Wireless Solution - Primary School

[Chris4]

Hello,

We're looking to getting a managed wireless solution for our primary school, so it'd be great to hear some opinions on this. We have 20 classrooms, of which only uses 1 teacher laptop each at present (that could be made wireless), as well as 20 netbooks that are occasionally used in KS2 classrooms.

I'm looking to get a few quotes from companies to compare... so far I've got a quote from the Education IT Support at the city council for a Cisco wireless solution, as well an Aerohive wireless solution...

Cisco
1 x Cisco AIR-CT5508-25-K9 Wireless Controller
24 x Cisco AIR-LAP1142N-E-K9 Access Points
2 x Cisco 24 Port Gigabit with 2 mini Gigabit and POE
1 x Installation and configuration

Total = £17,800

Aerohive
24 x Aerohive AP120
24 x 5 year HiveManager Online + Support

Total = £14,300

Each quote includes 24 access points - 1 for each classroom, plus other rooms; however this can be reduced once a site survey is performed (i.e. classroom sharing).

Although the Aerohive solution got me excited when I first saw it, I'd probably pick the Cisco solution over the Aerohive at present, due to the local support we'd get and site survey included; whereas Aerohive seems more of a DIY job, though the cloud-based controller looks easy to manage.

I done a bit of searching on this forum and I've contacted C-P-LTD regarding Ruckus Wireless which looks good.

Does anyone has any suggestions, tips or comments to make that would help me out? I'm a university placement student and have limited knowledge in this area, so your opinions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris

[Millgate]

What about Meru? Worth thinking about!

Also, I can give you a quote for the Cisco kit and i bet it comes a lot cheaper! We'll have a lot of the kit in stock

[glennda]

Personally I would avoid the Cisco kit - my experience of it hasn't been great.

[deano]

We use all Cisco wireless kit and not had any issues. Very expensive but you get what you pay for!

[bodminman]

we are a Unifi school here and have been very impressed with it so far. if you are not looking to use all the fancy things you'll pay for with the big boys then you should seriously consider this kit.

@m25man is the chap to fire any questions at.

[SimpleSi]

Unifi is the way to go for a primary

You don't need a site survey if your sticking one AP in each teaching area

24 APs at £65 each = £1K5

Each AP needs its own network point so if you don't have a spare one in each class you'd need to budget for that (£20 for a little 8 port switch in the classroom - £100/point at most to get a contractor in run extra wires (£3k max - prob a lot lot less) + few hundred for a central 24 port switch.

The Unifi APs are centrally configured but run independently so I'd call them semi-managed

There's not many contractors offering Unifi because there is no cut to be taken out of the hardware cost but I'm sure if you found a good installer in the area that you could just ask them to quote you for the infrastructure wiring and a labour plus cost for screwing the APs to a celing/wall

Simon

[Chris4]

What about Meru? Worth thinking about!

Also, I can give you a quote for the Cisco kit and i bet it comes a lot cheaper! We'll have a lot of the kit in stock

I've contacted Meru for a quote, thanks. I don't have much idea on which companies are good or bad, this is my first experience.

I've contacted you by email for a Cisco quote, thanks.

Personally I would avoid the Cisco kit - my experience of it hasn't been great.

What are your experiences exactly?

we are a Unifi school here and have been very impressed with it so far. if you are not looking to use all the fancy things you'll pay for with the big boys then you should seriously consider this kit.

@m25man is the chap to fire any questions at.

What exactly do you not get with Unifi that you do with the big companies?

@Avalon has contacted me by PM for a quote for Unifi, may contact @m25man too.

Unifi is the way to go for a primary

You don't need a site survey if your sticking one AP in each teaching area

24 APs at £65 each = £1K5

Each AP needs its own network point so if you don't have a spare one in each class you'd need to budget for that (£20 for a little 8 port switch in the classroom - £100/point at most to get a contractor in run extra wires (£3k max - prob a lot lot less) + few hundred for a central 24 port switch.

The Unifi APs are centrally configured but run independently so I'd call them semi-managed

There's not many contractors offering Unifi because there is no cut to be taken out of the hardware cost but I'm sure if you found a good installer in the area that you could just ask them to quote you for the infrastructure wiring and a labour plus cost for screwing the APs to a celing/wall

Simon

Despite the tempting price, and yes we'd need contractors for extra ports (which we need anyway), won't a semi-managed solution be more trouble-some than a completely managed solution offered by others?

[glennda]

My experience of Cisco was in a Large Secondary school - the devices just could seem to get the through put to support enough wireless clients.

Another one to look at is Meraki which is a hosted controller. I've just put this into a company with 9 remote offices supporting 20/30 clients per site.

[Edu-IT]

Have you considored Ruckus?

Possibly got a couple of places in Leicester you could go look at with Ruckus if you want to drop me a PM.

[IrritableTech]

My team and I have installed three ruckus installs (one secondary, two primary) and one Ubiquiti install. I love the Ruckus gear. It is excellent, however it is also pricey when it is compared to ubiquiti (plus ongoing support costs). I have been playing again this morning with the ubiquiti controller software. It is really straight forward and just works. A fantastic solution for a primary I would suggest. Ruckus is too, but takes a touch more setting up.

We are probably looking at completing two more ubiquiti installs in the coming months.

I would probably suggest you use some of your budget to pop extra network points all over the place (in the ceiling ideally) and buy ubiquiti. You'll need a pc to run the software on (and a lot of sockets in your racks for the injectors), but I bet you are looking at half the price of the solutions you've already looked at.

If looking at Ruckus, speak with @CPLTD or @Net-Ctrl both excellent resellers to work with. We bought our box of three ubiquiti APs from an internet box shipper.

[Chris4]

My experience of Cisco was in a Large Secondary school - the devices just could seem to get the through put to support enough wireless clients.

Another one to look at is Meraki which is a hosted controller. I've just put this into a company with 9 remote offices supporting 20/30 clients per site.

Ok, thank you for your input. Sounds like it may have been set up incorrectly, rather than bad hardware.

Have you considored Ruckus?

Possibly got a couple of places in Leicester you could go look at with Ruckus if you want to drop me a PM.

Yes, as I mentioned in my first post I've contacted C-P-LTD regarding Ruckus, however I'll take you up on that offer for more local companies, thank you.

[sulamnart]

We use Ruckus Wireless and HP Procurve E series here. Good value for money.

[jamesreedersmith]

Unifi all the way - excellent product - does what you need, once its set up its forgettable (as in you can leave it on and forget its there and it works) ive had upto 40 clients per ap with no bother.
We have put over 400 into 30 schools and its not a problem.

PM Me if you want to have a chat about it on the phone etc.

[glennda]

Ok, thank you for your input. Sounds like it may have been set up incorrectly, rather than bad hardware.

each AP into HP Gig Switches with multiple Gig fiber uplinks back to the core (E5406 ZL) (trunked) and Fiber directly into the Controller on its own Vlan. It wasn't that it was completely rubbish but you just couldn't get 30 Laptops in an area with multiple APs downloading profiles together (we had 70 AP's and 95% site coverage). Which in a classroom where you need 30 laptops isn't very good.

[Achandler]

Unifi here.