Calling all UNIFI users

[antmanvolpe]

They look far more substantial, speak to Streakwave over there, as the US largest distributor they know more about this kit than anyone. If the new version of instant AF has been fixed all well and good, but until they openly acknowledge to me a defect existed and offer to replace the 30+ failed units I had unconditionally, I won't be using another.

I can't thank you enough for all your input!

[antmanvolpe]

I took the plunge and convinced the school to order 9 units for testing along with some POE adapters (which I am assured by vendor will not have the failure problems) and a couple of POE Touch switches. Here's hoping it all works or I will have some explaining to do.

I will post back after they are installed and let everyone know how they work out.

[4Gon]

Hi carvjo,

Please accept our apologies for the unsatisfactory service you have received on this occasion. If we can be of any assistance please do not hesitate to contact us on info@4gon.co.uk .

Best Regards,

4Gon Solutions

We have installed these in one of our new buildings, and they are really rather good.. We have multiple SSID's and VLANs - no problem.. The Guest / Voucher / Portal system just works.. Very impressed.

The only problem has been in buying them - 4GON failed to respond to a pre-sales technical query, then took a week to acknowledge an order so I cancelled and bought from IFS-IT instead..

Insight tell me they may be carrying stocks by the summer..

[dbrown]

Quick Q to M25man. Why 3 spatial streams in, " buy UAP Pros ONLY if you have 5Ghz clients capable of using 3 x spatial streams"?
Are there no benefits of putting some users (eg iPads, which is 50% of my clients) onto a second radio and reducing the load on the 2.4GHz band?
Is not 5GHz less subject to interference which reduces they effective capacity of 2.4GHz?

I see the big cost difference and support his sensible frugality, but if the alternative is a fully managed or blanket system, then the cost of Unifi Pro still looks very attractive to me. I could replace every AP in the school with Unfi Pro for less than a third of the lowest quote for one of them.

[m25man]

Are there no benefits of putting some users (eg iPads, which is 50% of my clients) onto a second radio and reducing the load on the 2.4GHz band?
Is not 5GHz less subject to interference which reduces they effective capacity of 2.4GHz?

Last week I would have said no because there is no way of steering your 5Ghz devices towards a Unifi 5Ghz radio almost everything I have tested end up on 2.4Ghz despite there being a wacking great 5Ghz signal overhead.

But today they released V3.0 with a bucket load of new features and a new 802.11ac Pro point! Just to P everyone else off they have announced a Ruckus Trade In Program ;D

How funny..

[antmanvolpe]

I have been using the BETA for 3 for my testing. Planning going live with 6 units across 6 classrooms using standard UAPs with V3. I can't really see the need to adopt 802.11AC at the moment, but nice to see they are innovating.

I had received a quote from Enterasys for nearly $100,000 last week for two controllers and a 100 2x2 MIMO access points to cover the 3 building in my district. Aerohive was about the same, and both were with us installing the AP's in-house. with Based on initial testing with the Unifi product I am pleased to say that I am very happy with the performance and features and you can't beat the cost. I put together a similar quote using an existing hardware for the Controller and 100 UAP access points fr a total cost of under $15,000 and that was allowing for some UAP-Pro models in my lab areas which may not be upgraded to the 802.11AC hardware.

Finding it hard to find legitimate complaints about the unifi product.

[caffrey]

I'm looking at getting some of this kit, to replace our existing unmanaged wifi and I just need a little advice.
We mainly have iPads and BYOD on our current setup as well as 8 laptops using netgear wnap210s, which to be frank are terrible. I'm trying to keep costs as low as possible so do I really need to get the dual band access points ? I'd rather future proof if I could (not so bothered about the new specs coming out).
Thinking about getting a set of 3 and a poe tough switch to play around with.

[antmanvolpe]

I am still testing the units that I purchased last month, so far so good. I opted for the standard UAPs due to the fact we have very few apple devices and even less laptops supporting 5ghz at the moment.

Given the your statement about Apple iPads I would say go for PRO or even the AC. It appears to only be $50 bucks for AC and they have all of the features of the PRO model plus they are future proof. According to the Ubiquiti webinar on the new AC product they are confident there will be no changes in the AC standard that can not be addressed with firmware. For the $50 bucks a piece it makes the most sense to me.

That said my plan is to use the UAP 2.4GHz only units in each classroom to support BYOD in the classroom and use the new AC models in general meeting areas (cafeteria, media center, teacher's lounge) where I know I am likely to have a fair amount of users with the latest devices (the ones they own!) that can benefit from the additional features. Though the 802.3AF support of the PRO and AC model has me trying to make them work with my budget to avoid another failure point with the passive POE adapters or touch switches.

Hope this helps.

[soveryapt]

2p Worth and a quick question:

I've just installed a 3 Pack as part of an office upgrade (standard not pro) and they work brilliantly, well I have one left to cable in tomorrow, but they do work great. The feature set is quite amazing to say the least with the various guest portal options too in case you want to restrict guest access to "we've given you a code that will last for the term" kind of stuff.

The spaghetti junction model is correct in terms of the number of wires you end up with in your cabinet, but for the 3 that's not too much of an issue.

My question though (to those who might already use) is the ToughSwitch (UniFi | Ubiquiti Networks, Inc.) a good option for the whole Passive POE issue?

[antmanvolpe]

According to Ubiquiti they are. I have two on order (due here May 1) to address the passive POE injectors that I am very hesitant to deploy hence the reason I am still only testing them in a Lab setting and not deploying to the school yet.

[soveryapt]

Will be interested to hear your thoughts on it, as if it is, I'll start putting them into the client quotes as well.

[m25man]

The toughswitches are designed for the job and work very well but you "MUST" read the manual as one of the ports it used for management only and cannot take uplink traffic so a 5 Port TS is actually 4 Ports....
We use 1u Midspans to do the same job. Look like a patch panel with a single Laptop style PSU brick, makes a tidy job
The new software is pretty good especially the multi site management but there are still a few bugs to fix so nobody should be using 3.1.1 in a large scale production environment yet.
The .AC points are due in at the end of May but I should have my first test unit by the end of the month courtesy of Streakwave.

[RobFuller]

OT, but @m23man do Streakwave resell in the UK? Looking at there pricing there is a very big difference compared to 4Gon even with there discount included?

Rob

[m25man]

Buying samples in from the US get us a 6 week lead on the container ship heading for the EU and the lead time from EU to UK.
Importation of goods >£2000 requires an EORI number (which we have) as we regularly import specialist articles from all over the world especially US and China.
Personal Imports <£2000 will incur Customs Duty and VAT by the end user.
I personally wouldn't buy from the US unless it was seriously good for my wallet but getting the jump on the competition is always worth it.

[KK20]

We only use LRs; I have found unifis can be picky about mounting. Horizontal mounting is best but in our rooms some ceiling are simply not accessible so we have needed to mount vertically (the floor below ends up serving rooms above rather than the rooms they are mounted in in some cases!). The LRs are better at serving in this instance (more a geography of our site than a general rule though).

we bought ours from http://www.wifigear.co.uk/ as I found them substantially cheaper than the rest.