Is everyone using expensive access points?

[john]

We use Meraki APs (84 of them) and they are pricey for the annual licensing, but you get what you pay for. Being part of Cisco, their quality and support is premium.

 

I'd argue the support & quality statement isn't always true. Whilst I am in a commercial sector not Edu, Meraki Support has sucked. We've had issues for a few months with the Wifi and basically Meraki turned round and said we cannot find anything wrong with us so it must be external. Due to my location we do see 100+ other SSIDs so its a tough space but it has always been that, its not a new feature / change that made that happen but Meraki Support were less than satisfactory they just have not been interested and didn't really want to help.

 

One conversation with @Net-Ctrl and I now have some Ruckus in on Eval to help test the theory out of if this is External interference / issue or not... deployed the Ruckus in as identical setup as we can EG Same locations, SSIDs, VLANs, Auth setups etc and the Ruckus is just working without fault and the issues gone, staff complaints vanished etc.... I expected this being a long standing Ruckus user and having had many say go elsewhere save money etc this to me has just shown exactly why its always been worth spending the money on Ruckus with a good partner such as @Net-Ctrl to me.

[localzuk]

Yeah, I will continue to swear by Ruckus. We've had it for 3 generations of controller now (all still a physical controller here, may switch out to cloud stuff next time round in about 5 years). We've had 2 APs die over that time, Ruckus replaced them without issue. We've had an issue with one version of firmware and a specific model of wireless card on an older laptop - they spent multiple hours working through the issue with us.

 

They aren't even that expensive to be honest. About half the APs we run at the moment were bought as Unleashed models, and reflashed as full ones, the licenses etc... allowed it just fine. We got those at 50% off.

 

My new senior tech hadn't touched Ruckus before either. He seems to have taken to it very quickly also, without any training.

[bald_pig]

I use Ruckus, they are one of the top brands for a reason and they have been rock solid for me.

 

I wouldn't use Unifi purely because the APs dial home with data about your network, and it can't be fully turned off last time I checked.

[localzuk]

and it can't be fully turned off last time I checked.

There is a domain you can block on your firewall that stops it. trace.svc.ui.com - Ubiquiti are working on a way to stop it on the controller, but its not out yet. They published the address in the meantime.

[Primus]

I might be wrong but I think the most recent controller versions have had an option to turn it off?

[localzuk]

I might be wrong but I think the most recent controller versions have had an option to turn it off?

It doesn't turn it all off sadly. Some still gets sent.

[bald_pig]

I might be wrong but I think the most recent controller versions have had an option to turn it off?

 

Oh yeah, you can add deceptive business practices to the list; They said they added an option to disable it but it only stopped some of the data being sent, and it was a conscious decision not to disable all data being sent.

[Davit2005]

I use Ruckus, they are one of the top brands for a reason and they have been rock solid for me.

 

I wouldn't use Unifi purely because the APs dial home with data about your network, and it can't be fully turned off last time I checked.

 

Just block the AP's talking to external, what traffic should they need to the internet.

 

I have my home network completely locked down, management vlans can only talk to specific external servers, wifi management is a seperate vlan with access only to internal services i.e. radius, DNS etc. except for the Unifi Controller is on the WiFi management network at the moment but that is likely to be changed soon. But even that has only external access to update servers for Ubuntu.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Davit2005

[Primus]

Oh yeah, you can add deceptive business practices to the list; They said they added an option to disable it but it only stopped some of the data being sent, and it was a conscious decision not to disable all data being sent.

 

Ok so what data is currently sent?

[bald_pig]

Ok so what data is currently sent?

 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/01/29/ubiquiti_data_collection_policy/

[Primus]

Ok so the usual scaremongering applies as this isn't yet the case:

 

A Ubiquiti representative confirmed in a forum post that the new changes will come into effect in firmware version 4.1 and onward, which isn't officially out yet, and that users can stop "other data" being automatically collected by manually editing a config file.

