Precautions for upgrading 802.11ac: power supply competition

When you buy a new computer peripherals, such as an external hard disk, and insert it into a computer, you find that to make it work normally, you still need a more advanced connector to drive the device, these connectors are often not cheap. The Wi-Fi world is also facing the same situation. Learn how to be smart (please continue to read this article and we will solve this problem for you ).

Exercise caution when transitioning to 802.11ac

The latest and most powerful 802.11ac standards promise potential Gigabit wi-fi connection speeds. As the market changes to this standard, many Wi-Fi providers will not disclose that deploying this powerful new high-speed Wi-Fi standard requires upgrading the switching device to a higher-power 802.3atPoE switch, in this way, the full value of these 802.11ac access points can be realized.

Vendors are likely to say that the 802.3af PoE standard usually deployed will support their 802.11ac products. A closer look will reveal that this is misleading. An industry vendor recently posted a topic on his blog saying: "The speed of upgrading an 802.11ac access point is faster than anyone expected. Why? There are several major factors: Wi-Fi Alliance certification, a large number of 802.11ac devices into the market, higher than 802.11n mobile devices 300% performance! The upgrade of the 802.11ac device is notable for the preceding three reasons alone. To achieve this goal, you do not need to upgrade your wired 802.3af infrastructure ."

Of course, as long as you don't mind being severely restricted to the GHz band or some physical connection functions, you can run some new APS on the existing 802.3af PoE switch.

Why is the power supply more demanding?

With 802.11ac, the RF front-end is very complex. It supports more precise Wi-Fi chips and more components. More antennas are needed to transmit more space streams. In addition, the Ethernet Switching ports and dedicated onboard CPUs on the AP can easily make these access points more powerful than the 15.4 Watt standard provided by the 802.3afPoE switch.

The original IEEE 802.3afPoE Standard Edition provides up to 15.4 watts of DC power for each device (minimum 44 VDC and 350mA ). Therefore, if an access point is compatible with the 802.3af PoE switch, it means that the power required for normal operation is less than 15.4 Watts (in fact, if it is not because of the length of the cable, it will consume some power, if the power is less than 12.95 Watts, it can run normally ). There is also a higher-power PoE standard, usually known as PoE +, which is officially named 802.3at and can provide 25.5 watts of power to each device through cables.

What should I do now?

Therefore, when you begin to consider upgrading to 802.11ac, you must check the PoE requirements of the preferred 802.11ac access point.

In most cases, you will find that this power supply requirement is for 802.3at (PoE +) Ethernet switches, or in some cases, you may believe that the AP will run on the 802.3af with low power supply, but it will only work when many functions on the AP are disabled. If you want to turn off the function to meet the power supply requirements, you may have the following question: why did you "Upgrade" your AP. If you really need the complete AP function, your budget will involve new PoE + switching devices, and depending on the supplier, it is very likely to increase the budget for other aspects, for example, each PoE + port ranges from 600 to 1200 RMB (retail price) to network construction.

Make 802.11ac smarter

Ruckus has been working hard to solve power supply problems to ensure that our fully functional 11ac products work seamlessly with existing 802.3af PoE switching devices.

Because 802.11ac requires different chips, Ruckus has developed a unique and exciting 11ac. Upgrade Plan. The procedure is as follows:

Any user who buys an indoor ZoneFlex802.11n smart Wi-Fi access point can get a three-stream 802.11ac AP at a certain cost. It can be used when the 802.11ac smart Wi-Fi access point is available. Do you know? You can still keep your 802.11n AP. And they do not need to change the PoE switching device.