It sure looks to me like "Some guy" got the "random speculation" right in this case. The link shows the BE200 as the "M.2: PCIe*, USB" type in the highlighted

It sure looks to me like "Some guy" got the "random speculation" right in this case. The link shows the BE200 as the "M.2: PCIe*, USB" type in the highlighted Intel Ark screenshot. In contrast to the "WinModem" version you're conflating this with, which should say "M.2: CNVio2" (or similar) like the AX210 and AX211 pair. BE200: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230078/intel-wifi-7-be200/specifications.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/230078/... AX210: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204836/intel-wifi-6e-ax210-gig/specifications.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204836/... AX211: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204837/intel-wifi-6e-ax211-gig/specifications.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204837/... The BE200 should be like the AX210. The "WinModem" variant should be BE201 like the AX211. Edit: I guess I should say that I don't know if "may be locked via Firmware" is a reasonable conclusion, just that the correlation is present, and the assumption of interface compatibility (given an M.2 slot with PCIe and USB).