Netgear as a Wireless Solution?

[Rackenford]

Hey there!

 

I am going through an evaluation of Wireless solutions at a primary school at the moment. Teachers want tablets and we have more BYOD's coming in. Although the requirements on the wireless are not massive at the moment, this is only going to increase and i figure prepare for the future.

 

Anyway, have had RM banging on about Meru, have had a Netgear Survey and looking at their kit, and currently have some Meraki AP's and a POE switch just delivered by UPS on an 2 week eval. The demo i received on Meraki was pretty awesome but, have realised, so are the prices.

 

I am veering toward Netgear due to previous Netgear experience, (been very happy with switches, NAS, etc)

 

I have a quote for WC7520 bundle with 6x WNDAP360, 8 more WNDAP360's and 2x ProSafe 8 port POE switches, coming in at just over £4k. However, has anyone had any experience with a Netgear set-up similar to this? Would be great to get some insight. Although Wireless is not 'mission critical' as i call it. Heck, i can always get a bag of gigabit USB to ethernet adapters so have workarounds and Netgear have always been excellent at swapping out kit in 24 hours. Also, with the help of LogMeIn, i can always access any issues remotely if need be.

 

Anyway, answers on a postcard!! Many, many thanks.

[john]

If you have a search on here you will see a number of threads discussing wireless and mentioning Netgear and the general view was steer clear of it and look at one of the many other solutions on the market.

[glennda]

I would say avoid the Netgear managed wireless kit at all costs...

[catch21]

Eh? 14 netgear access points and 2 switches £4k? Someone's next Mercedes Benz payment is due, hope you don't mind paying it?

 

This isn't a technical issue, it's all in the mind at this point. For you, this is going to depend how much bottle you've got, and how far out of your comfort zone you're therefore prepared to go.

[sted]

we used to fit netgear wifi kit and it caused nothing but problems. steer clear it was last time i used it poor

[supawat1]

What I've been reading about wireless solution in this forum so far, it's quite rare that someone would recommend any Netgear kits.

[snoerre]

- (current) Netgear Wifi solution == no go (almost no software support)

- Netgear switches == no go (the same as above: almost no software support, although not as bad as for their wifi products)

- Netgear NAS solution == yes, as those ones get nice software support.

Edited June 16, 2013 by snoerre

[Roberto]

Netgear for business wireless? You'd get better performance by writing a string of binary on the side of one of their access points with a marker pen and throwing it at the person you're trying to communicate with than you will from plugging them in. Edited June 16, 2013 by Roberto

[dezt]

Personal experience, don't use Netgear, we've just ripped it out of our place to be replaced with Ruckus.

 

Nothing but problems

[mattysmith80]

Another one here for stay away from Netgear, you really do get what you pay for we're Meraki throughout and it is fantastic.

Used Meru and Rucas before too which are also very good

[MatthewL]

I was in a school the other week who are looking to pull out the Netgear system they have and potentially install Aruba kit which I have used at my past place, good kit, not sure on the config side compared to the Meru but both good.

[fredbayker]

+1 for avoiding netgear kit especially the managed wireless. Over expensive and rubbish to say the least. Constant dropouts on laptops is what I have experienced, nothing but complaints from staff as you can imagine.

You've been warned.

[Ste_Harve]

Looking at replacing our netgear wfs709tp wireless setup here, has worked ok, but isn't great and trying to get support is difficult. Also be wary of the POE switches, I bought an 8 port one and only 4 ports are POE, the 16 port has 8 ports POE, but you can't use all the POE ports with WGL102's as they draw too much power for what they provide. I get 3 ap's on an 8 port switch and 6 ap's on the 16 port version.

[Simcfc73]

I have netgear in my school and its ok. Its a basic system running WNDAP350 and WNDAP360s (which are a lot better). I got the deal where you get the controller and 2 WNDAP350's for about £500. We don't really use it in anger though, none of its mission critical and I wont be getting it again. Was it a mistake? I was on a very tight budget and they are cheap. The Netgear forum is full of complaints but aren't most of them????

 

PS. I bought netgear as we have netgear switches.....and they are cheap but you get what you pay for.

