Netgear ProSafe Wireless - Thoughts?

[davethetekkie]

I'm currently working on replacing some elderly 3Com APs with a nice shiney new wireless system at one of the primary schools we manage. Following the first site survey I've been given pricing for 13x Netgear WNDAP360 access points and a controller. Does anyone have anything positive to say about the Netgear stuff? It's a smaller primary and as things stand I could switch the 3Coms out with half a dozen £25 TP Link access points with a fairly good shot at improving coverage but obviously want to leave them with something suitable!

 

I'm waiting on a quote for Meraki which is our usual preferred wireless kit but after reading around a bit Unifi and Ruckus also seem to be very well regarded... how far short of these does the Netgear kit fall?

 

Cheers in advance!

 

Dave.

[synaesthesia]

For a primary, I would strongly recommend looking at Ubiquiti Unifi. You'll be able to buy a dozen or more iPads with the difference in price to the next thing up. And falling short? For a primary school, unless they have 1:1 devices they do not fall short at all. Ruckus is way above and beyond Netgear and would be my personal favourite if it wasn't for Unifi.

[Oaktech]

I've got a couple in someone's house, and whilst it's OK stability wise in a domestic setting with about 15 clients, for the money you can get much more. I find them a bit limited in terms of features and in an enterprise environment they could be more stable. These 2 APs are refugee's out of an enterprise where they basically couldn't hack the pace of having 30 clients connected to them and just stopped serving up wireless twice a day.