Huawei has launched a new wireless solution offering nearly three times the bandwidth of current leading products and combining multiple access technologies.
The X-Gen Wi-Fi Solution, announced at the Huawei Connect 2017 conference, offers connectivity through Gigabit Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee and RFID.
It features an access point (AP) running on an 802.11ax Qualcomm chip. 802.11ax is the most advanced specification for Wi-Fi, offering faster speeds, reduced congestion and lower energy consumption.
The access point offers speeds of up to 9.6GBps, up from the current maximum of 1.7GBps which is offered by products using the 802.11ac Wave 2 standard.
The access point can support 400 simultaneous users, four times the number supported in high-density scenarios by 802.11ac Wave 2.
The solution includes anti-interference capabilities, using a scheduling system for different users to avoid collisions in network traffic.
It also supports on-premise and cloud-based management modes for devices on the network.
Nolan Greene, IDC Senior Research Analyst, said the new solution was an “important step” in the progression to commercial use of 802.11ax.
He added: “Existing Wi-Fi standards will not meet the forthcoming access requirements for large-scale IoT deployment scenarios.
“With the expected increase in the number of concurrent users and things on the Wi-Fi network, legacy AP performance may become insufficient and often subject to signal interference.”
According to Kevin Hu, President of Switch and Enterprise Gateway at Huawei, the solution is designed to cater to virtual and augmented reality and interactive 3D imaging use cases.
“Campus networks are now embracing a 10-gigabit digital era enabled with all Wi-Fi coverage and hybrid Wi-Fi/IoT access. We call it X-Gen,” he said.
Irvind Ghai, Vice President, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, said: “This is the beginning of a transformation that will support more robust infrastructure and richer connected experiences for users.”
Last week, the Wi-Fi Alliance announced new features to its specification for light-touch, high-density Wi-Fi access.
Last week also saw Nokia also launched a new version of the AirScale Wi-Fi Access Point, which it said was more compact and cost-efficient, to support enterprises’ non-critical applications.