Aruba launches dense Wi-Fi architecture

Aruba Wireless Networks has announced a combination of wireless hardware and software products aimed at high density corporate installations. The Wireless Grid Architecture is designed to replace ceiling-mounted access points with many more low level, low power, relatively inexpensive devices plugged into the existing wired Ethernet structure. By a combination of power-over-Ethernet and active management to enhance frequency reuse, Aruba claims that high bandwidth, reliable connectivity can be quickly deployed without site surveys or expensive cabling.

"Together with our partner Ortronics, we are revolutionising the cost, deployment and performance models for enterprise wireless," said Don LeBeau, president and chief executive of Aruba Wireless Networks in a statement. "Driving down the cost of wireless deployment and putting the control back in the hands of IT staff is the vision that we're committed to and a promise on which we are delivering."

As part of the Wireless Grid Architecture, Aruba has teamed up with Ortronics to use the latter's Wi-Fi Jack, a combined dual Cat-5 network wall panel and access point. It has also introduced the Aruba 5100 WLAN Switch, which has a claimed processing capacity of nearly 2 Gbps of 802.11i/AES encrypted traffic as standard, expandable to 3.6Gbps with redundancy, and the Aruba 60 series of thin access points for 802.11a/b/g. The software that manages these and the dense wireless network they are designed to produce costs $200 per access point per annum. Other pricing and availability will be announced in September.