the filing. Channel Dive’s email to Cambium’s PR department received a bounceback. Cambium Chief Legal Council Sally Rau and the Cambium investor relations team did not respond to a request for comment.
- Nasdaq delisted Cambium earlier this year. The company subsequently declined to file a quarterly report and noted that it had lost $12.7 million for the six months ended June 30, 2026.
Dive Insight:
Cambium’s financial troubles stem from a mix of competitive pressures, federal funding change and accounting issues.
The company missed four straight quarterly report filing deadlines in 2025, prompting the Nasdaq action. Cambium fired KPMG as its accounting firm April 5, 2024 and later ditched Grant Thornton LLP, KPMG’s replacement, for BDO.
Ongoing audit issues raised concerns among the enterprises and internet service providers that buy from Cambium, according to Justin Wilson, owner and founder of J2 Consulting.
“You have these businesses out there that are basing their livelihood on, ‘Is this company still going to be here? Can I still get product?’” said Wilson, who previously owned an internet service provider and currently consults with ISPs. “Consumer confidence started to shake.”
Cambium was formed in 2011 when Motorola divested its businesses for point-to-point and point-to-multipoint fixed wireless access. At the time, Motorola’s FWA solutions were industry standard for ISPs buying equipment for their networks, Wilson said.
Cambium’s low cost ePMP offering, launched in 2013, took the FWA market by storm, Wilson said.
“The ePMP product line was $300 versus $3,000,” said Wilson. “You had a lot of ISPs that could grow pretty quickly with the cheaper product, and then naturally they would progress into the higher end product as they got more and more customers.”
The firm expanded beyond its ISP base with the acquisition of Xirrus Networks from Riverbed Technology in 2019 and tapped into the Xirrus reseller base to drive enterprise growth.
Wilson said it was a good idea executed poorly.
“The price point wasn't there,” he said. “It was just a bad thing for them to do.”
At the same time, a rising rival was poised to draw market share. Tarrana in 2021 emerged from a decade of R&D to launch a fast product that could cut signals through trees — one of the persistent barriers to connectivity in the FWA market.
“Before Tarana came along Cambium was the only one close,” Wilson said.
Federal funding accelerated perceived gaps between fixed wireless and fiber. The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program launched in 2023 to disburse $42.45 billion in grants for building internet infrastructure. The program initially pushed states to turn to terrestrial fiber, according to Wilson. The funding rules shifted in 2025 to accommodate both FWA and satellite connectivity, but the damage had already been done. When states opted for FWA, they often chose the higher priced Tarana solution.
“The government's subsidizing me to pay for it, so now I can buy some of the more expensive stuff,” Wilson said.
Wilson said ISPs are looking into where they can get Cambium products, asking distributors and searching the used market.
“The supply chain has been kind of squirrely for a while,” he said. “Getting product has been a little challenging, and it's been that way for a while.”
