WifiNigel

Yesterday was the official launch of Aruba's journey in to the world of 802.11ac with their online (and real-world) Tech Field Day event where they presented their products and strategy for  11ac . I was a virtual participant, watching from over here in the UK. I have to say up-front that I do not currently supply or support Aruba products, but was very interested to hear more about their views on 802.11ac, together with their product offering. There was a lot of ground covered, but here a few (brief) notes of things that I found of particular interest for the sessions I managed to view. 802.11ac There was a very informative and lengthy discussion around 802.11ac technology, together with the lessons learned by Aruba in their testing to date. I won't cover all points here, but the headlines that stuck in my mind were: Smartphones/tablets will continue to be primarily single stream, capable of 80MHz bonded channel support Although 11ac brings significant speed a

This is just a quick note about some interesting things I found out about the  Aerohive BR200-WP  today when I was having a look at our demo kit for a possible customer solution.  The  BR200-WP  is a great little branch router/switch/AP platform. It boasts a single AP radio (5GHz or 2.4GHz, 3x3:3!!!) and has 5 x 1Gbps switched Ethernet ports (one is the WAN uplink). If you throw-in in the fact that its cloud managed and has all of the usual powerful HiveOS features (VPN, firewall, AVC, airtime fairness...etc,. etc.), you've got a great branch-router platform. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that it has 2 x POE ports too!) But in addition to the mass of great features outlined above, the BR200-WP has one more trick up its sleeve: 3G/4G backup. The unit has a USB 2.0 port which can be used to attach a 3G/4G dongle to provide WAN backup in the event that the main WAN link should fail. This was the area I was interested in taking a look at in my testing. You'll have t

Here are the top 10 things (IMO) you don't want to hear from a customer when you arrive on site to install a new WiFi network (I compiled this rather quickly in a flippant moment - please don't take it too seriously...): Our networking guy, who was going to be helping you today, isn't available, I'm afraid he's... (choose from the following): On a late shift Off sick On leave Over-slept Double-booked Left the company Had a baby Buying a radiation suit Oh, you wanted POE ports for those APs? Our goods-in department has definitely received the kit, they're just not sure which part of the hospital it went to... Oh, we thought you were bringing the kit with you. No, we haven't received anything. You know that 500-person call-center where you said we might have issue with personal hot-spots? The good news is, we've introduced a policy of 'no personal hot-spots' in that area! As a sweetener, we gave all of the operatives a bluetooth