Cisco announced new products based on the next-generation 802.11ac wireless networking standard that offer data transfer speeds of up to one gigabit per second – fast enough to download significant amounts of web content and run streaming video simultaneously. The new products, which are already being adopted around the world by hospitals, universities, law firms and other organizations, will enable businesses to more easily support the growing number of devices connected to their wireless networks, and to ensure the high performance of high-bandwidth applications, such as HD streaming video, web conferencing, and data backup and transfers.
The 802.11ac standard and Cisco’s new product offerings arrive at a time when businesses are
becoming increasingly complex and placing intense bandwidth demands on the network, caused by the growing number of employee-owned mobile devices. These demands will only increase, and by 2017, as mobile network connection speeds increase, the average bit rate of content accessed through the mobile network will increase. High-definition video will be more prevalent, and the proportion of streamed content as compared to side-loaded content is also expected to increase with average mobile network connection speed, according to Cisco research.
Operating in the 5GHz range, 802.11ac allows customers to provide end users with greater speeds and access to more bandwidth-intensive applications. Cisco’s field-upgradeable modules help ensure high performance for connected users and also extend the battery life of mobile devices.
The Methodist Hospital System and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) are early adopters of Cisco’s 802.11ac products. Methodist is Houston’s third largest health system and listed among U.S. News World and Report’s best hospitals, and UNSW is a leading Australian research and teaching university. Both organizations wanted to accommodate mobile devices in greater quantity and provide them with better performance. Chris Spain, vice president of product marketing, Wireless Networking Group, Cisco said, “We are in a new era of the digital lifestyle and our customers are looking to increase employee productivity for those working on their mobile devices, by supporting the higher bandwidth applications popular amongst these users. Cisco’s new 802.11ac modules will support devices now operating on this standard while more effectively utilizing spectrum in the workplace.”
Greg Sawyer, manager of Communications Services, University of New South Wales said, “We are seeing a widespread adoption of Wi-Fi enabled devices used in teaching – up to 21,000 concurrent devices on the network. Students are requiring faster, more efficient and reliable wireless connectivity. We deployed the Cisco 3600 Access Point and module, which has helped us to reach our goal of meeting the increasing bandwidth requirements of the students while providing an overall better classroom and education experience.”