By Claus Hetting, Wi-Fi NOW CEO & Chairman
Zyxel Networks intends to capture significant market share as the world of enterprise Wi-Fi upgrades to Wi-Fi 7 – and so this week Zyxel launched the industry’s thus far most affordable Wi-Fi 7 AP. The NWA130BE will retail at less than €250 in Europe and will be even more affordable in the US. The new AP delivers speeds of up to 11 Gbps and outperforms nearest competitor Ubiquiti in most categories including affordability.
Zyxel Networks is eyeing the industry’s shift to Wi-Fi 7 as a major opportunity to grab market share: The company’s second Wi-Fi 7 access point – which is aimed squarely at the SMB market – launched this week. The NWA130BE is priced at less than €250 for European markets and will be very hard to beat on affordability. The tri-band AP serves up loads of Wi-Fi 7 bandwidth and comes with Zyxel’s free Nebula Cloud management service plus plenty of Wi-Fi 7 features.
In fact, unless you have very specific and way above average Wi-Fi speed and capacity requirements for your enterprise you’ll be hard pressed to find a good reason to spend more.
The unit supports 2 x 2 MIMO in all three bands (a dual-band variant will be made available in non-6 GHz countries), includes WPA3, meshing, load balancing, and of course all the key Wi-Fi 7 performance features including MLO, says Kevin Drinkall, Director of Marketing & GTM Strategy at Zyxel Networks EMEA. The NWA130BE is powered by Qualcomm.
“We’ve designed our new AP to be the fastest and most affordable way to upgrade your enterprise Wi-Fi network to Wi-Fi 7 so that any business of any size can join the Wi-Fi 7 connectivity revolution now. Two 2.5 Gbps ports means you’ll get a lot of flexibility for wired network setup and you won’t need to re-cable your office. Power consumption has been kept below 25 Watts so you also won’t need to upgrade your PoE switch or use power injection – and you save on energy costs. It is basically a low-cost rip-and-replace or Wi-Fi 7 overlay solution that is ready to be installed today,” Kevin Drinkall says.
The new AP is designed according to Zyxel’s ‘RF-first’ principles, which includes filters to eliminate interference between 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands and well as shielding from unwanted cellular network signals. Zyxel says the unit boosts signal-to-noise ratio by means of more widely spaced antennas.
Zyxel Networks outperforms Ubiquiti – and costs less
The only other Wi-Fi 7 AP available at a similar price point is Ubiquiti’s U7 Pro released last month. Comparing the two units, Zyxel’s new AP is faster (11 Gbps versus Ubiquiti’s 9.3 Gbps) and offers twin 2.5 Gbps ports. Businesses may also prefer Zyxel Network’s arguably better support services as well as Zyxel’s well known strong build quality and better RF performance when it comes to interference suppression. The NWA130BE is Zyxel Network’s second Wi-Fi 7 AP release following introduction of its flagship WBE660S model in October of last year.
Zyxel Networks says the new AP will be available in ‘late first quarter 2024’ (which should mean end of this month) through the Zyxel Store, Amazon, and also through following distributors: D&H, IngramMicro, TD Synnex, Target, and Wav. Zyxel Networks is a Wi-Fi NOW Partner.
/Claus.
