* 3Com wireless access point another piece of the puzzle
3Com last month unveiled a wireless access point that uses the Power over Ethernet standard. The company says it now offers all the pieces necessary to converge voice and data on wireless LANs for small businesses.
The OfficeConnect Wireless 108M bit/sec 11g PoE Access Point supports up to 64 wireless users. It uses the IEEE 802.11g standard to communicate with those users, and can also double the speed to 108M bit/sec via the proprietary “Super G” technology. It can also scale down, supporting 11b clients as well.
The access point can be managed remotely via a Web interface. It can detect rogue access points and supports several security measures, including WPA and authentication and authorization via back-end RADIUS servers.
Because it uses the 802.3af PoE standard, the access point can get its power and its signals over Category 5 or Cat 6 wiring, from any switch that also supports that standard. 3Com offers the Baseline Switch 2226-PWR Plus for that purpose. The advantage is that only one cable needs to be run to each access point, making it useful for hard-to-wire locations.
The switch, which was announced in December, can also deliver power to 3Com’s IP telephones or other devices that you would only want to run one line to, such as video surveillance cameras.
The switch allows network managers to turn power on or off at the connected switch port, via the switch’s Web interface. Using that feature for wireless access points, a network managers could enable or disable network access completely at a specific location – from any other location.
The new access point is shipping now for $199.
