Huawei Launches X-Gen Wi-Fi to Redefine the Agile Campus Network Era

Huawei launched its X-Gen Wi-Fi Solution, enabling a three-fold bandwidth increase and four-fold increase in the number of concurrent access users. The solution is launched at HUAWEI CONNECT 2017. As an industry first as this Wi-Fi solution allows hybrid access through both 10 Gbps capable Wi-Fi and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, such as Bluetooth, ZigBee, and RFID, making a more innovative service experience possible and redefining the agile campus network era.

Emerging applications, such as IoT, 4K/8K HD video, and Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), are imposing high-bandwidth, low-latency requirements for Wi-Fi networks. Existing Wi-Fi standards and products are encountering challenges to scale network capacity and bandwidth to meet these growing demands. Huawei’s X-Gen Wi-Fi solution consists of the industry’s first 10G-capable access point (AP) AP7060DN and multi-gigabit Ethernet switch S6720-SI. The AP7060DN uses an 802.11ax chip from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a subsidiary of Qualcomm Incorporated, and complies with the latest 802.11ax standards. Compared with 802.11ac Wave 2 products, the bandwidth of a single 5G radio on the AP7060DN is increased from 1.7 Gbit/s to 4.8 Gbit/s. By leveraging the multi-radio technology, the overall bandwidth reaches up to 9.6 Gbit/s, and the number of concurrent users in high-density scenarios increases from 100 to 400.

“In recent years, Huawei has constructed wired and wireless converged networks for various industries using innovative agile campus solutions,” said Kevin Hu, President of Huawei’s Switch and Enterprise Gateway product line. “Campus networks are now embracing a 10-gigabit digital era enabled with all Wi-Fi coverage and hybrid Wi-Fi/IoT access, we call it X-Gen. Huawei’s X-Gen Wi-Fi is capable of 10 Gbps access and designed for future industry applications. It will be widely applied in VR/AR all-interactive teaching, interactive 3D imaging for remote diagnosis in hospitals, all-telepresence wireless offices anytime, anywhere, and future interaction scenarios beyond our imagination. The 802.11ac technology leads Wi-Fi connections into the multi-gigabit era, and Huawei’s X-Gen Wi-Fi will enable campus networks with 10 Gbps capable Wi-Fi connectivity of everything.”

Irvind Ghai, Vice President, Product Management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. said, “Qualcomm Technologies is on the front line of 11ax innovation and working closely with Huawei to address the ever-growing need for Wi-Fi capacity in today’s dense enterprise networks. Qualcomm Technologies’ 11ax solutions are designed to enable additional capacity with MU MIMO and OFDMA support. This is the beginning of a transformation that will support more robust infrastructure and richer connected experiences for users.”

“Existing Wi-Fi standards will not meet the forthcoming access requirements for large-scale IoT deployment scenarios,” said Nolan Greene, IDC Senior Research Analyst. “With the expected increase in the number of concurrent users and things on the Wi-Fi network, legacy AP performance may become insufficient and often subject to signal interference. The new-generation Wi-Fi standard promises to better meet future IoT network requirements, given its expected ability to accommodate significantly more devices per AP, as well as improve per-device access performance. This X-Gen Wi-Fi access point launched by Huawei is an important first step in the progression to standard commercial usage of 802.11ax Wi-Fi, providing a new option for IoT-specific use cases.”

Huawei’s X-Gen Wi-Fi Solution supports hybrid access from Wi-Fi and IoT terminals and makes access possible from a large number of IoT devices, meeting applications’ requirements for the future network. It also provides an outstanding anti-interference capability for the X-Gen Wi-Fi network, which can effectively avoid collisions through its multi-user smart-scheduling mechanism, increasing the network capacity in high-density scenarios by 30 percent. It also supports on-premise and cloud-based management modes, and manages IoT devices and office devices together in the cloud, implementing cloud-based network management.