Cisco announces Wi-Fi 6 product portfolio

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Cisco announced Wi-Fi 6 solutions and products for improved wireless connectivity this week. Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax) is the new standard for Wi-Fi networks that power immersive wireless experiences and that connects billions of things. Besides the Wi-Fi 6 Access Points, Cisco also announced the Catalyst 9600 campus Core Switch purpose-built for cloud-scale networking.

By coupling automation and analytics software with a complete array of next-generation switches, access points, and controllers for the campus, Cisco enables an end-to-end, wireless-first architecture.

Wi-Fi 6 Access Points across Catalyst and Meraki portfolios

New access points across the Catalyst and Meraki portfolios go beyond providing the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. With custom, programmable chipsets and access to analytics capabilities, Cisco’s latest APs deliver a smarter and more secure wireless network. The new Wi-Fi 6 access points are also multilingual, with the ability to communicate with multiple IoT protocols, including BLE, Zigbee, and Thread.

Beyond being significantly faster than the previous generation, Wi-Fi 6 delivers up to 400 percent greater capacity and is more effective in high-density settings like large lecture halls, stadiums and conference rooms. Latency is improved, allowing for near real-time use cases. Wi-Fi 6 is also easier on connected devices’ batteries and provides an overall more predictable user experience.

Multilingual access points and Catalyst 9600 core switch

The Wi-Fi 6 access points across the Catalyst and Meraki portfolios provide the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. With custom, programmable chipsets and access to industry-leading analytics capabilities, Cisco’s latest APs deliver a smarter and more secure wireless network. The new access points are also multilingual, with the ability to communicate with multiple IoT protocols, including BLE, Zigbee, and Thread.

This week Cisco also rolls out several products and partnerships so that businesses can deliver a genuinely unplugged and uninterrupted experience, including:

  • Core Switch for the Campus Network: The Catalyst 9600 core switch family serves as the foundation central to any network’s successful operation. To deliver a secure and efficient wireless experience. The Catalyst 9600 was built as the next evolution of the well-known Catalyst 6000 — for next-generation intent-based business networks.
  • New Developer Resources: Wi-Fi 6 and 5G represent an incredible opportunity for developers. To enable the creation of immersive experiences that these new levels of connectivity promise, Cisco unveils the DevNet Wireless Dev Center. DevNet offers the learning labs, sandboxes and developer resources needed to create wireless applications. The Cisco Catalyst and Meraki access platforms are open and programmable all the way down to the chipset level, allowing applications to take advantage of network programmability in new and exciting ways.
  • New Ecosystem Partnerships: Prior to the launch of its Wi-Fi 6 access points, Cisco completed interoperability testing with Broadcom, Intel and Samsung to address the inevitable gaps that come with a new standard. Samsung, Boingo, GlobalReach Technology, Presidio and others are expected to join the Cisco OpenRoaming project to solve one of today’s biggest wireless pain points. The Cisco OpenRoaming project aims to make it easier to seamlessly and securely hop between Wi-Fi and LTE networks and onboard public Wi-Fi.

"5G and Wi-Fi 6 represent a new era of connectivity"

"Every leap in connectivity enables the next wave of profound innovation. 5G and Wi-Fi 6 represent a new era of connectivity," said David Goeckeler, EVP and General Manager, Networking and Security Business at Cisco. "Developers are already creating the next generation of wireless-first, immersive experiences. With billions of things connecting to the network, this growth will create unprecedented complexity for IT. Cisco is building a multi-domain network architecture to simplify complexity for IT, allowing CIOs to deliver against their innovation agenda."

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