Edited June 19, 2013 by Simcfc73

[Ejohnson]

Simcfc73 - I agree with most forum you get are full of complaints, and you tend to get more complaints than praise in forums. I suppose I should have also mentioned in my post above that budget do play heavily in decision making. We'd all love to have best of breed solutions just like I'm sure we would love a Ferrari and million pound property however we have to contend with budgets being constricted year on year. I honestly feel no solution is without fault and has its place in the market. For the money and features provided. Some of it comes down to a nicety and necessity list and marry that with your available budget. Netgear have proven to be a very, very viable option.

[Roberto]

budget do play heavily in decision making.

 

I would suggest that it costs less to fit a suitable solution in the first place than it does to fit the wrong solution because it was cheaper, spend a considerable amount of time discovering that it's never going to come up to standard, removing it and then fitting the suitable solution.

[Ejohnson]

I can concur that comment however again it depends on the requirement. I would not assume that one solution will suit all so that would need to be determined. In the IT mass market, I'd be very doubtful there are any products/solutions that have not had both negative and possitive responses and would refer you to my previous post. It not just budget, its also solutioning the right product at the right price and ensuring the customer is complete sure of the solution being provided. Also ensure it is installed and configured correctly. I assume you have been (over)sold a solution before which resulted in a negative experience?

[DMcCoy]

3 -4 years on the netgears are still working, the ruckus AP's bombed out a while ago and now will not connect to the controller. Management decided to not follow on the support contract for ruckus after the first year and the staff scuppered the laptops due to insufficient supervision and eventually damage claimed the life of many.

 

If there is a hardware fault with the ruckus then I guess the (limited) lifetime warranty will be quite handy. Most things are still covered.

[ConradJones]

aerohive here. very happy. you get what you pay for.

[azc]

We put in four NetGear ProSafe WFS709TP controllers with around 80 APs in the summer of 2011. We replaced the whole thing in the summer of 2012 with Meraki.

 

I still have the controllers, if you want them, for free. Might even be able to find a couple of the APs still around, although most of them have gone to the scrappy already.

[PrimaryTech]

Do plenty of research before spending the cash. Ive spent nearly 3 months looking at wireless solutions and have just bought Ruckus kit. Wireless really is 'you get what you pay for', we had Netgear WG102s and they were OK for 10 laptops but for managed stuff Meraki, Aerohive and Ruckus all produce decent kit.

[Rackenford]

Thanks for all the info. I seem to be finding that a lot of the complaints are more on legacy products and my budget is limited. Have had a live Meraki demo and have some hardware to eval straight from them. However, the cost left me needing defibrillation. Ah, to have a budget to accommodate!!

Will look at Some of the other ideas thrown in here. Thanks to you all for your contributions.

I have to say i went to another school last week and saw their Netgear set-up (WC7520 and WNDAP360) and they were doing fine. Hmmm, what a dilemma!

[DEvans]

If its price you are concerned about, we have many schools in our county with Aruba Wireless Systems in place.

 

Once its in you are done, unlike Maraki which I believe you need to subscribe to, also unsure what happens if your internet dies with a cloud controller, does the wireless die as well?

 

Aruba running on a healthy 300mb/s throughout the schools, Lifetime warranty, Aruba support fantastic. Might come in around the netgear price, but it's some amazing stuff. I can't say too much on the BYOD Setup on it though, haven't had much experience in setting that up with it. There was a company in our county (gone private now), that procured wireless every year, comparing it to all the major brands and Aruba won hands down in most categories for the last 2 years.

 

That's my experience.

[iom100]

It not just budget, its also solutioning the right product at the right price and ensuring the customer is complete sure of the solution being provided.

 

"solutioning"?

 

Gotta be a Netgear salesman.

[glennda]

If its price you are concerned about, we have many schools in our county with Aruba Wireless Systems in place.

 

Once its in you are done, unlike Maraki which I believe you need to subscribe to, also unsure what happens if your internet dies with a cloud controller, does the wireless die as well?

 

 

No your wireless still works depending on how you have it configured. Its not a subscription but a license and it tends to work out cheaper than a support renewal on other systems plus no controller costs depends on setup though