Summary
Digi EX61 is a rugged, IP66-rated indoor/outdoor 5G cellular extender that lets organizations capture the strongest cellular signal wherever it is, then deliver it to the existing network over a single PoE cable. It pairs 5G, multi-carrier eSIM and Dual SIM Dual Standby for failover up to 10X faster than traditional approaches with edge computing and centralized management through Digi Remote Manager. It is built for distributed enterprises, retail and branch sites, and managed service providers that need reliable primary or backup connectivity.
Digi is extending its enterprise branch portfolio with Digi EX61, a rugged indoor/outdoor 5G cellular extender built for the same multi-year replacement cycle driving Digi EX60, Digi IX25 and Digi TX65. Carriers are shifting infrastructure investment from LTE to 5G.
Meanwhile, critical systems from point-of-sale terminals to patient check-in tools depend on that connection staying up. Many retail stores, medical offices and branch locations have a network closet that sits nowhere near a window, and cellular signal strength suffers.
Digi EX61 changes that: a weatherproof, PoE-powered extender that lets organizations capture 5G exactly where signal is strongest, indoors or outdoors, and feed it into their existing network over a single cable.
Digi EX61 combines 5G enhanced mobile broadband, multi-carrier eSIM, edge computing and enterprise security in a compact, IP66-rated enclosure built to withstand the elements outside, while running the same Digi Remote Manager (DRM), DANI and MCP server intelligence that manages the rest of a distributed fleet from the inside.
Dual SIM Dual Standby (DSDS) keeps a secondary carrier connection live and ready in the background, enabling failover up to 10X faster than traditional approaches that only establish a backup connection after an outage is detected. This solution delivers the same primary and failover wireless WAN (WWAN) reliability as the rest of the Digi cellular portfolio, wherever the best signal happens to be.
At the cellular layer, Digi EX61 supports 5G eMBB based on 3GPP Release 17, with Cat 20 LTE fallback and carrier aggregation. Dual Nano-SIM slots and GSMA SGP.32-compliant eSIM support, including the same zero-touch, bootstrap-profile provisioning Digi brought to its eSIM accessory, let IT teams activate connectivity and switch carriers remotely without a truck roll. The North American version supports AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon.
The best cellular signal and the telco closet are rarely in the same place. Digi EX61 lets organizations mount connectivity exactly where signal performs best, indoors or outdoors, while still validating the secondary carrier in real time before failover, so distributed enterprises get the same primary and failover intelligence as the rest of the Digi EX family, wherever the signal lives.
Outside, that flexibility is built into the hardware: an IP66-rated enclosure, a -40 °C to 70 °C operating range and mounting options for a wall, ceiling or outdoor pole mean the extender does not have to live in a network closet with poor reception. Two 2.5 GbE ports, including one supporting Power over Ethernet (PoE), carry both power and data over a single cable back to existing routers and switches, while internal multi-constellation GNSS and an RS-232/RS-485 serial interface extend connectivity to positioning-dependent and legacy equipment.
Inside, Digi EX61 runs on the same Digi Remote Manager foundation as the rest of the Digi cellular portfolio. DRM includes an MCP server that lets IT teams connect the AI assistant of their choice for fleet-wide monitoring and automation, as well as Digi Remote Reach, which provides single-click access to devices connected behind the extender, such as a point-of-sale terminal or a building sensor, with no VPN, cloud proxy or added cost.
For teams that want a ready-to-use AI option, Digi Artificial Network Intelligence (DANI), a purpose-built AI agent available as a value-added service, lets operators ask questions in plain language and supports predictive maintenance by identifying potential issues before they cause downtime.
What Networking Challenges Does Digi EX61 Address?
Distributed enterprises increasingly depend on connectivity that extends well beyond conventional offices and data centers. A retail location may need continuous payment processing and video surveillance. A utility site may need to report sensor data from a remote location. A branch may need a backup WAN path. Digi EX61 addresses three recurring challenges.
