Fortinet Announces the Industry’s First Wi-Fi 7–Enabled Secure Networking Solution

• 17 Jan 2024
• TM Team
• 0 Comments

Fortinet, the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, announced the industry’s only comprehensive secure networking solution integrated with Wi-Fi 7. Fortinet’s first Wi-Fi 7 access point, FortiAP 441K, delivers increased speed and capacity, and the new FortiSwitch T1024 is purpose-built with 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) access and 90W Power over Ethernet (PoE) technology to support Wi-Fi 7 bandwidth requirements. These new devices deliver the cutting-edge wireless performance today’s enterprises need and, as a part of the Fortinet Secure Networking solution, seamlessly integrate with AIOps and FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services for unmatched security, visibility, and control.

“Fortinet is the only vendor converging networking technology and AI-powered security into a single, holistic solution to connect and protect the wired and wireless LAN,” said John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer and EVP, Product Strategy at Fortinet. “With today’s news, we’re putting the latest wireless technology breakthrough into the hands of customers, who can now take advantage of Wi-Fi 7’s increased throughput while keeping their wireless traffic secure and their business efficient.”

Helping customers harness the power of Wi-Fi 7

Enterprises are eager to embrace the increased speed and bandwidth of Wi-Fi 7, the latest generation of wireless technology, to support data-heavy applications and wireless devices in their networks. However, new technologies like Wi-Fi 7 can expand an organization’s attack surface, and legacy security solutions may struggle to inspect and secure the increase in data-rich traffic. In today’s sophisticated, constantly evolving threat landscape, organizations cannot leave gaps in their security posture unchecked. Fortinet’s comprehensive Secure Networking solution supports Wi-Fi 7 while delivering the enterprise-grade protection, AI-powered security, and AIOps automation capabilities customers need to keep their wireless traffic secure.

New AP and switch bring Wi-Fi 7 to the enterprise

The new FortiAP 441K and FortiSwitch T1024 are the latest innovations within the Fortinet Secure Networking solution, which converges networking technologies with AI-powered security across all edges. The FortiAP 441K leverages the Wi-Fi 7 Qualcomm® Networking Pro 1220 Platform from Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a leading wireless technology innovator at the forefront of the development of Wi-Fi 7, and delivers the following benefits:

·       Up to 2x faster connection speeds: The FortiAP 441K delivers lightning-fast wireless connections that are up to 2x faster for the same configuration.

·       Faster data transfer than ever before: Support for 4096 QAM enables faster data transfer, which is critical for bandwidth-heavy enterprise applications, such as video streaming and collaboration tools.

·       Lower latency: By using 320MHz channels, a single FortiAP 441K can leverage a wider spectrum to improve data speeds and reduce latency to ensure a positive end-user experience.

·       Better load balancing and reduced interference: Flexible channel utilization through preamble puncturing and advanced multi-link operation ensures highly resilient and reliable connections to keep businesses online and productive.

To take full advantage of all the benefits of Wi-Fi 7, organizations must ensure their underlying network infrastructure can accommodate the increased speed and capacity demands. The new FortiSwitch T1024 10 GE access switch with 90W PoE was designed specifically to support new Wi-Fi 7–enabled APs. When customers use the new AP and switch together, they can harness the faster speed, power, and performance of Wi-Fi 7 and ensure an excellent experience for all users and devices.

The industry-leading Fortinet Secure Networking solution

The Fortinet Secure Networking solution is a part of Fortinet’s cybersecurity platform—the Fortinet Security Fabric—and because of this tight integration, organizations can seamlessly converge networking devices with cutting-edge security. This enables customers to use FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls as wireless controllers to benefit from FortiGuard AI-Powered Security Services like advanced malware protection, sandboxing, and web filtering. 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. And with the introduction of Wi-Fi 7, the solution delivers all these capabilities with industry-leading wireless speed and capacity.

 “Qualcomm Technologies is pleased to continue collaborating closely with Fortinet to pair next-gen Secure Networking solutions with our Qualcomm Networking Pro 1220 platform. The Qualcomm Networking Pro 1220 platform in the FortiAP 441K is designed to set new benchmarks for enterprise networking performance with massive capacity, wire-like stability and blazing fast speeds, pushing the boundaries of what Wi-Fi can do in the modern enterprise,” said, Ganesh Swaminathan, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Infrastructure and Networking, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

“We forecast that in five years, over three-fourths of Enterprise WLAN revenue will come from Wi-Fi 7 access points, driven by demand to make use of the new 6 GHz spectrum. Coincident with the introduction of Wi-Fi 7 availability, we see a trend where organizations will demand that their Wi-Fi infrastructure is very tightly integrated with its security infrastructure. Fortinet is well positioned as one of the first major enterprise vendors to introduce Wi-Fi 7 and has aggressively incorporated security functions to its networking products,” said, Chris Depuy, Co-Founder and Technology Analyst, 650 Group.

“We were thrilled to learn that Fortinet was ahead of the curve with a Wi-Fi 7–capable access point. I have designed and installed wireless technology from myriad vendors for more than 20 years, but it wasn’t until the FortiAP 441K that I truly understood all of the networking, security, and spectrum analysis features missing from other vendors. Fortinet takes the technology to an entirely new level and have yet again exponentially exceeded all expectations by delivering world class connectivity, security, diagnostics and analytics in their latest wireless solution,” said, Mike Chase, SVP Solutions Engineering, AireSpring.