 

So, in short, you'll be able to choose whether you want to send personal info, but you'll have to edit a configuration file to prevent other data being sent.

[Wave9_Lee]

I'd argue the support & quality statement isn't always true. Whilst I am in a commercial sector not Edu, Meraki Support has sucked. We've had issues for a few months with the Wifi and basically Meraki turned round and said we cannot find anything wrong with us so it must be external. Due to my location we do see 100+ other SSIDs so its a tough space but it has always been that, its not a new feature / change that made that happen but Meraki Support were less than satisfactory they just have not been interested and didn't really want to help.

 

One conversation with @Net-Ctrl and I now have some Ruckus in on Eval to help test the theory out of if this is External interference / issue or not... deployed the Ruckus in as identical setup as we can EG Same locations, SSIDs, VLANs, Auth setups etc and the Ruckus is just working without fault and the issues gone, staff complaints vanished etc.... I expected this being a long standing Ruckus user and having had many say go elsewhere save money etc this to me has just shown exactly why its always been worth spending the money on Ruckus with a good partner such as @Net-Ctrl to me.

To be fair, I think most vendor support is hit and miss. They're generally large organisation with multiple, low cost 'triage' routes, that seek to filter out the noddy issues, but these delay the complex issues and it takes a while to reach the most appropriate technician. They're also generally averse to getting involved in topology or design analysis etc, as it's not technically their remit. Hence why you've had more success using a partner - that's partly why we exist.

 

We only provide Meraki wireless, and believe it's amongst the best in the business and, when costs are spread across a term, fairly cost-effective. Because we design, install and support, hopefully customers get the most from their investment, especially in complex environments and at scale.

[SuperfluousAdjective]

I use Ruckus, they are one of the top brands for a reason and they have been rock solid for me.

 

I wouldn't use Unifi purely because the APs dial home with data about your network, and it can't be fully turned off last time I checked.

 

Ruckus only has ~5% market share. I wouldn't consider 5% a "top brand." They also had the Broadcom issues where they wouldn't or couldn't stop using Qualcomm QCAs in their APs so they got their R&D budget cancelled until their business unit was sold to a cable modem company.

 

I wouldn't use Unifi because it lacks enterprise grade features and they don't have the capability to resolve bugs and firmware issues in a timely fashion... which is a problem when their latest APs don't work or they suddenly decide to start sending your data offsite.

Edited March 2, 2020 by SuperfluousAdjective

[ITGURU]

Ruckus only has ~5% market share. I wouldn't consider 5% a "top brand." They also had the Broadcom issues where they wouldn't or couldn't stop using Qualcomm QCAs in their APs so they got their R&D budget cancelled until their business unit was sold to a cable modem company.

 

I wouldn't use Unifi because it lacks enterprise grade features and they don't have the capability to resolve bugs and firmware issues in a timely fashion... which is a problem when their latest APs don't work or they suddenly decide to start sending your data offsite.

How do you know they dial home.. doesn't every system dial home these days . just look at Google and any other website that captures your usage it's how all these companies produce statistics.

[Davit2005]

How do you know they dial home.. doesn't every system dial home these days . just look at Google and any other website that captures your usage it's how all these companies produce statistics.

 

I cannot see any reason to let APs talk to the Internet. If you have a cloud based (an actual, cloud based in AWS etc.) controller you should only need specific ports and target addresses.

 

If it is hard to get specific URLs or IPs, it becomes easier if you have an application layer firewall as these do not work with ports alone.

 

Maybe I am been a bit sceptical but there is no reason to allow everything because just because something captures usage.

 

It easy to see if devices dial home, just run a packet capture.

[TechMonkey]

Ruckus only has ~5% market share. I wouldn't consider 5% a "top brand." They also had the Broadcom issues where they wouldn't or couldn't stop using Qualcomm QCAs in their APs so they got their R&D budget cancelled until their business unit was sold to a cable modem company.

