An ideal companion when you need WiFi for restaurant gardens, campsite or open-air festivals

Zyxel’s new NWA55AXE access point is designed to meet the often quite specific yet simple requirements for outdoor wireless deployments, as Patrick Hirscher, EMEA Wireless Market Development Manager at Zyxel, explains.

Are you also one of those people who always check Internet availability when planning their next holiday or leisure activity? Mental health experts are probably opposed to this but many of us at least occasionally check our work emails and handle urgent tasks even outside of work. And this actually goes beyond work as we want to stay in touch with friends, have fun on social networks or perhaps find out if there are any interesting events or entertainment to be enjoyed. In a nutshell, we need to be connected to the Internet at all times and everywhere.

You might easily imagine that, when it comes to setting up a wireless network, you will always have a lot of choice. That’s certainly true if you have fairly average requirements. If you simply need to provide WiFi access for a small office, or a classroom, for example, there are several Zyxel access points that will do the job. It will just depend on what find of performance and features you want, and your budget.

But many customers have much more specific needs. If you need to provide WiFi access outdoors, for example at campsites, weekend houses, restaurant gardens or open-air festivals, you will need an access point that is capable of coping on cold and rainy days, as well when it is warm, and the sun is shining. If you then add to this that you’d need to support high densities of users, and that you’d like maximum performance for the lowest possible price, you will find that – even with Zyxel’s extensive range – you do not have as many options.

If you have even more specific needs – if you need to set up a point-to-point WiFi connection, for example, to link two networks that can’t be connected using Ethernet cabling – such as across a busy street. In these cases, you’d need an access point capable of meeting that particular requirement.

Simple but specific

To meet these simple yet quite specific requirements for outdoor WiFi, Zyxel has launched the NWA55AXE. This new addition to our growing WiFi 6 family of access points is designed to provide robust 6 coverage and will be ideal for scenarios where a large number of users will need to connect to wireless outdoors, such as an events venue.

It will also be perfect for the previously-mentioned situation, where you need to set up a wireless ‘bridge’ between two points – and there are a surprising number of projects where this is emerges as a temporary or even a permanent requirement.

As well as WiFi 6, the NWA55AXE also comes with support for NebulaFlex and can thus be managed locally or remotely through our Nebula cloud management platform. It is IP55 certified, which means it is highly resistant to water and dust and will be absolutely fine for most outdoor settings. It also has downward-facing antenna, which helps with protection and means you will get the best performance when the access points are mounted in an elevated position – as is usually the case outdoors.

Highly affordable

On top of all this, the NWA55AXE is also the most affordable outdoor access point we have yet produced, which means it is ideal if you have a fairly simple or short term outdoor requirement. We’ve managed to make it more affordable by providing all the core features that you are likely to need – including WiFi 6 and Nebula.

With this core functionality, along with WiFi 6 performance and flexible remote management capability, the NWA55AXE provides a simple and affordable wireless connectivity solution that can meet the specific needs of outdoor deployments.

For more information, get in touch with your nearest Zyxel office or trusted Zyxel partner.