If you head up the IT division in a small organization, did you ever wonder why all of the bigger organizations have all the cool toys?

Wonder no more, because Cisco has heard you.

At June's successful Cisco Live! in Las Vegas, Nevada we announced the availability of Cisco Catalyst 9166, 9164, and 9162 Wi-Fi 6E Access Points. However, there was a caveat: the 9162 wouldn't be orderable until September.

Well, the summer has come and is mostly on its way out the door, which means that you can order the Cisco Catalyst 9162 Access Point today.

Before today, only large and medium-sized organizations could take advantage of the 6GHz band expansion to produce a network that is more reliable and secure, with higher throughput and capacity, and less device interference thanks to the Wi-Fi 6E expansion.

Wi-Fi 6E is obviously a game changer, but the best part of these new access points is that they allow you to make the choice of operational mode-on-premises or cloud. How is that for cool? When you have a deployment choice, you can make the transition to a cloud-managed network as quickly as you want. The new Catalyst access points allow for investment protection so if network management evolves, no new hardware needs to be purchased.

In other words, if you are deploying an on-premises solution now and want to change to a cloud management one in the future, go for it. You won't have to purchase any new hardware!

Aside from deployment choice and access to the 6GHz spectrum, what else does the Cisco Catalyst 9162 Access Point offer? As the next generation Catalyst 9105, the Wi-Fi 6E entry-level Cisco Catalyst Access Point solution offers:

• Five radios including 2