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Gearing up: five-speed switches from Netgear feature multi-Gigabit technology


Johannesburg, 30 Oct 2017

The new range of five-speed multi-Gigabit Ethernet switching products from Netgear breaks conventional 1G or 10G restraints by being able to operate at speeds in between.

This is according to Tobie van Schalkwyk, Business Development manager at Duxbury Networking, the local Netgear distributor, who says each network-connected device in a business, small office or home has a switching speed that is "just right" for it.

"The newest high-performance networking devices, such as network cards, gaming PCs, desktop PCs, servers and AC Wave 2 wireless access points now offer both 2.5-Gigabit or 5-Gigabit connectivity," he notes.

"With this in mind, Netgear's new multi-Gigabit switches, with their intelligent, multi-rate ports, automatically adapt to the optimal speeds required by these devices on a per-port basis. Users are therefore able to combine legacy Ethernet speeds, such as 100Mbps or 1Gbps, with 10Gbps and the 2.5Gbps and 5Gbps of newer devices, without requiring the installation of expensive new cabling.

He confirms the new switches feature both copper and fibre options, as well as desktop and rack mount alternatives, and thus offer users a solution to fit every need.

"The multi-speed capabilities of the new Netgear switches make them a perfect plug-and-play solution, able to take advantage of the full performance potential and coverage offered by modern, high-speed network devices."

Van Schalkwyk adds the importance of multi-rate gigabit ports on the new Netgear switches cannot be overstated, as today's access points, compatible with the latest 802.11ac Wave 2 wireless specification, are now outperforming 1Gbps switch ports by a sizable margin.

In addition, he says modern Wave 2 applications require the support of up to 5Gbps from multi-rate ports in order to deal with the higher traffic volumes regularly coming from the WiFi side of the network.

Further highlighting the advantages of Wave 2 applications, he says they offer a significantly better user capacity - of up to 250 users per access point - and are multimedia ready. This results in a requirement for better access to the wired network for connectivity.

Editorial contacts

Luned Lira
Duxbury Networking
(+27) 011 351 9800
llira@duxnet.co.za