It may be a bit of a mouthful, but the 3CRUS2475’s full name, Unified Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch 24, tells you more or less all you need to know about 3Com’s latest small-business networking product.

Aimed at companies with five to 250 users, the idea is to provide a unified infrastructure for both wired and wireless networking, starting with a Gigabit Ethernet switch. This comes in a large 1U rackmount casing with 24 auto-sensing 10/100/1,000Mbits/sec UTP ports at the front.

Four SFP (small form factor pluggable) slots are also on the front panel which, with suitable SFP modules fitted, allow the switch to be connected to others via a backbone fibre network.

So far, so good, but it’s quite expensive for a switch. So in addition, you get support for 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) to power items such as wireless access points and IP phones over the Lan.

Unlike a lot of small-business PoE switches, the 3Com Unified Switch can deliver the full 15.4W of power allowed for by the IEEE standard to all 24 ports simultaneously. So there’s no management involved – just plug in an 802.3af device and it can get as much power as it needs.

The only real issue is the reliance on a single power supply with no means of plugging in a backup supply to maintain power to attached devices in the event of a failure. Most users will also want to add a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) to provide centralised protection against power cuts.

The most interesting feature of the 3CRUS2475, and the reason it’s expensive for a Layer 2 device, is its integrated wireless controller.

It features circuitry that can auto-detect and manage up to 24 wireless access points, and apply standard security polices, for example, detect and deal with rogue access points and so on.

On the downside, you have to use 3Com access points, and not just any old access points, either.

The only supported models are the 3Com Wireless 7760 11a/b/g PoE Access Point (about £98 ex Vat) and its big brother the 8760 (about £152 ex Vat) – effectively the same device, but with dual radios for simultaneous 802.11b/g and 802.11a operation.

These access points are well specified and can be used standalone, just like any other. However, when connected to the Unified Switch, they can be quickly reconfigured for so-called ‘fit’, rather than ‘fat’ operation, whereby their setup and operation is all managed centrally.

That means being able to enable and disable the radios and specify the SSID, as well as the encryption and other security settings to apply, with support for WPA/WPA2 Personal and Enterprise, as well as basic Wep encryption.

Management of both the wired and wireless features is via a browser interface, which is easy enough to understand, although a lot of technical knowledge is assumed.

Wizards are on hand to help with the initial setup, but to get the best out of this product, a small business will probably require help with installation.

In its favour, 802.1x user authentication, dynamic load balancing and automatic prioritisation of voice traffic using VLans also come as standard, making the Unified Switch a good choice for companies looking to build a secure converged infrastructure.

But it’s not cheap and you will need other 3Com components to take full advantage of what’s on offer, making it likely to appeal mainly to larger organisations that are better able to spread the cost.