Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series IEEE 802.11a/b/g access points deliver the versatility, high capacity, security, and enterprise-class features demanded by WLAN customers. It is designed specifically for challenging RF environments like factories, warehouses, and large retail establishments that require the antenna versatility associated with connectorized antennas, a rugged metal enclosure, and a broad operating temperature range. The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series provides local as well as inline power, including support for IEEE 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE).

The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series is a component of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, a comprehensive solution that delivers an integrated, end-to-end wired and wireless network. Using the radio and network management features of the Cisco Unified Wireless Network for simplified deployment, the Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series extends the security, scalability, reliability, ease of deployment, and manageability available in wired networks to the wireless LAN.

The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series offers link role flexibility providing both access point and bridge function on the same platform. Link role flexibility allows the radios to be individually configured as an access point, repeater, root bridge, non-root bridge, or workgroup bridge, enabling a broad array of applications.

The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series is available as an autonomous access point or available supporting the Lightweight Access Point Protocol (LWAPP). When configured with LWAPP, the Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series can automatically detect the best-available Cisco wireless LAN controller and download appropriate policies and configuration information with no hands-on intervention.

With simultaneous support of 802.11a and 802.11g standards, the Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series delivers up to a 108-Mbps data rate in the 5-GHz and 2.4-GHz bands. The series currently supports 12 non-overlapping channels (FCC; other regulatory domains support different numbers of 802.11a channels) with potentially up to 23 channels via a future firmware release depending on FCC rules. Other regulatory domains may support a different number of channels, simplifying deployments for high-capacity wireless networks. For investment protection, the Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series fully supports the capabilities of today's dual-band WLAN clients while providing backward compatibility with legacy 802.11b clients.

The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series adheres to the most stringent security standards in the industry. The 1240AG Series is on the FIPS 140-2 Pre-Validation List. FIPS 140-2 is administered by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which dictates and validates the level of security for Federal agencies that use cryptographic-based security systems to protect sensitive electronic information. In addition it meets the Common Criteria standards.

The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series is part of the award-winning Cisco Wireless Security Suite, which supports 802.11i, Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2), WPA, and numerous Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) types. WPA and WPA2 are the Wi-Fi Alliance certifications for interoperable, standards-based WLAN security. These certifications support IEEE 802.1X for user-based authentication, Temporal Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) for WPA encryption, and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for WPA2 encryption. These certifications help to ensure interoperability between Wi-Fi-certified WLAN devices from different manufacturers.

The Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series hardware-accelerated AES encryption supports enterprise-class, government-grade secure encryption over the WLAN without compromising performance. IEEE 802.1X authentication helps to ensure that only authorized users are allowed on the network. Backward compatibility and support for WPA client devices running TKIP, the RC4 encryption algorithm is also supported by the Cisco Aironet 1240AG Series.