WPA3 announced, Does Meraki have any plans to include?

MilesMeraki
Head in the Cloud

WPA3 announced, Does Meraki have any plans to include?

As WPA3 has just been announced at CES2018 (https://www.geekzone.co.nz/CES2018/8967), really interested to find out if Meraki has in mind about introducing this within the MR range?

 

Is the hardware on the MR devices capable of supporting this standard or will a new release of MR devices soon be hitting the market?

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11 REPLIES 11
PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

This is using crypto that is the next generation after Suite-B (which was a generation after what WPA2 used).  This sounds like all new crypto hardware to me.

DCooper
Meraki Alumni (Retired)
Meraki Alumni (Retired)

Great question!  Meraki will most likely support this encryption method but there will not be any immediate ETA since it may* require new(er) chipsets depending on the AP model. Keep in mind WPA in general is also a client requirement, so moving from WPA to WPA2 was negotiation on the client, unless forced. Just like any new technology, there will be a understanding of the standard into  development, QA and testing. All Meraki APs for some time have been WiFi Alliance certified so most likely once this is driven into the standard, suppliers and manufacturers follow.

Uberseehandel
Kind of a big deal

No point in rushing into this as client devices have to be WPA3 capable as well. But it would be good to know that future APs will incorporate whatever is required. I rather suspect that this will not happen until the firms that make the chipsets  have released it for APs and client devices. So at least a year away, and more likely 2 + years.

 

Care should be taken not to end up with the kind of muddle that occurred when IEEE802.11ac chipsets were first released and consumers were faced with confusing choices between Gen I, Gen II and Wave 1, Wave 2 to say nothing of  SU-MIMO/ MU-MIMO.

 

 

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel
Trininox
Here to help

This was also my question, since we are in the works to replace our Cisco WLC/APs with all Meraki APs this year.

Don't want to miss out on this not working on APs that won't be up for replacement for 5+ years!

Meraki is monitoring this standard closely and excited to see the progress because it adds a slew of critical updates such as:
1. Device Provisioning Protocol to provision IOT Devices
2. Suite-B Security usually tracked in context of Federal Customers
3. Simultaneous authentication of Equals and 
4. Opportunistic Wireless Encryption
 
It should be feasible to implement them on the existing 802.11ac Wave-2 Portfolio - so go ahead and deploy with confidence!


@PabloVGranadoswrote:

+ some official blog-post on this

https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/2018/03/wi-fi-standards-on-the-move-again/ 


Anybody who has been through the proceedings of the last World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-15), Geneva, Switzerland, 2-27 November 2015, will be aware of the competition for space in the 5 GHz portion of the spectrum. Too much contention, and huge amounts of growth from new use cases that have only recently been developed. 802.11ad is more likely to be the alternative for land-based networks, despite its range limitations, lots of small cheap APs, lots of meshing, high speed and no pushy alternative spectrum users right now. Probably in the 5 - 8 year range, there is a handful of devices, but testing is proceeding apace.

Robin St.Clair | Principal, Caithness Analytics | @uberseehandel
TEFengineer
Here to help

 

 

For now, only 5 chips from 3 manufacturers (Qualcomm, Marvell and Intel) have been certified.

 

So we could see devices with WPA3 support soon, at least those that use those chips.

WPA3-Chips.PNG

 

You can buy the Intel card on Amazon and install it on your laptop, for less than $40:

Intel 9260.PNG

 

There are currently more than 60 mid-range phones with Snapdragon 835, including:

  • Asus: ZenFone 4 Plus, ZenFone 4 Pro
  • LG: G7 One, V30 Korea, V30S Plus, V30S 128GB
  • Motorola: Moto Z3, Moto Z2, Moto Z 2018
  • Sony: Xperia XZ,Xperia XZ Premium, Xperia XZ1, Xperia XZ1 Compact
  • Nokia: 8 Sirocco, 8 Plus
  • Xiaomi: Mi Mix 2, Mi6, Mi6 Plus
  • HTC: U11, U11+
  • Google: Pixel 2, Pixel 2XL
  • Samsung: Galaxy S8 Active, Galaxy Note 8, Galaxy S8+
  • Sharp: Aquos R

 

The Marvell 8964 chip is used by the Linksys WRT32X, and you can buy on Amazon, for less than $200:

Linksys WRT32X.PNG

 

The Marvell 8997 is used by the Marvell W8997-M1216 PCIE Module: https://usermanual.wiki/Marvell-Semiconductor/W8997-M1216

 

The Qualcomm IPQ8065 is used by more than 15 wireless routers:

  • ASUS BRT-AC828/M2
  • Acelink BR-6774AD
  • Arris RAC2V1A
  • Askey RAC2V1K
  • BT Whole Home Wi-Fi
  • Compex WPQ865
  • D-Link DIR-883 rev A1
  • Linksys LAPAC2600
  • Netgear R7800, XR450, and XR500
  • Norton Core 517
  • Samsung ET-WV530
  • Synology RT2600ac
  • ZyXEL EMG6765-Q10A and NBG6817 (Armor Z2)

 

So... what is the meraki roadmap for WPA3?

 

Thanks.

Still nothing, right? Similar situation as in ipv6.

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