Sophos wireless access point supports 5 GHz connections

Sophos announced the Astaro AP50, its new dual-band/dual-radio capable wireless access point. The new addition to Astaro’s wireless access point family supports both WLAN frequency bands at 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz and enables fast and reliable wireless networking which is virtually impervious to radio interference.

Users who require fast and seamless wireless connections with little interference (e.g. for VoIP telephony) may use the 5 GHz network, while others may use the 2.4 GHz network for daily business tasks. This type of WLAN segmentation optimizes performance and delivers the best user experience possible, even in congested WLAN environments.

To maximize the WLAN performance, the AP50 also features a Gigabit Ethernet interface and supports MIMO technology with two detachable antennas, delivering data rates up to 300 Mbit/s under best conditions. That way, the AP50 supports at least up to 50 users.

For more deployment flexibility, the AP50 comes with a single port Gigabit PoE-injector that powers the access point over the Ethernet cable. Both the AP50 and the PoE-injector support the latest Power-over-Ethernet standard 802.3at (PoE+).

“When developing new products, we are always trying to keep the feature requests of our customers in mind,” said Martin Becker, product manager, Sophos Network Security. “With the proliferation of wireless networks we realised two things – first, that our customers needed a way to maintain maximum wireless network performance for a variety of different applications and second, to support more users on the wireless network. The AP50 is our answer to those requirements.”