Netgear moves toward SMB-grade gigabit switches

At the Interop show in Las Vegas this week, Netgear continued its focus on SMB customers with its rollout of a new 802.11n wireless access point, a ReadyNAS storage solution, and three gigabit Smart Switches.

"We see strong growth in market demand for our SMB products, especially our ReadyNAS [storage] and Smart Switches," contended Netgear CEO and Chairman Patrick Lo, during a recent financial call with analysts.

Netgear also sells its wireless, networking, and storage products into three other markets: consumer, channel, and service provider.

Supporting both the 2.4 GHz and 5.6 GHz bands, the company's new 802.11n Dual Band Wireless Access Point is billed as offering up to 15 times the speed and ten times the coverage range as APs for 802.11g wireless LANs. The new wireless access point (AP) is priced at $475.

The new 24- and 48-port Smart Switches, priced from $925 to $1,665, feature a new static routing capability which is aimed at optimizing bandwidth efficiency by freeing up the router for WAN and security traffic.

The switches and wireless AP both come with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE), a capability for speeding installation by eliminating the use of power cables, sending low voltage through the data cable instead.

Netgear's latest ReadyNAS device provides network attached storage (NAS) in a choice of three sizes. 1.5 TB, 3 TB, and 6 TB.

Supporting up to 200 Windows, Linux or Mac users, the NAS box contains up to six hard drives. Priced starting at $2,000, it comes with Gigabit Ethernet and three USB ports.