new wireless network needed

[Janyo]

Hi there,

 

Our school needs replacing old useless D-Link wireless. Shlould we wait for AC wirless to get established more or go with N technology?

 

Is there anyone in the South-East that provides Ruckus wireless and could give us some quotes?

 

Any help much appreciated.

[nicklowe]

I would go with AC for a new deployment if the price differential isn't too high as the chips are a generation newer and exhibit better performance characteristics.

 

Are you looking at 3x3:3 802.11n APs or something else?

 

For what it is worth, I am an Aerohive fan due to the controllerness nature of their product as it is instead done in protocol in a distributed way between the APs.

Ruckus have the best antenna technology and are a great choice though!

Edited February 6, 2014 by nicklowe

[Meldrew]

We just binned our D-Link system too. I'd recommend UniFi if you are happy to do the work yourself - I imaging you already have cabling in place so not too much of a problem to install. We timed how long to replace a D-Link AP with UniFi (bearing in mind we'd already configured the new AP) - 15 mins per AP. Configuration takes about 5-10mins each and the price for UniFi is very cheap, but excellent kit.

 

Meldrew

[petertec]

Really no need to go AC pervasively in a school environment. Maybe in particular areas you could put in the odd AC access point but your surely not going to need to go AC across the site? People seem to be buying into AC far too much too early! In fact in many cases you will actually need more ac ap's than n ap's to achieve the same levels of coverage as ac only works on the 5ghz range and beamforming becomes a bit of a problem in dense environments. Also bear in mind that the second generation of ac ap's are going to require 2 gigabit ports!

 

N isn't going to transition to AC overnight - it's going to take years - to jump from a pervasive 11n deployment to 11ac right now is overkill.

[petertec]

also from what I can tell at the moment ac AP's are typically close to double the cost of n AP's.

[synaesthesia]

Ditto for Unifi, replaced our rough n ready wifi with it and it's absolutely awesome. Don't even really need to say how long it takes per AP to set up - get the controller software set up on a server and plumb in your points. Come back to your server and adopt them, place them on your map and name them. Job done!

[winng]

Hi there,

 

Our school needs replacing old useless D-Link wireless. Shlould we wait for AC wirless to get established more or go with N technology?

 

Is there anyone in the South-East that provides Ruckus wireless and could give us some quotes?

 

Any help much appreciated.

 

Try Syd Wilson at Businessland based in Leigh-on-Sea who can give independent advice on Ruckus, Aruba, Meru, etc. and get you the best price for whichever suits your schools' needs.

 

Tel: 01702 711710

[caffrey]

+1 for unifi

[Haptic]

We'd be glad to offer advice and pricing on multiple vendor solutions.

 

Feel free to PM

 

Joe

[njc235]

AC is already ratified at phase 1 and Meru have an established, proven AP in the 832. The price compared to a top quality 'n' device should be easily justifiable when considering numbers of concurrent connections per radio and the fact that they can operate both radios on ac at full power with only 802.11af provision. It's also worth noting that n devices have measured up to 40% performance increases using the 832 AP. Edited February 9, 2014 by njc235

[burgemaster]

Might be all wrong with the below but....

 

If you buy AC phase 1, then you will be buying new hardware for when phase 2 is out I believe.??????

Also Phase 1 is SISO where as phase 2 mimo?

 

There is a huge price difference in hardware at the moment. Were looking at new a system.

 

Do you not think AC would be overkill? If using for web browsing your feed would be maxed out straight away by just a few points. Would say 200 connected AC devices be running at about 5% of their potential?

[njc235]

Might be all wrong with the below but....

 

If you buy AC phase 1, then you will be buying new hardware for when phase 2 is out I believe.??????

Also Phase 1 is SISO where as phase 2 mimo?

 

There is a huge price difference in hardware at the moment. Were looking at new a system.

 

Do you not think AC would be overkill? If using for web browsing your feed would be maxed out straight away by just a few points. Would say 200 connected AC devices be running at about 5% of their potential?

 

 

This is incorrect the 832 is a 3x3:3 mimo device. You also need to understand the Air Time Fairness technology; This is a direct lift from their website:-

 

Govern Wi-Fi access so that every client gets the same amount of time, ensuring consistent performance for your users.

 

• With Meru Airtime Fairness®, the speed of the network is not determined by the slowest traffic. By allocating time equally among clients, Airtime Fairness allows every transmission to move at its highest potential speed.
  
• Blend legacy traffic and mobile traffic—without bottlenecks.
  
• Make the network equally accessible for all devices, whether your users have computers, tablets, or smartphones.
  
• Let bandwidth-hungry applications perform at peak capability, including data, voice, or video.
  
• Give your users consistent performance, every time they access the network.
  
• Deploy mixed 802.11 a/b/g/n networks in high-density environments.
  

[DaveCoop]

Just doing the same here! I have been looking at 3 systems so far and whilst cost is the main deciding factor, I will be definatly be going AC phase 1 for basically 2 reasons. My budget is small so any project that I do managed to do need to last a good few years so whilst N is still going to be around for a few years I haven't got the option to go back and ask for more money " take what you can we you can".

 

AC is backwards compatible so it wont cause any heartache's even if the technology is not around yet.

 

I have looked at Meraki, Meru and juniper so far with Ruckus, Aerohive and Unifi left to look at.

Although I have specified that AC is the base standard so Juniper will be out unless the project takes a while.

 

Meraki: I really like, I signed up to a webinar so have a MR12 that I'm playing with, coverage and management interface is really good very intuitive set up "nice and easy" lots of configuration options traffic management etc

Meru: I like the concept and think this could be a winner but the high density and recommended point in every classroom could price itself out of the market, although it appears to have a good management interface

Juniper: ticks all the boxes but not AC yet so will see when the new AP's come out.

 

Hope this helps its certainly worth speaking to meraki they will send you some points out to trial and ive just spoke to Meru no trails but looks goods

 

let me know how you go on

[zag]

We're just upgrading our Aruba 'G' and 'N' transmitters to 'AC'.

 

You'd be mad not to go direct to AC technology on a new install.

 

Forget about phase 2 AC technology as the power requirements are quite large currently. Current AC versions are fine for 5 years into the future.