14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that a device capable of moving data at 1,750 Mbps over the air would need quite a bit of juice, but D-Link is making short work of that preconception with the Wireless AC1750 Simultaneous Dual-Band PoE Access Point.
Bearing the part number of DAP-2695, it needs so little energy that it can function on solely the power delivered via the Gigabit Ethernet cable.
Thus, it is compliant with the Power over Ethernet standard, hence the PoE in the name of the wireless device.
The access point has six detachable antennas, without which it would not have optimum range and a very high ability to penetrate through walls.
And that would be a real shame, seeing as how the upper performance limit is really, really high. This is, after all, a dual-band device.
And with the 2.5 GHz band transmitting at 450 Mbps and the 5 GHz band with a top speed of 1,300 Mbps, the total becomes 1,750 Mbps.
So far, this seems to be the top performance for Wi-Fi devices, one that allows a whole bunch of laptops, tablets, smartphones and other gadgets to be linked to a network and the Web at the same time without much lag, if any.
That said, the newcomer can behave as wireless distribution system (WDS) with access point, purely as an access point (complete with load balancing when multiple units are deployed), wireless client with WDS support, WDS/bridge, and to join networks between different buildings without the need to lay additional wires.
“Access points like this can benefit network administrators of small and medium sized businesses by delivering all the benefits of Wireless AC to their network, allowing larger files to be transferred faster and data to be backed up wirelessly,” said Andrew Mulholland, head of business solutions, D-Link UKI Ltd.
“Also the various deployment options mean that this device can be used in a variety of scenarios - making it versatile and ensuring it can be adapted as business needs change.”
The price of the D-Link Wireless AC1750 Simultaneous Dual-Band PoE Access Point (DAP-2695) is of £236.91 / $389.65 / €283.46.
Edit April 3: Remedied the instances where the device is called a router. This is an access point only, albeit one with performance on par with the best routers released until the time of this article's writing.