New Wireless System what to go for

[AJWhite1970]

We are unifi for all our wifi, has been rock solid to the point it was install and forget. Have just put a new building on 2 x Unifi 48 port POE switches and really like the interface. May do a couple more cabinets as a trial over the summer. Other plus point is the kit is silent so no more noisy cabinet

 

Also have a Unifi NanoBridge which replaced a faulty laser link over 0.4km and that's running at just short of 400mb!!

Edited June 15, 2017 by AJWhite1970

[NB9457]

We are unifi for all our wifi, has been rock solid to the point it was install and forget. Have just put a new building on 2 x Unifi 48 port POE switches and really like the interface. May do a couple more cabinets as a trial over the summer. Other plus point is the kit is silent so no more noisy cabinet

 

Also have a Unifi NanoBridge which replaced a faulty laser link over 0.4km and that's running at just short of 400mb!!

You have the 48 Port PoE and it's silent? The one I bought was very noisy, be thrilled if they've made them quieter!

[synaesthesia]

We thought ours was noisy till we put it in the same large room as a HP 1920. You can stand right next to the 48 port unifi POE and all you can hear is the non POE HP1920. From 60 feet away.

[ronnoco]

We have been using Ruckus for about 7 years. They often have bundle deals, we took advantage of this and got a whole load of spare access points. They've sat in a box as hot spares as we have never needed them as we haven't had had one issue. The guest VLAN out of the box works really well. Lots of advance features available on the controller, etc if you have a transparent proxy, it's wonderful.

 

It might be worth paying for a survey. We did this and it turned out we needed about 5 access points less than what I had estimated. Also, the survey will show you exactly where to install each AP for maximum performance.

 

We used Net-Ctrl in Ipswich.

[chrispounds]

We use Meraki here at the College, roughly 150 AP's throughout. Can't fault it if i'm honest, cloud dashboard is great and easy to use. The support is outstanding also, if an AP has issues, they will send out a replacement straight away, we've even had newer models sent out as the last was EOL! We make use of the free MDM solution as well for our iPad clients. So another added bonus. I don't think they are cheap, but definitely worth the investment because of the long guarantee.

[ronnoco]

150! - my gosh, that's a lot. We're an average size secondary school and have the whole school covered with 32.

[3s-gtech]

Does no one else use Cisco Wireless?

 

Yup, we do. They were purchased with LiDW grant money so cost us nothing. They're managed centrally throughout the county, and get our school settings from there (our own SSIDs for domain and guest traffic as well as central ones for the LEA). We have some guest management and reporting functionality. They're fine for us - some performance issues in one area but otherwise good. Can't argue with free though! We have 45 covering our large site.

[mrbios]

Went through this whole process last year myself, 8 months of planning, testing and comparing (and a full site survey). Ended up going for Aerohive, and a fantastic decision it was. We compared them to Aruba, Ruckus and Meraki at the time. I've had two minor problems so far, on both occasions i sent off an email, and someone at the other end had it fixed within an hour....on neither occasion was i required to do anything. The joy of cloud controllers and good support.

 

Probably going to need to add some more APs soon now that the school are considering a 1:1 solution, another 10-20 in addition to our current 49. Adding them is as simple as can be though. We started off looking at the 3 i mention above, and didn't look at Aerohive until later in the process, and they honestly took all the positives we had noted of those 3, without any of the negatives we had highlighted.

[Sylv3r]

We are Meraki fans here too - kit just works.

[chrispounds]

150! - my gosh, that's a lot. We're an average size secondary school and have the whole school covered with 32.

 

I must say though, we installed it at our outcentres also, so that makes up the numbers! But yes, we are a large site with multiple buildings

[mavhc]

I know a distributed school that's happy with Cloud-Managed WiFi

[tinca492]

Hi all

 

+1 for Ruckus and Net-Ctrl in Ipswich.

 

System has not had a single failure since installation over 3 years ago. Easy to set up, but also had the fine tuning functionality available that we needed. Real World performance has been great with no complaints at all from the Users. We use the APs Mesh functionality to linkn some PortaKabins to the main school network and that has also been a success.

 

Net-Ctrl were very helpful and there wasn't a hint of an "upsell" cant say what support is like as we haven't had to use them!! Pre sales tech support was much better than expected and one of their techies was more than happy to come and walk round the school to determine AP density (we are built on a hill and so loads of thick external walls starting at different levels)

 

Pricing was excellent with various education only bundles available.

