New Wifi - Ubiquiti or another?

[Andy2789]

We are in the process of replacing our aging Aruba network, we are looking at rationalising down from over 70 AP's down to 30 AP as new bands make coverage far better!

 

I previously at my old school installed Ubiquiti AP-PRO and loved the setup, and found it bullet proof so I am leaning towards that again. I see Ubiquiti have just released the AP-HD which has the new MU-MIMO technology the price is £100 more per AP, has anyone got the new HD AP's and are they worth the extra money for the ability to improve the data throughput? Money is an issue (when isn't it in a school!) so I would really have to see a huge difference to warrant the extra outlay. I have ruled out all brands that work on a 'licensing' basis as we will get the capital outlay once and not be able to do costs year in year out.

 

A supplier is trying to push me down the route of Huawei Wireless! I know absolutely nothing about that, and not entirely sure any school has got / used it? Is anyone able to offer any advice or thoughts on them if they have done any research / used them. Looking online there seems to be minimal information available (never a good sign!)

[synaesthesia]

I'd go with Ubiquiti but it's worth looking at other suppliers too, even if it's just for quoting purposes. I would however stay well clear of Huawei; I wouldn't be suprised if half their kit isn't banned from the country soon to follow suit with other countries (US, Aus, NZ etc).

[AlanD]

We are in the process of replacing our aging Aruba network, we are looking at rationalising down from over 70 AP's down to 30 AP as new bands make coverage far better!

 

Stop. New Bands (new brands?...or what bands are you talking about? 5GHz has been around for more than a decade....is that a new band? There are talks about removing some of the licence restrictions currently in place for point to point to allow for more 160MHz wide band bands as in the US, but its not happened as far as I know...and yes there are experiments with higher microwave bands - which are VERY short distance).

 

Perhaps your Aruba kit is 2.4Ghz only. So yes, new kit (or even second hand kit) will therefore have 5GHz bands. BUT...that is a higher frequency, shorter wavelength and that does NOT make coverage better...in fact it makes it a lot worse compared to 2.4GHz.

 

Yes - new kit (if you are comparing it to vintage stuff) has orthogonal support ( or "n" type ) ...and yes "n" and "an" tend to give higher data rates over longer distances when compared to "g"....or heaven forbit..."b" type transmisstions.

 

And yes, newer kit even on 2.4GHz tends to work better at larger distances because of improvements in signal to noise etc. But alone its not a massive improvement.

 

If your access points are out in the corridor and the 5GHz has to go through a wall - even a thin wall.... or if the access point is mounted on a wall so the signal has to passthrough bodies to get to the client you can forget those high data rates because they need a really good signal to noise ration.

 

The latest kit supports "ac" which comes in a number of "flavours" "ac2" supporting MU-MIMO, wide channels, high QAM rates etc...and quoted data rates of 1Gb/s or more. BUT - and I simply can't say that loud enough....that doesn't mean you are going to get gigabit data rates as you would with a wired connection. And you certainly won't get those rates with better coverage....in fact most of those data rates require such fantastical signal to noise ration that you will struggle to get them within 2m of a ceiling mounted access point. So while it might be true that you can get the same coverage with 30 APs as your existing 70APs...that may well be at the same data rates as you get now....and my guess is that you will be wanting better data rates...and your clients will want much better data rates....

 

I would get a single (or a couple) of Unify HD-nano access points and run the controller on something temporary and check its going to work as you want. They will sell on ebay if you decide Unify is not for you, but a lot of schools use their kit and seem happy with it. I needed a stopwatch and some pretty demanding testing environments to detect any difference between Unify and the premier kit like meraki and aerohive and even then unify sometimes gave slightly better results.

[Norphy]

Having MU-MIMO access points does nothing if the clients don't support it and a lot don't because of high power requirements.

 

Get a site survey done before you commit to reducing the amount of access points.

[Zoom7000]

I know that Ubiquiti is probably gonna be the most common recommendation on here, but for me, it's Meraki all the way. I love the single pane of glass management for multi sites from wherever, whenever, automatic updates, feature updates and great support.

[LeMarchand]

A supplier is trying to push me down the route of Huawei Wireless! I know absolutely nothing about that, and not entirely sure any school has got / used it? Is anyone able to offer any advice or thoughts on them if they have done any research / used them. Looking online there seems to be minimal information available (never a good sign!)

 

I know a few governments have refuse them contracts to provide 5G over security concerns...

[Net-Ctrl]

If it could be of interest, we can perform a free predictive wireless survey of your site - if you have site plans available and can provide some additional information. We can also send some equipment out for you test in your environment. We are a Ruckus integrator though, so will be more expensive than Ubiq. If we can help though, please let me know.

[DalekSec]

UniFi fo sho!

 

I even run it at home, old site ran it and new one is moving over from Ruckus at xmas, Personally i can't see why you wouldnt from a price point of view alone.

 

The only real thing you miss out on is support, but there are enough people running it to easily communicate solutions (Edugeek is a fine example)

 

I've even noticed recently bigger providers like Ruckus and Aerohive are dropping their prices and trying to do deals to combat people going over to UniFi but it's still way more expensive!

[mdrabble]

I'm currently going through the same process - our Meraki kit is 5 years old and the licenses expire in June and also because I have Smoothwall, Meraki and Smoothwall do not play nicely when clients roam!

 

I purchases a couple of Unifi AP AC Pros, spun up a VM to run the Controller and so far it is looking promising.

