WLAN Access Points (AP) are transceivers (transmitter and receiver) that provides wireless signals to devices like laptops, tablets, mobile phones, desktop wireless adapters and other wireless enabled devices to connect to a wired network or LAN. The Access Points are connected to the LAN through an Ethernet cable. Enterprise Access Points are usually WiFi certified and any computing device with WiFi certification will be able to connect with APs after due authentication. Enterprise Access Points are allowed to operate in 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz open spectrum.
WLAN Access Points have the capability to support a certain amount of bandwidth and users as per the specification it is manufactured under. The IEEE 802.11ac is the latest updated specification under which WLAN Access Points are manufactured since 2013 by leading suppliers. 802.11ac Access Points provide far better bandwidth to the end user than the previous 802.11n technology. For a small office with around 10 users, 1 AP would usually be sufficient. With more number of users, devices and applications, the number of WLAN Access Points required to support a location will increase gradually.
802.11ac access points comes in 2 variants or ‘waves’. 802.11ac Wave 1 devices started hitting the market in 2013 and 802.11ac Wave 2 devices became available since 2015.
The wave 2 devices have a theoretical maximum data rate of 6.9 Gbps, which is higher than wave 1 specification of 1.3 Gbps and 802.11n specification of 600 Mbps. The wave 2 devices also features the revolutionary MU-MIMO technology, which considerably increases the speed of wireless networks through effective use of spatial streams. Such high speeds will obviously need support from the back-end wired infrastructure.
Accolade Wireless can install 802.11ac based WLAN Access Points for businesses. After careful analysis of existing infrastructure, applications and future growth expected, we can conduct a professional site survey and recommend the best solution for the requirement. Contact us now for a free consultation and site survey report.