- Reliable connectivity and redundancy: Enterprise applications increasingly depend on always-on access, and the cost of getting it wrong is well documented: 93% of organizations say a single hour of downtime costs more than $300,000, with enterprise-level outages running significantly higher. Digi EX61 combines 5G and LTE connectivity with multi-carrier eSIM, DSDS and Digi SureLink connection monitoring. DSDS keeps a secondary carrier connection live and running in the background, rather than dormant until a failure occurs, enabling failover up to 10X faster than traditional approaches and adding resilience at sites where connectivity is operationally critical.
- Deployment complexity: Strong cellular reception is not guaranteed in a network closet. Building materials, antenna placement and surrounding infrastructure can all affect signal quality, and no router configuration fixes a dead zone. Digi EX61 solves this at the hardware level by separating cellular signal capture from the rest of the network, connecting back over a single PoE Ethernet cable.
- Performance constraints: Modern distributed sites carry cloud application traffic, surveillance video, file transfers and other bandwidth-intensive workloads simultaneously. 5G eMBB based on 3GPP Release 17 and carrier aggregation provide the cellular capacity for high-throughput applications, while two 2.5 GbE interfaces keep traditional 1 GbE Ethernet connections from becoming the limiting factor.
Why Digi EX61 Is the Right Choice Compared to Alternatives
Organizations evaluating a 5G cellular extender are not simply comparing peak cellular speeds. The greater question is how well a solution combines installation flexibility, resilience, management, security and lifecycle scalability.
- High-throughput 5G connectivity: Digi EX61 uses 5G eMBB based on 3GPP Release 17 with Cat 20 LTE fallback and carrier aggregation. That architecture supports bandwidth-intensive enterprise applications such as cloud services, high-resolution video and file transfers that can strain lower-capacity connections.
- Intelligent WWAN resiliency: DSDS keeps a secondary carrier connection live and running in the background, rather than dormant until a failure occurs. This enables true instant failover that must first detect a primary connection loss and then establish a secondary link.
- Flexible indoor/outdoor deployment: An IP66-rated enclosure and a -40 °C to 70 °C operating range let Digi EX61 mount on a wall, ceiling or outdoor pole, so IT teams can capture the strongest available signal instead of settling for whatever reception reaches the network closet.
- Simplified PoE installation: A single weather-sealed Ethernet cable carries both power and data to Digi EX61, eliminating the need for a separate outdoor power outlet and cutting cabling requirements at hard-to-reach mounting locations.
- Edge computing built into the platform: Digi Accelerated Linux (DAL OS) and Digi Containers let applications run directly on Digi EX61. You can process, filter, aggregate or act on data locally instead of sending every event to a cloud platform, helping reduce latency, and dependency on continuous cloud access, while improving WAN utilization.
- Centralized, secure remote management: DRM provides centralized configuration, monitoring and troubleshooting, and Digi Remote Reach, included with DRM, adds single-click access to devices connected behind Digi EX61, such as a point-of-sale terminal or a remote sensor, with no VPN, cloud proxy or added cost. DRM also includes an MCP server, exposing fleet data such as device status, signal metrics, event logs and configuration compliance to the AI assistant of your choice, with access governed through DRM’s existing permissions. For teams that want a ready-to-use AI experience on that same foundation, Digi Artificial Network Intelligence (DANI) is available as a value-added service: a purpose-built AI agent that lets operators ask questions in plain language, catches anomalies before they cause downtime, supports predictive maintenance and can cut fleet-wide diagnostic time from hours to minutes.
- Multi-carrier eSIM flexibility: Dual Nano-SIM slots and GSMA SGP.32-compliant eSIM support let organizations activate connectivity and switch carriers remotely, without a truck roll or a physical SIM swap. A pre-loaded bootstrap profile provides instant out-of-box connectivity, and support for AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, all certified at launch, gives enterprises options for carrier diversity and deployment standardization.