Dell PowerSwitch N3248PXE-ON PoE+ Switch

The Dell PowerSwitch N3248PXE-ON is a 1RU multigigabit PoE switch with 48 auto-sensing RJ45 ports that negotiate 10M through 10G over twisted-pair copper and deliver IEEE 802.3bt Power over Ethernet at up to 90W per port, four 25GbE SFP28 uplinks and two 100GbE QSFP28 rear stacking ports, on a 1560 Gbps fabric forwarding at 2167 Mpps.

This is the access-point switch. Every design decision in it - the multigig copper, the 90W power class, the 1600W supply, the 25GbE uplinks - exists because a modern wireless deployment asks for all four at once, and almost nothing else does.

Why Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 broke the old access switch

For about fifteen years an access point needed one gigabit port and 30 watts, and a 48-port 802.3at switch with 10GbE uplinks covered every wireless deployment anyone was likely to build. Two things changed that at the same time.

The wired port became the bottleneck. A tri-band Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 access point running a 6 GHz radio with wide channels can push past a gigabit of real aggregate throughput. Feeding it through a 1 Gbps port throws away capacity you have already paid for in the radio - and the fix is not simply "10 gigabit", because the cable in the ceiling is Cat5e or Cat6 and rewiring a building is far more expensive than the access points. This is precisely what 802.3bz multigigabit was standardised for: 2.5 Gbps over Cat5e and 5 Gbps over Cat6 at the full 100-metre distance, on the cable that is already installed. Every one of this switch's 48 ports auto-negotiates 10M, 100M, 1G, 2.5G, 5G and 10G.

The power budget doubled, then doubled again. 802.3af gave 15.4W. 802.3at (PoE+) gave 30W, which covered a Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 access point comfortably. Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 units with more radio chains, more spatial streams, a 6 GHz radio and often a USB or IoT port on the back routinely exceed 30W, and vendors design them assuming 802.3bt. This switch delivers 802.3bt at up to 90W per port and also supports 802.3at 30W for everything older, so it powers a mixed estate without a second switch.

The N3248PXE-ON is Dell's answer to both problems in one rack unit. If your access-point refresh has stalled because the closet switch cannot feed the new units, this is the model that unblocks it.

Ninety watts is not only about access points

802.3bt at 90W is enough for a class of device that previously needed a local power supply and an electrician. Pan-tilt-zoom cameras with heaters and wipers, LED luminaires, digital signage, room-scheduling panels, video-conferencing bars, high-density IoT gateways and building-management controllers all fall inside the budget.

The operational argument for pulling those onto PoE is not the wiring saving - it is that a PoE port can be power-cycled from the CLI. Every device on this switch becomes remotely recoverable, and every device inherits the UPS behind the switch rather than needing its own. In a building with several hundred powered endpoints, that is the difference between a truck roll and a command.

Sizing the power, honestly

This is the part buyers most often get wrong, so it is worth stating plainly. The switch ships with a 1600W AC hot-swappable 80PLUS Platinum supply. A second 1600W AC supply, or a 1300W DC supply, can be added for redundancy and to extend the PoE budget, and Dell also supports external power shelves - the MPS-1S holding one supply and the MPS-3S holding up to three, accepting 1050W, 1600W or 2000W AC or 1300W DC units.

What Dell does not publish for this model is a single system PoE budget number, and we are not going to invent one. What the spec sheet does state is that the maximum power consumption of the whole system is 5344W and the maximum thermal output is 18,224 BTU/hr - both by a wide margin the highest in the N3200-ON family, and both figures you must give to whoever sizes the circuit and the cooling for that closet.

The practical approach is to count real load rather than worst case. Forty-eight ports at the full 90W is not a deployment anyone actually builds; a realistic mixed floor of Wi-Fi 7 access points, cameras and panels lands far below the ceiling. Tell us the device mix you intend to power when you request a quote and we will size the supplies and shelves against it.

Fabric and buffer: identical to the N3248X-ON

Electrically this switch and the N3248X-ON are the same machine. Both quote 1560 Gbps of fabric and 2167 Mpps of forwarding - the two fastest in the family - and both carry a 32 MB packet buffer, four times the 8 MB the 1GbE models get.

Buffer matters here for a specific reason. A floor of access points is a bursty, mismatched traffic pattern by nature: dozens of 2.5G and 5G access ports feeding four 25G uplinks, wireless clients roaming and re-associating, and periodic firmware pushes to every AP at once. Those are exactly the moments where a shallow buffer turns into retransmissions. Four times the buffer for the same rack unit is why this platform holds up under real wireless load.

