Hardware

Review: How the HPE Aruba AP-615 Boosts Wi-Fi Speeds Anywhere

This access point serves maximum wireless connectivity to both older devices and those with cutting-edge technology.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

There are very few businesses, college campuses, government agencies or public venues that are not already inundated with wireless access points. Yet trying to log in and use the provided wireless signals from those places is often hindered by a lack of bandwidth, slow performance and dropped connections, especially at times of peak usage.

The problem is that many of those networks were built long before wireless devices became ubiquitous, to saying nothing of all the new Internet of Things infrastructure, such as security cameras, that also tap into the same wireless stream. More access points can sometimes be added to alleviate bottlenecks, but there is only so much signal bandwidth available, so that tactic delivers diminishing returns.

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The new HPE Aruba AP-615 access point aims to open up those congested areas by tapping into the newly released 6-gigaghertz spectrum, which sits above the previous ones and enables wireless signals to spread out a bit farther before experiencing significant degradation, which could help to provide connectivity into previous dead zones.

When I tested the AP-615 using Wi-Fi 6E-capable devices, a Microsoft Surface Pro and a Lenovo Chromebook, I achieved speeds of up to about 3.1 gigabits per second with sustained transfer rates. This was true even when I also had many 5GHz devices connected. The AP did a great job of maximizing bandwidth, and we could also configure it to prioritize certain users, groups or activities even further.

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How the HPE Aruba AP-615 Maximizes Its Signal

There are also quite a few new tools that help make bandwidth use even more efficient. For one, the AP-615 uses multi-user, multiple input, multiple output (MU-MIMO) transmissions, which makes better 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 in the AP-615, you get even more advantages. The new 1024-QAM standard can broadcast through eight spatial data streams, effectively quadrupling available bandwidth compared with previous devices.

The AP-615 is also smart about its signal. It can use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access technology to pull every little bit of available spectrum and give it to users. Using OFDMA, it divides its signal into extremely tiny portions, pulling it away from idle users and dynamically giving it to those who need it, exactly when needed.

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SPECIFICATIONS

Device Type: 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6E) wireless access point
Radios: 6GHz, 5GHz and 2.4GHz radios
Power Consumption: 20.9 watts, Power over Ethernet
Security: Supports WPA2, WPA3 and WPA-Enterprise encryption
Dimensions: 7.9x7.2x2 inches
Weight: 1.6 pounds

And while all of those settings can be overridden or controlled in the setup interface, the AP-615 works very well right out of the box with no administration or maintenance needed. It supports Power over Ethernet too, so you don’t even need to run power to it, just a network cable that is PoE-capable. Setup was a breeze.

The new AP-615 is ready to tackle the challenge of adding more bandwidth to both highly congested areas and those with a limited signal. And it can support the newest Wi-Fi 6E technology without leaving existing devices behind.

Activating the New Wi-Fi 6E Standard

While the HPE Aruba AP-615 access point comes bundled with a host of impressive new technologies, its ability to tap into the Wi-Fi 6E standard, which was recently released for public use, is the most impressive of all. The 6-gigahertz spectrum spans from 5.925GHz to 7.125GHz, so it uses higher wavelengths than either the previous 2.4GHz or 5GHz bands. Not only can the new 6GHz AP tap into previously unavailable spectrum, but the higher wavelengths also tend to test better in terms of performance, with less signal degradation as distances increase.

There is also much less signal latency with Wi-Fi 6E, sometimes as much as 75 percent less, depending on the way bandwidth tests are performed. And the AP-615 also has access to more channels within that new spectrum. It can access 59 20-megahertz channels, 29 40-MHz channels, 14 80-MHz channels and seven 160-MHz channels.

In theory, Wi-Fi 6E devices can achieve wireless speeds up to 9.6 gigabits per second, although speeds on any normal network are going to be much less in reality. In my testing, I achieved speeds of up to 3.1Gbps with multiple Wi-Fi 6E devices, which is still very fast, even when compared with wired speeds.

Finally, the AP-615’s use of proven new technology like MU-MIMO transmissions, 1024 QAM and bandwidth-splicing OFDMA enhance performance even more. Those technologies can also be used to enhance the use of the older 5GHz spectrum too, providing maximum connectivity to all AP-615 users regardless of device.

Aruba 615