I thoroughly enjoy having hands on time with new tech when it is first released. I must confess I often fall into the trap of the early adopter and have had my fair share of ups and downs with new releases. Late last year a Grandstream GWN7610 wireless access point landed on my desk and I had a great run through of its deployment simplicity when the Grandstream team were in office a couple of weeks back. A few noteworthy things that kept a techy grin on my face:
- 250+ concurrent clients can connect to the unit. It’s impressive to see an AP that doesn’t get flakey when the pressure is on, especially when WiFi is treated as a basic need similar to oxygen or water.
- Wireless AC. Yes, AC is becoming increasingly common but all my devices are AC and it’s great to see so little compromise at this price point.
- PoE capability. Wall warts are becoming increasingly cringe-worthy eye sores and it is vastly easier just running CAT6 from a PoE switch.
- 2 10/100/1000 Ethernet ports. Competitors in the market usually sit with a single port which is great, but having twice the capability is very handy.
5. 3 2.4 / 5 GHz 3dBi antennas. The coverage is superb and the devices can be easily meshed with setting an AP to the Master and pair other WAPs to it. I like seeing 5GHz on WAPs as it makes my 2.4GHz “Customer WiFi happiness” equation obsolete at last!
6. Clean Web UI – Everything has a logical layout and the GWN7610 is dead simple to set up. Also taking into account Grandstream’s fantastic track record of adding new features and functionality via firmware updates make this a very impressive initial implementation.
7. It just looks good. It passes my “Does it look like it’s from the future?” or “That thing looks like a retro red spaceship” test with ease.
It is a remarkable unit. It pairs easily with other GWN7610s for extended coverage and deployment, is easy to use, affordable and powerful. It is also an easy add-on for VoIP installs since 95% of them will have a PoE switch on the books for the phones too.
We have a few demo units in house and I would strongly recommend taking a unit for a test drive!