The uplinks scale to match: four 25GbE SFP28 ports, on the same cage and the same single electrical lane as 10GbE SFP+, so the optics and DACs are mainstream parts. Add the two rear 100GbE QSFP28 ports and you get 400 Gbps of stacking bandwidth with up to twelve switches under one IP address.

MACsec - and it is only on this model

The N3248PXE-ON is the sole member of the N3200-ON family with MACsec support in hardware. MACsec encrypts traffic at layer 2, on the wire, between the switch and the attached device.

That is a meaningful capability on an access-point switch specifically, because access points are frequently mounted in ceilings, corridors and public areas where the cable run is physically reachable by people who should not be reading it. If you have a compliance requirement that the wired side of the wireless network be encrypted, this is the model in the family that can do it. Dell notes the capability is usable when enabled by an ON partner network operating system.

Standard airflow only - plan the rack accordingly

Unlike the N3224T-ON, N3248TE-ON and N3248X-ON, this model is offered in I/O Panel to PSU airflow only. Dell restricts the PSU-to-I/O fan module to those three models and does not list a reverse-airflow build of the N3248PXE-ON.

In practice that is rarely a constraint - this switch lives in a wiring closet feeding ceiling cabling rather than in a hot-aisle/cold-aisle row - but it is a hard constraint, so confirm the intake direction before you commit rack space. With 18,224 BTU/hr of potential thermal output, closet ventilation deserves more attention here than it does with the rest of the family.

OS6, ONIE and licensing on the used market

The switch runs Dell EMC Networking OS6, the campus operating system common to the whole N-series, with the same CLI, web GUI, SNMP behaviour and Dell OpenManage Network Manager integration. It is an ONIE platform, so an alternative network operating system can be installed if that is your standard.

Advanced Layer 3 comes as standard rather than as a licence tier: BGP, VRF-lite, BFD, PIM-SM/DM/SSM, IGMP/MLD, RIPv1/v2 and OSPFv2/v3, non-blocking on all ports. For a wireless deployment the features that get used most are 802.1X with Auto VLAN, MAC Authentication Bypass, Captive Portal and authentication tiering - all present - plus VRF-lite to keep guest wireless on its own routing instance.

A Dell software entitlement is bound to the unit's service tag and to a Dell account and does not automatically transfer on the secondary market. A refurbished unit may arrive with a working image installed and without an active entitlement or a support contract. We do not promise a transferred Dell licence, a software subscription or a support contract with a refurbished switch. Tell us what you intend to run and we will confirm the state of a specific unit before it ships.

Common questions

Will it power Wi-Fi 7 access points?

Yes. It delivers 802.3bt up to 90W per port, which is above what current Wi-Fi 7 access points draw, and it also supports 802.3at 30W for older units on the same switch. Confirm your specific AP model's power class with us and we will size the supplies.

What is the actual total PoE budget?

Dell does not publish a single system figure for this model, and we will not quote one we cannot source. What is published: a 1600W internal supply, support for a second internal supply, and MPS-1S / MPS-3S external shelves that extend the budget. Give us your device mix and we will size the configuration against it.

How is this different from the N3248X-ON?

Power, and only power. Same fabric, same forwarding rate, same 32 MB buffer, same 25GbE uplinks, same 100GbE stacking. The N3248X-ON has no PoE and runs from a 550W supply; this model delivers 802.3bt and needs 1600W. Buy the X if your endpoints are self-powered.

Do I need to recable to Cat6a?

No. 802.3bz runs 2.5 Gbps on Cat5e and 5 Gbps on Cat6 at the full 100 metres. Cat6a is only needed for 10 Gbps at distance, which is more than any current access point requires.

Is there a reverse-airflow version?

No. Dell offers the PSU-to-I/O fan module only for the N3224T-ON, N3248TE-ON and N3248X-ON. This model is standard airflow only.

Choosing within the N3200-ON and N2200-ON campus families

For lower-density PoE, the entry-level Dell Networking N1148P-ON and the compact 8-port N1108P-ON cover small sites.

Availability, condition and how to buy

This model is supplied to order. Availability, power-supply and shelf configuration, and optics loadout are confirmed at quotation, so use the quote request on this page and tell us the device mix you need to power.

Every unit is refurbished, professionally reconditioned, powered up, inspected and functionally tested before it ships, and it ships with warranty coverage. If you need a specific firmware state, a particular 25GbE optics loadout, or matched units for a stack, say so with your request.

Specifications