Cisco Unveils Dual-Band APs, Beefs Up Security

Cisco Systems Wednesday unveiled a line of enterprise-grade multi-band wireless access points that include beefed up security. It also said it is adding intrusion detection capabilities for its entire Structured Wireless-Aware Network (SWAN) wireless LAN framework.

The company said in a statement that its new Aironet 1130AG and 1230AG series of access points will support, as the names imply, both 802.11g and 802.11a. They also are backward compatible with 802.11b, the company said.

In addition, the access points will support the IEEE 802.11i and Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) security protocols, according to the companies. The company also said it plans to add an intrusion detection system from AirDefense into its SWAN framework. That capability will be accessible through its Wireless LAN Solution Engine (WLSE) management console.

The dual modes supported by the access points will operate simultaneously enabling, for instance, data to be transmitted via 802.11g and voice-over-WLAN (VoWLAN) to use 802.11a. In addition, the company said it will offer a kit to enable enterprises to upgrade their existing 802.11g Aironet 1200 series access points to also support 802.11a.

Another kit announced by the company enables enterprises to add support for Wireless Multimedia (WMM), a protocol offered by the Wi-Fi Alliance that provides a level of Quality of Service (QoS) support needed for VoWLAN.The company said that the 1130AG Series APs will cost $699 and the 1230AG Series APs will cost $999. The kit to upgrade 1200 Series APs to include 802.11a will cost $299. The 1130AG Series will ship later in November while the 1230AG will ship in December, the company said. The intrusion detection system for SWAN will be available to customers next March as a no-charge software upgrade.