[colly72]

+1 for Meraki. We had it installed last Summer (60APs) and it's a joy to manage. Not had one issue since it was installed.

[AlanD]

Cloud management works well here..... 10 year guarantee.....Aerohve works brilliantly here......Meraki is fantastic there.....We only need 32 APs to cover our site....Had nothing but good vibes ever since we replaced our old kit with XXXX etc.

 

I'm absolutely certain all the premier division kit works just fine - or better than fine - or at least its fine as long as you are not expecting more than wireless is capable of delivering in potentially dense deployments (It can also work badly - but that is usually a result of the installation rather than the kit itself ...) They are all capable for all the standard stuff (..whether the supplier wants or is able to set that up you need to be clear about)

 

If you are going for a "managed" solution with annual costs you need to negotiate with all of the determination of our Brexit negotiators - because these costs add up over the years. And the value of "replacements" if APs fail has to be valued carefully - because if were not paying for this - you probably wouldn't buy the same replacement - because as better APs come out you would buy the better ones - so guarantees are often of questionable value. Get them to agree to replace any failed AP with latest type - not a like for like ..and if necessary pay the difference. You probably wont want the same access points in 10 years. You might not even want them after 5 years as new stuff rolls out. Take a really good look at those with no on going costs like Ubiuity.

[ADMaster]

I had Cisco about 8 years ago it was OK and I thought it was doing a good job. The interface could have been better. This was before all the chromebooks and byod we have now, only staff on the wifi.

Then a few years later a company came in selling all sorts of stuff, new computers new wireless etc. Management went for all the sales pitches and we got Ruckus and a shed load of Chromebooks.

Ruckus was much better then Cisco in terms of the interface but can't compare fairly on performance because we went from .g to .N APs and added 20 or so APs as well.

Ruckus has been an almost set and forget, I've added a couple APs to cover a room with thick walls and setup a 5ghz only SSID for chromebooks and that's about it.

 

I would stay away from cloud controllers where possible. I have read plenty of stories where Meraki updated the firmware and it caused connectivity issues, the update was also done in the middle of state testing.

Also if I decide I can't afford support and maintenance one year my ruckus will keep working, not so with Meraki or any other cloud controller.

[AlanD]

I think this is a really good point that schools should consider. Budgets are pretty tight now by all accounts, and even if the government relaxed its rules on annual pay increases they have already made it clear there will be no increase in the money going into schools - so plan for this. There are perfectly adequate - or even good Wireless systems that don't have annual charges. Do they have all the bells and whistles of some cloud managed systems? No, probably not.

[Blue_Cookeh]

I've been through this with Cisco, Meraki, HP, Ruckus, and AeroHive and none of them understand Primary school budgets at all, Meraki in particular. I can't afford £350 per AP + licensing to cover our school. I'm looking at replacing some gen1 Ubiquiti UniFi APs around our school and to be honest we've been nothing but happy with them - they only need replacing because we're becoming more Wireless-oriented and would benefit a lot from 5GHz, AC, and MIMO.

 

I think for the cost of the Access Points I'll be replacing them all with Ubiquiti again, only this time going for the UniFi AP AC Pro or UniFi AP AC Lite models. No yearly licensing charges, no ridiculous pricing, and they're so cheap if one or two die outside of warranty we can just buy another to replace it. We've even used their kit to provide outdoor coverage now that the kids are taking iPads outside for Forest schools etc.

 

To be honest, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving a school with a burden like "pay Meraki or brick your network infrastructure", but that's just me.

Edited July 7, 2017 by Blue_Cookeh

[XiJ]

We've replaced a meraki system (which worked well and didn't cause any trouble) with a unif system for less than the annual meraki renewal price. We wouldn't normally replace good hardware for the sake of it - this was done in light of annual budgets for the next few years. No more licensing.

 

It's also an option for another school where they were sold ruckuss. Complete overkill and the renewal is as much as a unifi install.

 

We sold the meraki AP's and gave the money back to school too. They didn't go for a lot unfortunately.

[AlanD]

we're becoming more Wireless-oriented and would benefit a lot from 5GHz, AC, and MIMO.

 

I think for the cost of the Access Points I'll be replacing them all with Ubiquiti again, only this time going for the UniFi AP AC Pro or UniFi AP AC Lite models.

