Trapeze Networks 802.11n MX 800R controller, MP 522 and 522E APs

Trapeze Networks has announced three product platforms in its 802.11n solution family - the Mobility Exchange (MX) 800R, a scalable 802.11n wireless networking controller, and the Mobility Point (MP) 522 and 522E, 802.11n indoor and outdoor wireless access points (APs).

Building on a scalable hardware-based WLAN packet processing architecture, the MX-800R high-capacity wireless networking controller is claimed to be an industry first. It offers control and provisioning of wireless access points (CAPWAP) with enabled switching silicon and hardware-accelerated CAPWAP processing and forwarding. It is three-stream ready for up to 128 dual-radio 802.11n APs with 8 Gbps of line-rate wireless switching.

The controller is capable of handling traffic from 2- and 3-stream APs ensuring scalable, long-term deployments. It features high availability - dual power, hitless-failover, link aggregation, controller virtualisation and clustering, and self-optimising/self-healing.

The MP-522 and MP-522E high-speed 2x2 MIMO access points offer a family of 802.11n solutions optimised for either high-density deployments or maximum coverage. The RingMaster planning and management tool assists in deployment.

The MP-522 has tamper-proof internal antennas for high-density indoor applications and supports granular control of transmit power to suit deployment needs.

The Plenum-rated MP-522E has external antenna ports for hybrid indoor/outdoor uses, leverages existing 802.3af PoE and is suitable for outdoor applications with a climate-controlled enclosure and flexible options including a solar panel with PoE.

They both have concurrent dual-radio operation at highest rates within 802.3af PoE power budget and under 9 W idle power consumption.

The company’s spectrum analysis implementation is claimed to enable enhanced spectrum analysis due to its integration with Mobility Services in an SLA framework. With 2-stream Wi-Fi chipset, the MP-522 allows simultaneous or dedicated spectrum scanning and is used as an extension to existing ActiveScan and SentryScan technologies.

More sophisticated channel hopping and interference avoidance strategies driven by policies are enabled with the expansion of WIDS/WIPS capabilities with support for additional signatures including cordless phones, Bluetooth and radar.