Cambium Networks began as two wireless businesses that Motorola Solutions no longer wanted. The private equity firm Vector Capital bought them in 2011 and gave them a new name. The products were radios that send broadband through the air, from tower to tower and tower to home. Small rural internet providers, cities, and factories used them where laying cable cost too much. When Cambium went public in June 2019, Vector still owned about 75 percent of the company.

Orthogon and Canopy

Motorola launched its Canopy radios in 1999 to bring broadband to rural areas. In 2006 it bought Orthogon Systems, a maker of long point-to-point links. Five years later neither business fit Motorola's plans, and Vector Capital bought both. The new company took the name Cambium, a word for the growing layer inside a tree. Its bet was that small operators all over the world would keep building wireless networks, and that they would buy their radios, Wi-Fi, and software from one place.

From Nasdaq to the Expert Market

Cambium priced its IPO at $12 a share in June 2019 and listed on Nasdaq as CMBM. It raised about $66 million after fees. Later it fell behind on its financial reports to the SEC. After several extensions, Nasdaq suspended trading in March 2026. Cambium's shares moved to the over-the-counter Expert Market as CMBMF, where most investors cannot trade them easily. The last reported sale there on March 30, 2026 was 13 cents a share.

Cover: Trees, Henri Joseph Harpignies. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for trees (cambium, the growing layer of a tree).