Aruba Instant On AP25

Below-par performance, but Aruba makes network installation and management a very pleasant experience

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SCORE ✪✪✪✪

PRICE £265 exc VAT from broadbandbuyer.com

Small businesses seeking fuss-free wireless networks will like Aruba’s Instant On family of access points (APs), since they’re designed to make deployment and ongoing management as easy as possible. On review is Aruba’s flagship AP25 model, an AX5374-rated dual-band Wi-Fi 6 AP with speeds of up to 4,800Mbits/sec on its 5GHz radio and 574Mbits/sec on the 2.4GHz radio.

This is a significant upgrade over Aruba’s old AP22 model, with its 4 x 4 MU-MIMO services offering a trebling in aggregate wireless performance. It brings the Wi-Fi 6 160MHz channels into play and releases their extra bandwidth with a 2.5GbE multigigabit LAN port supporting PoE+.

Newcomers to Aruba will love the installation process: all you need is a mobile or tablet. After downloading the Instant On app to an iPad, we connected the AP25 to the lab’s Zyxel XS1930-12HP 10GbE multi-gigabit PoE++ switch and started the app.

After creating a personal Instant On cloud account, you’re guided through the connection process. When the AP’s status LED is flashing green and amber, it will automatically discover it. Next, you create your first secure wireless network, provide a name for its SSID and you’re ready to go.