A quasi-omnidirectional printed antenna has been developed using Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) technology. The radiating element is realized from a concept of segmented circular SIW cavity through repetitive bifurcation by magnetic walls and also by reshaping its ground plane. The conjecture and design insight have been discussed and demonstrated indicating matching bandwidth of 7.7% (3.49–3.77 GHz for TM010-like mode) and 21.3% (5.08–6.29 GHz for TM020-like mode). As much as 2 dBi gain with nonuniform quasi-omnidirectional radiation patterns has been experimentally documented. This work should find applications in compact wireless transceivers operating in WiMAX (IEEE 802.16) and WLAN (IEEE 802.11) bands. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.