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?
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.
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.
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.
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!
+ some official blog-post on this
https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/2018/03/wi-fi-standards-on-the-move-again/
@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.
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.
You can buy the Intel card on Amazon and install it on your laptop, for less than $40:
There are currently more than 60 mid-range phones with Snapdragon 835, including:
The Marvell 8964 chip is used by the Linksys WRT32X, and you can buy on Amazon, for less than $200:
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:
So... what is the meraki roadmap for WPA3?
Thanks.
It is coming via a "seamless cloud update".
https://meraki.cisco.com/blog/2018/03/wi-fi-standards-on-the-move-again/
Still nothing, right? Similar situation as in ipv6.