Platform drives enterprise Wi-Fi to 2 lanes

A new dual-channel 5GHz Wi-Fi access point platform for enterprise promises a better handle on the increasing number of devices connecting public. Broadcom's 5G-HD platform is based on the BCM49408, a quad-core 64-bit ARM v8-compliant CPU and a flexible architecture for routing different kinds of mobile traffic.

"We're seeing lot more devices and more devices per person driving up the amount of data used and the number of devices connecting to the network," Mike Powell, director of product management and marketing, told EE Times. "Enterprises of all types like 5 GHz because there's less interference."

Every 802.11ac device supports 5GHz and most networks support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. However, results from a 2015 survey by IHS found that just 12 per cent of WLAN access points will exclusively use 2.4GHz by 2017. Dual-band platforms will be necessary to serve a changing landscape of users.

Powell pointed to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., as an example of major enterprise Wi-Fi deployment; the San Francisco 49ers home uses Wi-Fi for hotspots, analytics, tracking and payment. Powell estimated that the stadium has 65,000 Wi-Fi clients connecting over 1,500 access points, but the network taps out when newer devices like the iPhone 6s and older, 802.11n-type devices connect at once. Those slower clients eat up a disproportionate amount of airtime from high speed clients, he noted.

"One of ways we can grapple with high density in this new world is to create two lanes of 5GHz traffic for each access point. We can group users into fast or slow groups, or by capability of the clients, or what their usage is," he said.

The 5G-HD platform can be configured to dual band, dual concurrent access point (2.4GHz + 5GHz or 5+5GHz) for mainstream and high-density modes, or to a tri-radio access point with dedicated radio access for 2.4GHz and concurrent support for dual 5GHz capability.

Figure 1: The 5G-HD platform can be configured to dual band, dual concurrent access point for mainstream and high-density modes, or to a tri-radio access point with dedicated radio access for 2.4GHz and concurrent support for dual 5GHz capability. (Source: Broadcom)

This all relies on Broadcom's latest generation wave-2 802.11ac 4x4 radios, which offer support for 160MHz channels, and up to eight concurrent multi-user device performance in dual 5G mode. Combined with the CPU—which operates at 1.8GHz per core with more than 5Gbytes/second throughput—users can structure a Wi-Fi network to offer more support to legacy or first-in-class devices. The entire platform uses about 18 watts, Powell noted.

As the industry looks to the next generation of Wi-Fi standards, including 802.11ax, scaling out enterprise infrastructure will be key.

"A new architecture for an enterprise Wi-Fi platform is needed to accommodate some of that stress, in terms of [network] density and how far can you push it," Powell said. "5G-HD can actually be the start of a higher density Wi-Fi movement to accommodate that. The beauty of this platform is it's upgradable to .11ax."

Broadcom would not specify any partners or expected deployments of the 5G-HD platform, but said reference platforms are currently available. Its BCM49408 CPU is sampling now and the BCM43465 4 x 4 11ac wave 2 radios are in mass production.

- Jessica Lipsky
  EE Times