Unless you have some very old "g" kit all access points will do "MIMO" - which is essentially what "n" access points brought in. Well worth considering the Unifi HD model....which is 4x4 and supports MU-MIMO (which is perhaps what you refer to). MU-MIMO will give you increased benefit to even single stream wave 2 devices - and there are lots of devices - including laptops which are ONLY single stream. The access points you refer to are not wave 2. For a new installation I would be trying to go down the wave 2 route because it does have some benefits - although I agree the access points are not nearly so cheap (..although still a lot cheaper than wave 2 kit from the luxury market)

 

Think very carefully if you are replacing "n" wireless kit with "ac" and don't get rosy eyed by all those gigabit figures you see quoted such as 800Mb/s or better. To start with its for UDP traffic - and you will what TCP - so divide it by 2. Then its for 160MHz channel - and there are no current access points that support 160MHz channels except for home routers...and even if there are some you can't use 160MHz channels in dense classroom environments only isolated sports halls or something. So divide by 2 again. In fact - you probably can't even use 80MHz channels sensibly - so divide by 2 again. By now you are essentially down to the 40MHz channels that "n" offers. MU-MIMO will give you gains with suitable clients of something like 1.2 (Access points vendors often quote things like theoretically up to 1.8 ...but its nice theory....in the real world its just not like that even in ideal circumstances).

 

Putting access points in corridors outside classrooms completely does away with all those high speeds through walls....in fact 5GHz doesn't even go well through bodies - so you need ceiling mounted kit in each (and every) classroom if you are actually going to get high speeds. I despair at the ignorance and waste when some schools spend fortunes on new wireless kit and then deprive themselves of any benefit because they either can't be bothered to run cables to the centre of ceilings of classrooms or have no budget left to do that.

 

...and of course...without suitable clients the latest and even most expensive kit is not going to deliver anything...and sadly few laptops come with 2 stream and 3 wireless "ac" laptops are almost unheard of. And this is because they produce them largely for a home or sparse business environment where they can use the wide channels that ac offers. In reality they are not really suitable for schools with dense wireless environments.

 

Vendors will extol the virtues of channel sharing and quicker on boarding and offloading of new devices which give older devices more air time...which is true...but unless you get your stop watch out with some pretty artificial tests you are not going to notice.

Edited July 7, 2017 by AlanD

[maxrebo]

Im in the same boat, we have Fortinet (installed around 2012) and its costing us around £2500 per year for maintenance.

Its due an upgrade but I would have to put a strong case to the business manager to get it replaced.

 

What are the annual costs for Unifi?

[AJWhite1970]

What are the annual costs for Unifi?

 

£0.00p

 

It's a purchase once and forget product

[psydii]

AlanD is right to caution restraint with expectation of performance with ac.

 

A quick note though on one capability of ac that he didn't mention. Design for 40Mhz, but enable 80Mhz. The for a given frame if a neigbouring 40Mhz channel is clear an AP-Client will bond the channels and use 80Mhz, and if not it will fall back to its primary 40Mhz. This should give a few extra % performance even in relatively busy environments. Obviously if someone is stress testing an neighbouring AP you'll never get 80 because their primary channel is your 'extended', but *they* will often get 80Mhz because you are only checking email, which doesn't use much airtime.

 

Actually on superdense networks you set 20Mhz primaries and when possible for any given frame you might get 80Mhz.

[maxrebo]

£0.00p

 

It's a purchase once and forget product

 

Thats what im looking for!

 

So with Unifi you have a VM as the controller right? Can anyone share any rough costs for License and AP`s?

[AJWhite1970]

Thats what im looking for!

 

So with Unifi you have a VM as the controller right? Can anyone share any rough costs for License and AP`s?

 

Licence costs £0.00

AP range from £80 each to £300 each depending on features etc. PM me if you want to see some screen shots

[AlanD]

Its due an upgrade but I would have to put a strong case to the business manager to get it replaced.

 

So what are you waiting for? Ubiquity is not the only wireless provider without ongoing cloud costs....but it is widely used....and there are cloud options if you really must. My guess is that a 2012 investment is not yet end of life in a Business Manager's view....but even 5 years worth of £2500 would buy 30 or so of the top end "HD" Ubiquity access points - and more than twice that of "n" access points which you probably have now. The other option is to go back to Fortinet pointing out that the kit is now old - and the warranty they offer is not useful - because you don't really want o maintain kit of that heritage and negotiate a smaller annual payment. Point to Meraki's current offer that are offering 10 years of cloud for the price of 5 and ask them for a 3 year deal to match until they are end of life.

 

MIght be worth getting a small number of new access points and start reducing Fortinet's annual costs - which will at least make them wake up to the fact you are serious about reducing costs and that their gravy train isn't going to last forever unless they start giving you value for money.