Trapeze Networks unveils affordable 802.11n wireless solution

PLEASANTON, USA: Trapeze Networks, a Belden Brand and leader in enterprise wireless LAN equipment and management software, announced the availability of three new product platforms in its 802.11n solution family – the Mobility Exchange (MX) 800R, a scalable 802.11n wireless networking controller, and the Mobility Point (MP) 522 and 522E, affordable 802.11n indoor and outdoor wireless access points (APs).

According to Gartner Dataquest, 802.11n will account for almost 97 percent of the wireless products shipments by 2014, up from 35 percent in 2009.

"Many Trapeze Networks customers, especially in markets such as healthcare and education, have accelerated their adoption of 802.11n driven by new applications and a foundation of reliable architecture," said Trapeze Networks president Dhrupad Trivedi.

"Trapeze's new product platforms will further support this market transition for our customers and provide an exciting product and solution roadmap. The introduction of these new products breaks the pricing barrier, driving the cost of 802.11n solutions closer to high-end 802.11 a/b/g offerings."

Building on a scalable hardware-based WLAN packet processing architecture, the new MX-800R high-capacity wireless networking controller is an industry first and is specifically designed for mainstream 802.11n applications. The new MX-800R offers these capabilities and benefits:

Control and Provisioning of Wireless Access Points (CAPWAP) – enabled Switching Silicon – hardware-accelerated CAPWAP processing and forwarding.

Line-rate Centralized Switching – three-stream ready for up to 128 dual-radio 802.11n APs with 8Gbps of line-rate wireless switching.

Scalability – capable of handling traffic from 2-stream and 3-stream APs ensuring scalable, long-term deployments.

High Availability – dual power, hitless-failover, link aggregation, controller virtualization and clustering, and self optimizing/self healing.

The new MP-522 and MP-522E high-speed 2x2 MIMO access points advance Trapeze Networks' strategy to offer a family of 802.11n solutions optimized for either high-density deployments or maximum coverage. RingMaster, Trapeze Networks' industry-leading planning and management tool, guarantees an easy and reliable deployment.

The MP-522 has tamper-proof internal antennas for high-density indoor applications and supports granular control of transmit power to suit deployment needs. The Plenum-rated MP-522E has external antenna ports for hybrid indoor/outdoor uses, leverages existing 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE), and is ideal for outdoor applications with a climate controlled enclosure and flexible options including a solar panel with PoE.

The MP-522 and 522E are "Green APs" with concurrent dual-radio operation at highest rates within 802.3af PoE power budget and under 9W idle power consumption.

Trapeze Networks' spectrum analysis implementation lets IT departments experience enhanced spectrum analysis benefits due to its integration with Mobility Services in an SLA framework.

Equipped with the latest 2-stream Wi-Fi chipset, Trapeze Networks' MP-522 allows simultaneous or dedicated spectrum scanning and is used as an extension to existing ActiveScan and SentryScan technologies.

More sophisticated channel hopping and interference avoidance strategies driven by policies are capable due to the expansion of WIDS/WIPS capabilities with support for additional signatures including microwave ovens, cordless phones, Bluetooth and radar.

"As Bonita Unified School District users and applications increasingly go mobile, Trapeze Networks' MX-800R 802.11n controller and MP-522 11n access points give us the performance we need today and the ability to grow in the future as we fully transition from 802.11b/g to 802.11n wireless networking products," said Jack Hipp, director of computer information services, Bonita Unified School District, San Dimas/California.

Institut National Langues and Civilisations Orientales, INALCO, the organization for all oriental language learning in Paris, uses Trapeze Networks' new MX-800R.

"As a premier wireless networking integrator, we are as meticulous about selecting the solutions we put in our own network as we are with recommending solutions to our customers," said Thierry Poulain, president directeur general of French system integrator Interdata. "Trapeze Networks' MX-800R is the only 802.11n wireless networking controller we would entrust with our own network and we recommend it to our valued customers."