Fortinet targets enterprises with secure Wi-Fi 7 package

As the potential for enterprise use of Wi-Fi 7 gains ground, Fortinet has rolled out a secure access point and switch that will be able to support the wireless technology’s higher data rate and throughput technology.

The requirements of bandwidth-hungry applications and devices will add more pressure to wireless networks, and Wi-Fi 7 will be a leap forward to support those systems, Fortinet stated.

But Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) is in its infancy; the IEEE is expected to agree to the final spec later this year, and the Wi-Fi Alliance has only just begun its official certification program for new devices and products. Wi-Fi 7 promises to support higher peak data rates and reduced latency. The technology targets mostly physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) improvements capable of supporting a maximum throughput of at least 30Gbps, experts say.

“Wi-Fi 7 can quadruple the performance capabilities of Wi-Fi 6, providing 4K-QAM (Quadrature amplitude modulation) vs the 1K of the previous standard. QAM is a technique that combines two amplitude modulation signals into a single channel, effectively doubling available bandwidth. It also supports 320 MHz channels, allowing increased throughput,” wrote Nirav Shah, vice president of products and solutions for Fortinet, in a blog about the new Wi-Fi 7 gear.

“While Wi-Fi 6 also supported all 3 Wi-Fi bands (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz), a client could ONLY ever be associated with a single band. The new Multi-Link Operation (MLO) supported in Wi-Fi 7 allows a client to be associated with and pass traffic on multiple channels, allowing a client to use, for example, one band for uplink and another for downlink,” Shah wrote. “It also enables things like videoconferencing systems to keep low power association on 2.4 GHz but leverage other bands for high data throughput. Wi-Fi 7 also supports a technique known as Punctured Transmission that allows the AP to effectively transmit around an interference source.”

To support Wi-Fi 7, Fortinet has rolled out the FortiAP 441K AP, which includes support for four Wi-Fi radios in each device: one radio each for 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz bands and one radio to scan for rogue devices or to assist with presence, Fortinet stated. It features dual 10 Gig uplink ports and support for Wi-Fi 7 MLO, 4K QAM technologies. The AP support for 4096 QAM enables faster data transfer, which is critical for bandwidth-heavy enterprise applications, such as video streaming and collaboration tools, Shah wrote. 

Aggregating the APs will be the job of the new FortiSwitch T1024 10 GE access switch, which features 24 10G ports and supports 90W Power over Ethernet (PoE).

The Wi-Fi 7 technology will also be tightly woven with Fortinet’s Secure Networking platform, which includes its next-generation firewalls (NGFWs), intrusion detection and prevention system protection (IDS/IPS), and secure access control feeding into the vendor’s central unified management console.

Integrated security means customers can use FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls as wireless controllers to benefit from FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services like advanced malware protection, sandboxing, and web filtering, Shah stated. Customers can also leverage FortiAIOps, Fortinet’s AI for IT operations tool, to generate real-time insights into potential network issues and automate manual tasks throughout the WAN and LAN, Shah stated.

“New technologies like Wi-Fi 7 can expand an organization’s attack surface, and the challenge is that most legacy security solutions already struggle to provide the inspection and enforcement that current access points require. Fortinet is one of the few vendors to provide edge security solutions that can ensure zero-trust connectivity, inspect WPA3-encrypted traffic and monitor streaming video without impacting connectivity at Wi-Fi 7 speeds,” Shah wrote.