By Naomi Graychase

March 14, 2008

At its Wireless Innovations Day event this week in Boston, Motorola demonstrated that 802.11n could be the key to untethering the enterprise.

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This week, at its Wireless Innovations Day event in Boston, Motorola introduced a new 802.11n wireless LAN switch that it says will enable “the all-wireless enterprise.”

The Motorola RFS6000 is a multi-core processor-based wireless LAN (WLAN) switch targeted at mid-sized enterprises. According to Motorola, “It supports an all-wireless enterprise vision, enabling businesses to build an enterprise WLAN that serves the entire organization from workers in corporate headquarters to manufacturing and distribution plants to remote branch offices.”

Coupled with mesh-enabled adaptive 802.11a/b/g/n access points, the RFS6000 is being positioned as a complete indoor and outdoor WLAN enterprise solution.
“We expect more than 75 percent of enterprise end-point devices to be wirelessly connected to the company network within four to five years,” said Jack Gold, President, J.Gold Associates in a Motorola press release Wednesday. “This will include not only data-centric devices, but voice and collaboration-centric devices as well, many with multiple wireless communication options seamlessly available to the user.”

Based on the Wireless Next Generation (Wi-NG) architecture, this “network-in-a-box solution” includes: eight high-power PoE ports for 802.11n; a PCI express slot for wireless WAN backhaul 3G/4G services, such as EVDO, HSDPA, and WiMAX; and a PCI expansion slot for services such as IP PBX. The RFS6000 supports up to 48 802.11a/b/g/n APs and is capable of providing Wi-Fi coverage for up to 2,000 users.

The new switch offers enterprise-class security with integrated 802.1x, WPA/WPA2, stateful inspection firewall, VPN, AAA server, and NAC support. IT is also PCI and HIPAA compliance-capable out-of-the-box.

According to Motorola, the RFS6000 also supports toll-quality VoWi-Fi with Quality of Service (QoS) and Wi-Fi Multimedia Extensions and seamless roaming across Layer 3 boundaries, both inside and outside.

Motorola also announced on Wednesday a unique tri-radio 802.11n AP, the AP-7131. The tri-radio design integrates three 802.11n radios that simultaneously support high-speed client access, mesh backhaul, and dedicated dual-band intrusion protection. Using an expansion slot, the third radio can be field-upgraded to enable next-generation 3G/4G technologies, such as WiMAX for primary or redundant WAN connectivity.

Naomi Graychase is Managing Editor at Wi-FiPlanet.