The engineers at ZyXel have been busy pumping out new products which I recently had a chance to see. One of the company’s latest creations is the ZyWALL 2WG which is 3G and WiFi mobile broadband security appliance for remote offices.
The sleek box acts as a 4-port switch which also allows WiFi access and can failover to a 3G (or even 2.5 G) wireless network if the Internet goes down. You can insert an EVDO or HSPDA card yourself once you have chosen a wireless provider.
The device also has SSL VPN capabilities and a firewall. In addition to DoS protection the box also prioritizes voice packets automatically. The system basically scopes out small packets and bumps up their priority so you don’t have to do any VoIP priority configuration yourself. Of course this may not work for that long-winded relative who talks forever and seems to fit 256 kilobits of voice into every packet.
Another ZyXel solution which is pretty intriguing targets the burgeoning WiFi market allowing companies to cope with the growing WiFi density challenge being felt in many organizations. As more and more devices are WiFi enabled, WiFi networks are getting bogged down and as such are bucking under the strain of continuous data transfers.
One solution is to blanket an office with WiFi APs but this is a terrible idea from a management perspective. ZyXel has a solution which consists of a central controller which looks like a switch and up to eight boxes which are essentially antenna modules.
The boxes have zero millisecond roaming which over 300 times faster than the time it takes for you to blink! The NXC-8160 is the brains behind this solution and the antenna units are designated as NWA-8500.
Benefits of this solution include no need for a site survey, what looks virtually like a single AP and no latency. I am looking forward to testing this solution at TMC headquarters in fact but until then if you pick one of these combos up, be sure to comment and let the community know how it works for you.
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