Motorola Solutions launches controller, four APs

Computerworld - Motorola Solutions Tuesday introduced four 801.11n access points (APs) and a wireless LAN controller that can support up to 10,000 APs as part of its expanding wireless LAN portfolio.

The products, announced in advance of next week's Interop conference, are part of the Motorola's WiNG 5 architecture that's designed to replace the hub-and-spoke design of many wireless LANs. WiNG 5 doesn't require that all WLAN data traffic travel through a controller, which eliminates bottlenecks and lowers costs, Motorola officials said.

"The AP's communicate and coordinate among themselves to ensure that quality is maintained," said Sunalini Sankhavaram, Motorola director of product management for wireless LANs, in an interview.

The new NX 9000 integrated services controller can sit in a single headquarters location to support up to 10,000 AP's at remote sites. Pricing starts at $14,995, while licensing for the first 1,000 APs costs $59,995, Sankhavaram said.

The AP pricing starts at under $300 for the AP 621, which has a single radio. The AP 6521, priced at under $500, is also a single radio device that can serve as a virtual controller to coordinate up to 24 nearby APs.

The AP 6532 offers a dual radio design and starts at under $800 while the new AP 7161 is priced about $2,000.

The 7161 is a waterproof outdoor device that carries three radios, meaning one of the radio channels can be used as cellular wireless backhaul or as a security sensor.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen, or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed . His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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