3Com Unified Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch 24

The 3Com Unified Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch 24 is designed for SMBs where it will be used as a unified switch. It combines everything needed for wired / wireless data networks and VoIP. The Unified Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch 24 also is capable of powering devices over ethernet, so you can hook up a whole network of VoIP phones and reduce cabling at the same time.

3Com have designed the switch with businesses of between 5 - 250 users in mind. I’m not sure whether we’re going to see a mass migration from non-unified data and voice networks any time soon just because of this one switch. But it is significant in that it radically simplifies any deployment of an integrated network. Hopefully it’ll gain some traction and a few other manufacturers will come on board with similar unified switches.

Some specs for you:

• Full, Layer 2 line rate gigabit speeds with zero packet loss across all 24 ports;
• Full 802.3af Power over Ethernet support available on each of its 24 ports;
• Auto-voice VLAN capability;
• 802.1X authentication;
• Wireless WPA2 security and AES encryption;
• Rogue wireless access point detection and mitigation;
• Wireless fast roaming and automatic load balancing across managed APs; and
• Support for emerging standards such as 802.11n