Cisco has announced solutions that help customers adopt wireless connectivity – Wi-Fi 6 (also known as 802.11ax), the new standard for Wi-Fi networks. Built on the same fundamental wireless innovations as 5G, these new standards will reshape how businesses and consumers interact with the world. Beyond being significantly faster than the previous generation, Wi-Fi 6 delivers up to 400 per cent greater capacity and is more effective in high density settings such as large lecture halls, stadiums and conference rooms. Latency is vastly improved, allowing for near-real-time use cases. Wi-Fi 6 is also easier on connected devices’ batteries and provides a more predictable user experience overall.

Cisco is rolling out several products based on this technology, including:

  • Wi-Fi 6 access points: New access points across its Catalyst and Meraki portfolios go beyond providing the new Wi-Fi 6 standard. With custom, programmable chipsets and access to industry-leading analytics capabilities, Cisco’s latest APs deliver a smarter and more secure wireless network. The new access points are also multilingual, with the ability to communicate with multiple internet of things (IoT) protocols, including BLE, Zigbee and Thread.
  • Core switch for the campus network: Cisco raises the bar with the Catalyst 9600 core switch family, which will serve as the foundation central to any network’s successful operation. To deliver the most secure and efficient wireless experience, organisations need a single networking fabric that brings wired and wireless together. Built as the next evolution of Catalyst 6000 – the most successful networking product in the history of the internet – Catalyst 9600 will be the bedrock for the next generation of intent-based business networks.
  • New developer resources: Cisco has unveiled the DevNet Wireless Dev Center to offer the learning labs, sandboxes and developer resources needed to create game-changing wireless applications. The Cisco Catalyst and Meraki access platforms are open and programmable all the way down to the chipset level, allowing applications to take advantage of network programmability.