Is it a network switch? Is it a wireless switch? Is it a Power over Ethernet Switch? Is it a train? No - it's a Unified Gigabit Wireless PoE Switch from 3Com, which combines all of these in one. Except for the train, of course, which I just added for effect.

It's hard to see anything different from the outside, the 3Com device looking much like any other 1U rack mount Ethernet switch. A little larger than most, maybe, but with the usual array of auto-sensing UTP connectors on the front panel complete with telltale status LEDs. In this case these translate into 24 Gigabit Ethernet ports, alongside four Small Form factor Pluggable (SFP) slots which can be used to add fibre optic transceivers.

So it's a 24-port Gigabit Ethernet switch, but that's not all. You also get 802.3af Power over Ethernet (PoE) with, unlike cheaper implementations, the ability to squirt the full 15.4 Watts of power allowed for by the standard to all 24 ports at once. As a result all you have to do is plug in a compatible IP phone, wireless access point or Web-cam and it powers up. No need to turn the option on or mess about with settings; just plug them all in and go.

On the downside the switch has only one power supply, which if it were to fail would black out all your network devices. But then power supplies are pretty reliable these days and should it fail you wouldn't have a network anyway. A UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is still worth adding, though, to protect everything connected to the switch from other types of power cut.

And then there are the wireless options, which really make the Unified Switch stand out and help justify the high price tag.

As well as basic Layer 2 ASICs, what you get is a wireless network controller, able to auto-detect and manage up to 24 attached wireless access points (APs). You can then apply standard security polices without having to program each one individually. For example, you can centrally enable/disable the AP radios, specify the SSID to use and, more importantly, the encryption and other security settings, with support for WPA/WPA2 Personal and Enterprise as well as basic WEP encryption. The 3Com hardware can also detect and isolate unauthorised or 'rogue' wireless equipment attached to the LAN.

Unfortunately it won't work with any old AP, just 3Com products and, at present, only two specific models. Specifically, the 3Com Wireless 7760 11a/b/g PoE Access Point (around £98 plus VAT) and the 8760 (around £152 plus VAT) which has dual radios for simultaneous 802.11b/g and 802.11a operation.

Both can be used standalone, but when connected to the Unified Switch they are managed centrally via a Web-based interface. This we found easy enough to navigate but you do need to be well versed in both wireless networking and security jargon to properly exploit all the options, despite the availability of Wizards to help with initial deployment.

Other useful features include support for 802.1x user authentication, dynamic load balancing and automatic prioritisation of voice traffic using VLans. All essential when building a converged voice/data network, although the small businesses at which the Unified Switch is aimed will probably need professional help planning and deploying this kind of infrastructure.

It's also far from cheap, especially when you factor in the other 3Com kit needed to take advantage of the wireless functionality. Worth considering if building a fairly large network from scratch, perhaps, but hard to justify if you've got a lot of hardware already, or where the network is modest in size.

The 3Com Unified Switch combines a Gigabit switch with PoE on all 24 ports, plus an integrated wireless access point controller. Add suitable AP hardware and you can centrally manage the complete wired/wireless infrastructure, apply common security policies and prioritise traffic. A good solution for companies building a converged voice and data network from scratch but it will only work with specific 3Com access points, can be complicated to deploy and is far from cheap.