The key to the wonderful world of WiFi 6
By providing support for up to eight Power over Ethernet-driven access points, the new XS1930-12HP switch opens the door to all the benefits that WiFi 6 can deliver, writes Patrick Hirscher, EMEA Wireless Market Development Manager at Zyxel.
At Zyxel, we are very excited about the potential of WiFi 6 – and are our customers. We have already had a great response to the launch of the first model in our WiFi 6 family of access point – the WAX650S – and additional models will follow soon.
The 802.11ax standard delivers faster wireless connectivity speeds and also much better support for higher-density environments, where you have a lot of users logging onto the WiFi throughout the day.
For this reason, we expect WiFi 6 to be deployed in relatively large areas in which you will often have a lot of different users coming and going and connecting to the network periodically. Schools and college campuses, conference and exhibition halls, sports arenas and leisure centres, are some examples of places where WiFi 6 is going to deliver distinct and immediate benefits.
But, of course, a wireless network can only ever be as good as the network to which it is connected. If there is any kind of bottleneck in the system, users may not enjoy the benefit they should from WiFi 6.
Optimising performance
This is why it is very important to have a good uplink between the wireless access point and the switch. Additionally, you need the switch to provide adequate PoE support, so that wireless access points can be positioned in the best locations. This will be particularly important in the deployment scenarios we envisage for WiFi 6.
One of the key features of the Zyxel WAX650S is that it has a 5 Gbps uplink port, which is really fast. But of course, you will also need a switch that’s capable of supporting that kind of speed. The switch will also need to support the IEEE 802.3bt PoE standard, which is used on the It’s also worth noting that the WAX650S and allows the access point to draw up to 60 W of power.
As you would expect, Zyxel has been well aware that this set of requirements would arise with the arrival of WiFi 6. To meet that requirement, we’ve announced the XS1930-12HP – a high-speed multi-gigabit switch that will support high bandwidth and power up to eight WAX650S access points.
A perfect combination
The XS1930-12HP is designed specifically to work with the WAX series and provide the speed and flexibility needed to get the very best out of WiFi 6. It’s very probable that the two devices will be sold together quite a lot – in fact, that’s what we recommend for most deployments.
The XS1930-12HP also offers a number of other benefits outside of WiFi 6 support. It is capable of supporting up to 5 Gbps performance using existing Cat 5e copper cabling, which means there is no need to upgrade to fibre optic cabling, which is often a requirement for switches of this speed. This is an important and distinguishing feature. It will save customers a lot of time, hassle and money if they don’t need to upgrade existing cables to connect devices to their new switch.
That point made, the XS1930-12HP will support speeds of up to 10 Gbps at distances of up to 55 meters with Cat6 cabling; and up to 100 meters with Cat6A. In other words, if you do install the very latest, high-speed Ethernet cabling, you can use it to its full potential.
Stand-out features
Another key feature of the Zyxel XS1930-12HP is that it has a set of LEDs which show you the speed at which each port – and thus each access point – is running. This makes troubleshooting and optimisation of performance much faster and easier.
There are also LED indicators showing the level of PoE consumption for each port and the overall PoE consumption. This is also very useful for troubleshooting and will also give you a very good idea of how much PoE budget you are using or have to spare on the switch. By the way, you do have up to 375 Watts, which ought to be enough for just about any assortment of PoE devices. These indicators are unique features of the XS1930-12HP, so it makes Zyxel stand out from the competition.
One final point worth mentioning is that the switch comes with Nebula Flex, so you can choose to manage the switches remotely through our Nebula cloud management platform, or locally on the network. You have the same choice with the WAX access points, using the XS1930-12HP along with our WiFi 6 access points will be ideal for managed service providers.
The XS1930 – 12HP should be fully available across Europe in May. We will also be making announcements about further additions to the WAX range of WiFi 6 access points quite soon, giving all our partners and customers options that are suitable for organisations of all sizes.
