Networking

Review: SonicWall SonicWave 641 Provides Secure Wireless Access

Tapping into Wi-Fi 6 technology allows the access point to efficiently serve up to four times as many users as older devices.

John Breeden II

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer with more than 20 years of experience covering technology. Follow him on Twitter @TheLabGuys.

Considering how long wireless technology has been widely available, most colleges and universities have probably already invested in some form of wireless networking for their students and staff. But older wireless technology was never designed to support the number of users found on a typical college campus.

It’s still possible to network everyone, but it requires a lot of access points, layered channels and constant tuning — and even then, the network will likely have dead zones and experience slowdowns at peak hours.

The introduction of Wi-Fi 6 changes that, integrating new technologies designed to enhance wireless signals even in heavily congested areas. And the new SonicWall SonicWave 641 AP is a great example.

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SonicWave 641 Setup Is Simple

Hidden inside the unassuming device, which looks like a small smoke detector, sit dual radios and multiple antennas that can serve fast wireless signals to older devices using the 2.4 gigahertz band and newer ones with the 5GHz spectrum.

Device setup is a breeze. It’s designed to be easily mounted on a wall or ceiling or can simply be placed on a shelf. It supports Power over Ethernet, so it doesn’t even require a power cord, just a PoE-compatible network cable to complete the setup.

Once the device is physically placed, setup is completed through the cloud, so universities can have their nontechnical maintenance staffers position the APs while IT teams configure everything remotely.

SonicWave 641 Quickly Connects Multiple Devices

I tested the performance of the SonicWave 641 in my Wi-Fi 6 testing lab, which consists of a broad mix of both older and new wireless-capable devices. First, I looked at the performance of 20 devices connected to an older Wi-Fi 5 AP.

Not surprisingly, I experienced all of the typical slowdowns and disconnects when trying to transfer multiple large files or when supporting bandwidth-intensive activities such as streaming video. Some devices even had trouble joining the network when the others were maxing out its capabilities.

After switching to the SonicWave 641 AP, all 20 devices quickly connected. Older ones used the 2.4GHz band, while newer ones connected using a 5GHz signal. Once every device was logged in, the automatic management functions of the SonicWave 641 constantly optimized the bandwidth for each of the devices it was serving.

If the network did start to get a bit overloaded, easy-to-configure rules allowed priority applications, users and groups to experience less slowdown or no disruption at all. All told, the SonicWave Wi-Fi 6 AP was at least three times more efficient than APs that only had Wi-Fi 5 technology.

As a nice additional perk for schools, the SonicWave 641 AP is also highly secure. It supports all of the most advanced encryption protocols, and you can even connect its PoE cable to a SonicWave smart switch or network security appliance for even more ironclad security across the entire network of SonicWave APs.

Specifications

DEVICE TYPE: 802.11ax wireless access point
RADIOS: Dual-band 5GHz and 2.4GHz radios
SECURITY: Supports both WPA2 and WPA3 encryption
DIMENSIONS: 1.5x7.9x7.9 inches
WEIGHT: 30 ounces

Wi-Fi 6 Sets the Standard for Wireless Technology in Higher Education

The SonicWave 641 AP supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard. While not a new technology, Wi-Fi 6 is only now starting to make its way into APs designed to operate more seamlessly in congested environments. It’s also sometimes referred to as 802.11ax to distinguish it from 802.11ac, which is the Wi-Fi 5 standard.

Instead of a new wireless frequency or band, Wi-Fi 6 actually is a collection of support technologies that work together to better optimize existing Wi-Fi signals. This is especially helpful in environments where a lot of devices are trying to connect to a wireless network, such as a school or university.

The first big advantage to Wi-Fi 6 is that it uses multi-user multiple input, multiple output transmissions, which makes more effective use of radio antennas and data streams. When combined with the replacement of the 256 quadrature amplitude modulation found in 802.11ac APs with the much larger 1024 QAM standard, you get even more advantages. The new 1024 QAM standard can broadcast through eight spatial data streams, effectively quadrupling available bandwidth and opening up APs to efficiently serve many more users than before.

But it’s more than just having more bandwidth available with Wi-Fi 6. The APs that use it are also a lot smarter about how they manage signals, devices, applications and users. They do this by employing orthogonal frequency-division multiple access technology to pull every little bit of the available spectrum and give it to users. It can do that because it divides up the radio spectrum into much smaller units than the older standard was able to, so that it can provide users with exactly the bandwidth they need with nothing wasted.

LEARN MORE: Consider these design issues when upgrading to Wi-Fi 6E.

Any extra bandwidth that one user does not need is automatically and seamlessly assigned to others. In fact, APs with Wi-Fi 6, such as the SonicWave 641, are constantly evaluating their active wireless connections and optimizing them so that everyone gets what they need so long as some small sliver of bandwidth is still available.

It’s true that individual devices that also support the Wi-Fi 6 standard will likely see small bumps in speed when using a Wi-Fi 6 AP. However, the real advantage of the standard is its ability to effectively manage multiple connections at their best possible speed.

In terms of performance, Wi-Fi 6 APs can offer users more stable wireless connections and reduced latency with almost no dropped signals. And should too many users overload the AP during a busy class in a cavernous lecture hall, APs such as the SonicWave 641 are smart enough to follow whatever content rules administrators set up for them.

For example, they can be configured to reduce the bandwidth for certain applications or to prioritize certain users or groups, perhaps giving professors priority access over students. That way, any slowdown will be minimized or perhaps not even noticed by those designated as priority users.

While Wi-Fi 6 is not a new standard, it’s finally starting to see mainstream use. And given all the optimizations bundled within it, it will almost seem like a new kind of wireless signal to most users, even if it’s only optimizing existing technology.