HPE Aruba boosts Wi-Fi 7 AP capacity, eases IoT network management

HPE Aruba claims its new Wi-Fi 7 access points can provide up to 30% more capacity for wireless traffic than competitive products. One feature that helps boost capacity is called ultra tri-band (UTB) filtering. Designed to eliminate interference, UTB filtering removes interference that may be coming from any nearby equipment on adjacent channels in 5GHz and 6GHz bands. UTB filtering can filter and adjust frequencies between 2.4, 5 and 6 GHz radios, and, with Wi-Fi 7 devices, it can enable the use of larger channels to increase performance and capacity, Lunetta said.

Also related to capacity, HPE Aruba has doubled the amount of SDRAM and flash memory in the 700 Series APs compared to previous HPE models. This allows application-specific containers to run natively on the APs, according to Lunetta, which streamlines data transmissions and allows for local processing of data when real-time conditions, such as temperature or motion, require a more rapid response.

“We have built three radios into the access point Wi-Fi radios, but we haven’t locked them into frequencies,” Lunetta said. “So, these are basically soft radios that can be mixed and matched based on what’s in your environment. So, if over time you want Wi-Fi 4 or 5 and 6 in your environment, great. If you want all 5 GHz, or all 6 GHz, or ultimately a mix of 5, 6 and 7, you can do that,” Lunetta said.