 

The Unifi controller is missing some features compared to the Meraki Dashboard but I can live with that.

 

Some of the Unifi Controller features require a Security Gateway or a Unifi Switch but you can use the APs and Controller quite happily without these extras.

[synaesthesia]

I know that Ubiquiti is probably gonna be the most common recommendation on here, but for me, it's Meraki all the way. I love the single pane of glass management for multi sites from wherever, whenever, automatic updates, feature updates and great support.

 

So everything Ubiquiti offers then? (support is extra but still)

[Zoom7000]

So everything Ubiquiti offers then? (support is extra but still)

 

Ubiquiti doesn't do MDM does it? Also, I thought UniFi requires a controller on site?

[DalekSec]

Ubiquiti doesn't do MDM does it? Also, I thought UniFi requires a controller on site?

 

You didn't mention the MDM in your previous post UniFi doesn't do MDM no, it can get a cloud controller i believe but you have to pay a sub. Unsure as never used it! Brought a management key for £90 and plugged it in and away we go!

[mattysmith80]

We have just transitioned from Meraki to Unifi.... We bought 240 of the new Ubiquiti Nano HD APs and they are a fantastic bit of kit not to mention there only £120 each

[chazzy2501]

I love Meraki, I think that it is the superior solution. Unfortunately I'm running a Unify network as I don't poop gold.

[AlanD]

Having MU-MIMO access points does nothing if the clients don't support it and a lot don't because of high power requirements.

 

Get a site survey done before you commit to reducing the amount of access points.

 

I agree that Mu-MIMO - having played with it - is not what you my might expect from the hype in the advertising. Sending data to 4x clients at once....yes...but getting the spatial separation for error free transfer requires a really good signal to noise ratio. And its one way only - so at the very best you only get x1.8 increase according to the technical docs....and in practice I had difficulty in seeing x1.2

 

And worse still, if you have some non ac2 clients in the mix on the same access point its actually worse that not having Mu-Mimo. But yes, one day when every client supports in it will give a marginal improvement.

 

And yes - its worth keeping an eye on power requirements. Lots of Access points claim to work with PoE 802.11af but in practice they only manage this by turning off some of their features. To get the full feature set - you need 802.11at which might require new switches. I think this is why the Ubiquity HD-nano is popular - because although it does sacrifice the higher speeds on 2.4GHz band you do get the full hit on 5GHz.

 

I'm not a total fan of expensive surveys - although I agree - you will be more certain of appropriate coverage. And while there are exceptions....one AP per classroom is a pretty good guide line if you want every class to be able to get the highest speeds. Take an access point away - if it allows you to use wider channels without co channel interference.

[JackCPickup]

Ubiquiti doesn't do MDM does it? Also, I thought UniFi requires a controller on site?

 

Can pay to have it hosted or host offsite for next to nothing yourself.

[JackCPickup]

The only real thing you miss out on is support, but there are enough people running it to easily communicate solutions (Edugeek is a fine example)

There is support available as well as an additional support package at a cost.

[Griff]

Where are you guys going for your Ubiquiti pricing/quotes advice etc?

[Andy2789]

Thanks everyone for the advice, I really like the Ubiquiti kit and equally hearing about peoples experience with the MU-MIMO is also greatly appreciated for making decisions. I wasn't aware of the NanoHD, they look to be the perfect fit for future proofing and providing an improved service / coverage. We are looking at around £100 per Pro AP and £125 per NanoHD. I know you sacrifice the 2.4Ghz, but it's really not a disaster!

 

In regards to the queries about site surveys, my predecessor went for the flood the place and don't worry about a survey approach. Which is why following a survey we have been able to rationalise down, I will get a few extra AP's when I order to add should anything appear as no survey is full proof. But really appreciate everyone's comments, and the positive no-one has told me to get Huawei. Which at least means my gut instinct was right!

@Griff I am happy to share with you the suppliers I use for stuff, I haven't gone to anyone special for pricing other than my normal suppliers.

[mattysmith80]

All Ubiquiti APs in the UK actually come from one distributor... we initially went to comms express to buy a couple to test out and they came from MS Distribution UK so we went direct to them and bought them.. got a cracking deal in the end and cut out the reseller

[Andy2789]

Now that is an amazing discovery! Will drop them an email, I take my hat off to you sir!

[Griff]

Great shout cheers guys. I have a networking supplier so might use them to plan the network then look at getting the units directly.

[Bev]

We have Huawei, and are looking to replace it asap.

When it works, it works fine. But there is no support for it, the company who installed it have been bought out and the new copmany no longer support it and we have found a company in Leeds who offer support but we are in Newcastle and it's not practical to get an engineer up from Leeds just because the Wifi is down.

 

You can't login to the Controller easily, and everything seems to be done via a command line interface, which isn't very handy when you are having issues.

 

I've also used Ruckus and that was much easier.

[mdrabble]

Interestingly I just had a couple of quotes for the UniFi nanoHD Access Points and on the bottom of one of the quotes it mentioned about pricing may change depending on tomorrows vote!

 

As the vote has been delayed, do I order now or wait until nearer the time I actually need to order them?

 

Was planning to purchase and deploy during the Easter break.

[DalekSec]

Worth noting that MS Dist also do training courses on Unifi: https://www.msdist.co.uk/training/ubiquiti/UEWA

 

Hoping to go on one myself next year.