Cisco Makes Gigabit Wi-Fi More Affordable with New 80.ac Product

Cisco Makes Gigabit Wi-Fi More Affordable with New 802.11ac Product Expanded Wireless LAN Portfolio Accelerates New Opportunities for Partners and Customers

Cisco Partner Summit, Las Vegas, NV March 26, 2014 Cisco today introduced an addition to its 802.11ac access point portfolio, priced economically for partners and customers, supporting the next-generation Wi-Fi standard (802.11ac). The 802.11ac-enabled Cisco Aironet 2700 Series Access Point will help partners seize huge mobility opportunities while enabling more customers to accelerate their path to Gigabit Wi-Fi. This is the foundation for a fast, dependable and secure wireless Local Area Network (LAN) infrastructure that can support the many mobile devices, apps and data running in high-density customer environments.

Wireless networks have become a quintessential component for businesses, providing much more than basic connectivity. With the increasing adoption of 802.11ac, organizations have come to realize that wireless networks can have a major impact on business outcomes, and can change the way businesses interact with their customers, enable innovative business services and empower employees to be more agile. According to Cisco's 2014 Mobile Visual Networking Index (VNI), global mobile data traffic grew 81 percent in 2013 to reach 1.5 exabytes per month. With continued growth expected, IT professionals have an opportunity to use new wireless technologies to provide employees and customers with better applications, services and experiences.

Partner and Customer Supporting Quotes

Christine Holloway, vice president, converged infrastructure solutions, CDW

Our customers business models are changing, and the need for faster, more dependable and secure wireless connectivity to drive additional value and services for employees and consumers is top of mind, said Christine Holloway, vice president converged infrastructure solutions at CDW. The need for Gigabit Wi-Fi adoption will only increase in our customer environments and is the foundation to support the growing number of customized apps running on today's network. Cisco's expanded WLAN portfolio of 802.11ac solutions gives us the tools we need to solve our customers' challenges and at an attractive price point.

Chip Foley, vice president of technology, Forest City Ratner/Barclays Center

We have a reputation for being the most high-tech stadium in sports, so it's our main goal to deliver exceptional services to our guests and fans, addressing their mobile device needs inside our venue, said Chip Foley, vice president technology at Forest City Ratner/Barclays Center. Working with High Point Solutions and Cisco, we are pushing forward to implement high-density Gigabit Wi-Fi. We expect this next phase of wireless connectivity to support many more fans on the network at the high speeds they have come to expect, while ensuring they can use the multimedia of choice on their mobile device.

Jeremy Recktenwald, Director Integrated Technology Support Services, San Diego Unified School District

The need for affordable, robust, and reliable 802.11ac wireless in the K-12 educational space has never been needed more than today, said Jeremy Recktenwald, Director Integrated Technology Support Services, San Diego Unified School District. The future of K-12 education will rely on ubiquitous access to the Internet, public and private cloud services as well as video and multimedia. The shift to Common Core online assessment, 1-1 computing initiatives, flipped classroom instructional models and supporting connectivity for not only district issued devices but student and staff personal devices in our district continues to drive the need for wireless bandwidth, and that need is growing at an exponential rate. With a current wireless network of over 8,600 802.11n access points providing connectivity for over 130,000 students and 12,000 staff, the Gigabit Wi-Fi standard will allow us to continue provide the educational and business needs of the district in a seamless manner, and the continued expansion of our wireless needs.

Sujai Hajela, senior vice president, Enterprise Networking Group, Cisco

Gigabit Wi-Fi is here to stay. The next generation of wireless technology 802.11ac is today's hallmark in wireless standards, representing a significant advancement in solving bandwidth issues and providing fast speeds, adding real business value and outcomes, said Sujai Hajela, senior vice president, Enterprise Networking Group at Cisco. As the industry leader in 802.11ac, Cisco is helping customers' transition to this technology, while accelerating our partners' ability to capture new revenue, increase margins and provide new services from the mobility opportunity.

Key Highlights of the Aironet 2700 Access Point

Support for the Next-Generation Wi-Fi (802.11ac): The Aironet 2700 series supports both a 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n and a 802.11ac radio that provides a connection rate of up to 1.3 Gbps, three times the performance offered by today's high-end Access Points. 802.11ac is backwards compatible with 802.11a and 802.11n 5GHz clients.

High Density Experience (HDX): Building on the Cisco Aironet heritage of Radio Frequency (RF) excellence, the 2700 Series Access Point operates on a purpose-built, innovative chipset with a best-in-class RF architecture that provides a high-density experience for enterprise networks designed for mission-critical, high-performance applications. Part of Cisco's HDX Technology includes patented features such as CleanAir and ClientLink that have been enhanced for 802.11ac environments, as well as new features such as Turbo Performance and optimized roaming.

Industry's Most Comprehensive 802.11ac Portfolio: The addition of the Aironet 2700 Series Access Point rounds out Cisco's growing

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