Wireless Solutions, Which Is Best For A Large Primary School?

[AlexBradley]

Hey folks.

 

We're looking at upgrading our wireless solution as we currently have a D-Link system in which has been pretty crappy at times. We have 30AP's at the moment and we're in the middle of looking at different providers for a new system.

 

I just wanted to get some feedback of other local schools as to what has worked and not worked in the last year with Wireless replacements.

 

Link2ICT are offering us a solution which could be managed by them for a small fee.

Ruckus looks pretty good so far and certainly at the moment seems like the most appealing choice for me at the moment.

And we've also looked at Airtight which is primarily cloud based. We have an AP off them at the moment but have had no luck in getting it connected through Links firewall, even after port changes.

 

Can anybody else recommend any of the above or am I missing a really good solution I haven't checked out yet.

 

(Just seems like everyone of these companies thinks their product is the best, makes it hard to figure out what is BS and what is fact sometimes.)

[X-13]

We use Ruckus [32 APs] and haven't had many issues.

 

Be a bit wary though, we've had to send an AP to the Netherlands [at our own cost] as it won't boot... because apparently that's where Ruckus support is based.

[synaesthesia]

Primary - Ubiquiti Unifi! Couldn't recommend it enough. Plus a typical Ruckus install for a large primary can be near, at or just over £10k. (Similar for other systems).

If you're able and install UniFi yourself, it'll be nearer £1k.

Edited March 20, 2015 by synaesthesia

[snagrat]

Go with Ruckus, manage it yourself and you'll never need to touch it

[hardtailstar]

We have Ruckus, its been installed for about 6-7 years possibly longer.

I have only ever needed to touch it once when we wanted to set up a guest wifi.

[Net-Ctrl]

Hi Alex, if you're not already engaged with a Ruckus partner and would be interested to discuss it some more, or get some rough pricing across please let me know.

 

In addition, if you have some site plans available we could perform a predictive survey for you to give you a predicted AP count, which would help us give you a more accurate project cost.

[TomHD]

We have Ubiquiti Unifi across the site. Never had any issues with it

[LeMarchand]

We have Ubiquiti Unifi across the site. Never had any issues with it

 

Ditto at one school, had a slight problem when we were still running the old system in parallel, but now that's turned off it's been great. One other site probably going to go down that route too.

[sparkeh]

Ruckus here, set and forget, its awesome.

[Smee]

we are quite a large primary and use Ruckus. Not had any issues over the last 4 years

[achedgy]

I run Unifi in 11x primaries, highly cost effective (HUGHLY cheaper than Ruckus) set and forget and does everything a primary would need. Infinitely scalable as a school grows and no nasty support contracts.

[jamin100]

I run Unifi in 11x primaries, highly cost effective (HUGHLY cheaper than Ruckus) set and forget and does everything a primary would need. Infinitely scalable as a school grows and no nasty support contracts.

 

This..

 

I replaced an old ruckus network in my high school with Unifi and its been fantastic. Very set and forget and massively cheaper that other others that are around.

[themightymrp]

We don't cover any primaries but I'd highly recommend Unifi systems. Cheap and dead easy to configure

[AlexBradley]

Wow, seems like it's a split between Ruckus and Unifi. I'll have to check out Unifi and see what the cost really is for the system. Ruckus are saying around £250 an AP so I'd be interested how much cheaper Unifi, bearing in mind that we got burnt bad on a "Cheap" D-link system.

[LeMarchand]

Std Unifi points are around £180 for 3, but you may want the pro ones and a POE switch. Controller software is free.

[achedgy]

That's the thing, with unifi you can just buy a 3x pack of access points and try it. Big difference is the controller which with unifi is software based, so you save a huge chunk of money straight away. No licensing fees depending on how many ap's you need.

[achedgy]

I've started putting AC ones in recently, which are a bit pricier but more future proof, but even they are still cheaper than the ruckus ones. Up till very recently I've only used standard and they've done the job, must have about 150 of them across all sites

[Chris_]

We use UniFi across our entire site (over 90 APs). Can't recommend it enough. There's no way we could justify a system from the likes of Meru.

 

In our prep school of around 250 we have 8 standard UniFi APs covering the whole building.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Chris_

[achedgy]

I would seriously recommend the tough switches to power, makes for a much cleaner install

[AlexBradley]

We just bought a bunch of HP Switches with POE onboard. Cheers for the pricing, I'm presuming its the pro versions that everybody is using.

[achedgy]

A lot of people just use the standard ones... But as you have PoE Switches, it would make sense to go pro

[Patrick]

Unifi in all our schools. Cannot fault them, super easy to set up. So easy I bet a teacher could do it.

[DavePa]

Not trying to hijack the thread but is nobody using Meraki? Is that down to price, performance, reliability or something else? It was recommended to me & I liked the look of it and could afford it so I've ordered it - hopefully that wasn't a bad move!

[AlexBradley]

I've heard good and bad things about Meraki, first and for most being a cisco owned product means it's usually expensive.

 

I've checked out Unifi some more and I definetly think I'll give it a go. Might buy a single AC AP and see how well it works.

 

Cheers folks, picking your brains has been much appreciated.

[achedgy]

Same as Alex, heard good and bad about Meraki... For me though... It offers nothing i'm interested in that Unifi doesn't and is faaaaaaar more expensive....