Ubiquiti Wifi

[kidpressingbuttons]

Anyone got a ubiquiti wifi deployment?

How have you found it?

 

looking at replacing our ageing system with 20 ubiquiti Aps.

[Katy]

We've replaced one building with 21 of the AC-Pros (used to be HP MSM460s), infinitely better. We've stuck one in each room and it just works - much better speeds than on the (more expensive) HP kit and the daily complaints about the laptops (3rd gen i3/4GB RAM/SSD) taking 15 minutes to log on have vanished. Couldn't recommend them enough.

 

We set up the controller on a virtual machine so the only cost we had was the access points.

[JackCPickup]

We deploy it in all our schools now having moved from Ruckus. We're loving it, such a nice interface to work with and performance is on par with expensive kit.

[synaesthesia]

Love it here both from primary and second points of view. Simple, just works, no faffing and damn reliable & quick.

[Reverend_Dan]

No at work but got a AC-Pro at home and it's a massive step up from crappy superhub virgin box. Though I would need two to cover the whole house but one seems to be enough even with thick victorian terrace walls. The controller works nicely on my desktop as it only really needs to run if any changes are needed.

[dry]

UniFi here and it's running well. The only frustrating thing is Ubiquiti have made the UAP-AC v2s End of Life from November 2018. They were bought in October 2015 and it's going to cost a fair amount to replace the amount of these APs around the school after only 3 years.

[synaesthesia]

Why worry so much @dry, it's not like they'll stop working?

[Meldrew]

Same here, switched to UniFi years ago and never looked back. Just excellent.

[XiJ]

Recommend and use it for all our customers. Only had 1 issue that myself when I fried a 24v AP. Installed hundreds. All running beautiful and all schools with it delighted.

 

We even replaced a meraki system in one school for the same cost as 1yrs licensing.

[fiza]

Do you get the same level of control as you do with something like a Ruckus controller?

[synaesthesia]

Not quite; but you wouldn't expect to. However it would be hard to market many of the extra features over and above Unifi with what's used in a school, certainly smaller ones. Larger deployments with 1:1 devices or generally large wifi deployments though would swing certainly into the favour of the likes of Ruckus IMO.

[fiza]

We currently have 50 older Ruckus APs which need upgrading. We use ACLs and VLAN each BYOD off. We also have a guest WLAN and that's about it. We will be needing more APs in the near future for a new block being built. Would Unifi suffice?

[nicholab]

Thing is it still going to cost you £14k to replace 50 ap with unifi top of the line. Are you using the cloud key? I also thinking about what to do to replace my 50 netgear aps I might use new block as a test bed.

[mikeprice]

Installed this at my scool a few years ago - totally changed the whole concept of wireless for the school - it just worked

 

Only had problems when I messed up Java on the server and hadn't realised there was a config backup (it was in the first week !!)

 

Since then it works so well that I use the controller to check the whole network in the mornings - there was an AP in each network cab

 

controller interface was easy to use and configure - and everythign still worked even if the server stopped anyway

 

very difficult to justify using anything else unless there is a feature you need that thye don't od - but I have not idea what that woulkd be

[fiza]

Thing is it still going to cost you £14k to replace 50 ap with unifi top of the line. Are you using the cloud key? I also thinking about what to do to replace my 50 netgear aps I might use new block as a test bed.

That works out to £280 per AP. Which Unifi APs are you talking about?

 

We don't use the cloud controller. We have a 3000 series onsite controller.

Edited March 10, 2018 by fiza

[BKGarry]

We did the switch from Meru this year. Really wouldn't look back. I replaced 50aps with 41 (mostly AC Pros but some in wall pros too)

Finding it much easier than meru I was also getting APs for like £116 each. And they were the pros

[Steven_Cleaver]

Yes Unifi here as well started with about a dozen about 5 years ago and just added to as we could afford never had any problems with these as everyone as said just work, nice simple interface, easy to setup an with good features for the price.

[derf]

Deployed 50 AC PRO AP's, great performance, easy to setup, does our Radius and guest portal, linked in to smoothwall etc. Has been minimal fuss and apart from a few minor gripes (upgrading controller is a bit rubbish, web interface can suck out all the RAM on your desktop if you leave it open for days on end) it has been by far the best value deployment. Looking at replacing some of the AC PRO AP with the next step up for our large congregation areas, otherwise not getting any complaints about poor WiFi.

[ass17]

Deployed 50 AC PRO AP's, great performance, easy to setup, does our Radius and guest portal, linked in to smoothwall etc. Has been minimal fuss and apart from a few minor gripes (upgrading controller is a bit rubbish, web interface can suck out all the RAM on your desktop if you leave it open for days on end) it has been by far the best value deployment. Looking at replacing some of the AC PRO AP with the next step up for our large congregation areas, otherwise not getting any complaints about poor WiFi.

 

Do you deploy the AirTime fairness feature on each AP?

[derf]

Do you deploy the AirTime fairness feature on each AP?

No, I put on bandsteering not airtime fairness. I read this can lead to lower performance. I still think more can be squeezed out by min RSSI and locking out the lowest data rates. To be fair once the system is in use it's always difficult to make all the right tweaks, and it's almost impossible to set it up for max performance with live users in the testing phases. We're only seeing around 40% on clients on 5GHz band, and I've deployed one access point for every two classrooms. As every deployment is different your requirements may not be the same as mine!

[XiJ]

We run the controller on a Linux VM web server. Our various schools unifi connect to that which is brilliant. So accessible anywhere and graphs and usage data available. I even have my home controller on it.

[IrritableTech]

In the next few weeks we’ll be replacing 25 ruckus APs and a ZD3000 with 43 unifi access points. 20 AC Pro and 23 AC EDUs. A couple of our buildings don’t have a tannoy, so this will tick a couple of boxes - although the uk distributors seem to be dropping the EDUs from their stock lists.

We’ve also got a few AC-Mesh to mount outside, a M5 point to point link and a few of the little 8 port PoE switches to manage as well.

We’ll be reducing our SSID count by using radius and dynamic VLANs. All the testing has gone well and fingers crossed the deployment will as well!

[fiza]

In the next few weeks we’ll be replacing 25 ruckus APs and a ZD3000 with 43 unifi access points. 20 AC Pro and 23 AC EDUs. A couple of our buildings don’t have a tannoy, so this will tick a couple of boxes - although the uk distributors seem to be dropping the EDUs from their stock lists.

We’ve also got a few AC-Mesh to mount outside, a M5 point to point link and a few of the little 8 port PoE switches to manage as well.

We’ll be reducing our SSID count by using radius and dynamic VLANs. All the testing has gone well and fingers crossed the deployment will as well!

What is the cost difference please? Are you saving much?

[ass17]

In the next few weeks we’ll be replacing 25 ruckus APs and a ZD3000 with 43 unifi access points. 20 AC Pro and 23 AC EDUs. A couple of our buildings don’t have a tannoy, so this will tick a couple of boxes - although the uk distributors seem to be dropping the EDUs from their stock lists.

We’ve also got a few AC-Mesh to mount outside, a M5 point to point link and a few of the little 8 port PoE switches to manage as well.

We’ll be reducing our SSID count by using radius and dynamic VLANs. All the testing has gone well and fingers crossed the deployment will as well!

 

Reducing SSIDs is what we are doing this year, but dynamic VLANs? Tell me more and why? [emoji1][emoji1303]

[fiza]

How many SSIDs did you guys have?