Today, Aruba announced the industry’s first enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E solution to allow enterprises to benefit from the recent allocation of unlicensed spectrum in the 6 GHz band and deliver much greater Wi-Fi capacity at greater speeds than ever before. Wi-Fi will have more than double the capacity to deliver greater performance, lower latency, and faster data rates in support of high-bandwidth applications and new use cases like high-definition video and augmented reality/virtual reality.
Introducing Aruba’s Wi-Fi 6E solution
Aruba’s Wi-Fi 6E Access Points are designed to take full advantage of the 6 GHz band. Our new 630 Series Indoor Campus APs* deliver comprehensive tri-band coverage with 3.9 Gbps maximum aggregate throughput, three 2x2 radios, and up to seven additional 160 MHz channels in the 6GHz band. Dual 1-2.5 Smart Rate Ethernet ports ensure greater resiliency and hitless failover of ethernet and power.
To see how Wi-Fi 6E performs, we recently ran a Wi-Fi 6E speed test in our labs for Network Field Day 25 to explore how the dedicated radios performed individually and in aggregate and the results more than confirmed our expectations. In the Wi-Fi 6E speed test video, you can see for yourself the 630 Series AP prototype running 40 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz band, 80 MHz channels in the 5 GHz band, and 80 MHz channels in the 6 GHz band. The results: multi-gigabit performance with an impressive 2.2 Gbps (even without enabling 160 MHz channels).
Maximize 5 GHz and 6 GHz band utilization
In some countries, the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands are separated by a mere 50 MHz, which can cause interference between the two radios. In other countries, there may be slightly more space between the bands, but the upper end of the 5 GHz band can still interfere with the low end of the 6 GHz, limiting the utilization of both.
Here at Aruba, we’ve taken an innovative approach to minimize the impact known as ultra tri-band filtering. Aruba’s 630 Series APs use ultra tri-band filtering to switch the type of filter used depending on the selected channels. This means that when an AP is active on a high 5 GHz channel, that same AP cannot use the adjacent low 6 GHz channel and vice versa. The APs will dynamically adjust channel utilization to maximize band utilization without channel restrictions.
Global momentum for Wi-Fi 6E
Our Wi-Fi 6E APs are poised to take advantage of the global momentum around 6 GHz. As seen in the chart below, 70 countries with 3.4B people have approved or have 6 GHz regulations under consideration. What’s most compelling is that this chart is changing constantly countries across the globe adopt 6 GHz for either the full 1200 MHz or the lower (480 or 500 MHz) portion of the band. We’re also seeing a big jump in the number of Wi-Fi 6E clients which are expected to reach 338 million units this year and make up 20% of shipments by 2022.
Aruba has been a strong advocate of 6 GHz from the beginning. 58 months from the first conversations and 56 weeks since the ruling from the FCC, we are pleased to announce that enterprise-grade Wi-Fi 6E solutions are now a reality.