 

This comes under lies, damned lies and statistics. They are still third in the world. Many would consider that a top brand. Personally I still never understand how Cisco is top for Wifi with such a large proportion. I've not looked recently but when I had a look at their kit it wasn't great, but I guess Cisco is still the networking company and some people just default to that.

 

Currently use Ruckus and it has been rock solid, no issues and companies are always surprised at our coverage considering we are an old building with walls thicker than most. I always refer back to the report done by a company that showed how much more effective Ruckus beamforming was in an office and the intensive usage report by a different company. But those are quite a few years old now and we are looking at upgrading our wifi so I will probably look at Aruba and another that I have forgotten the name of but seems to be gaining traction across education.

 

Can I ask what your recommendation is?

 

EDIT:Cambium, that's the one I was thinking of.

Edited March 2, 2020 by TechMonkey

[browolf]

Our Ruckus wifi is at least 10 years old, probably going to replace it with Aruba.

[Primus]

Currently use Ruckus and it has been rock solid, no issues and companies are always surprised at our coverage considering we are an old building with walls thicker than most. I always refer back to the report done by a company that showed how much more effective Ruckus beamforming was in an office and the intensive usage report by a different company. But those are quite a few years old now and we are looking at upgrading our wifi so I will probably look at Aruba and another that I have forgotten the name of but seems to be gaining traction across education.

 

At the risk of seeming obvious - were these surveys carried out by companies wanting to sell you particular products or by companies who only do surveys and therefore have nothing to gain by recommending or promoting particular brands?

[TechMonkey]

At the risk of seeming obvious - were these surveys carried out by companies wanting to sell you particular products or by companies who only do surveys and therefore have nothing to gain by recommending or promoting particular brands?

 

Depends on which company you are talking about. The companies that come and visit us and are impressed are general companies, not to do with WiFi, that think we will have problems with wifi and we generally surpass their expectations. The companies that did the reports, the beamforming one was independent and the other was a Ruckus test overseen by an independent consultant with all sorts of companies asked to participate and they tried to make it as scientific as possible. None of them were related to us, they were reports I found on the line.

The only survey we have had was for a company that we didn't go for as they wanted to absolutely flood the site and I felt that was overkill. We instead grew the system organically and filled in space as it was needed. We occasionally go round with a laptop and some free software to see if there are any issues. We do need to get an indepent tester in at some point as we don't know what we don't know nad it would be nice to have an independent stamp of approval or some improvements we could make.

 

The beamforming report was Toms Hardware (2009) - https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/beamforming-wifi-ruckus,2390.html

The stress test was from Divergent Dynamics (2017) - http://divdyn.com/docs/WiFi-vendor-video-stress-test.pdf

 

I'm sure all kinds of holes can be poked in the tests but they are the closest I have seen to comprehensive reviews. I had forgotten the Toms Hardware was 2009 though! I think the Divergent Dynamics report is at least the second report as I'm sure I saw an earlier version along with a video showing the testing.

[SuperfluousAdjective]

This comes under lies, damned lies and statistics. They are still third in the world.

 

They are fourth. Cisco, Aruba, Ubiquiti, Ruckus...

 

Currently use Ruckus and it has been rock solid, no issues and companies are always surprised at our coverage considering we are an old building with walls thicker than most. I always refer back to the report done by a company that showed how much more effective Ruckus beamforming was in an office and the intensive usage report by a different company. But those are quite a few years old now and we are looking at upgrading our wifi so I will probably look at Aruba and another that I have forgotten the name of but seems to be gaining traction across education.

 

Beamforming is not unique to Ruckus. And coverage per AP is not something that anyone should brag about. Don't get sucked into Ruckus marketing. It doesn't matter if your AP can beamform around and through your crazy difficult environment. Wireless frames must be acknowledged by the client back to the AP. If the client can't reliably reach back to the AP you will have a lot of retransmissions and add RF interference. Proper RF site planning is still needed and highly dependent on client connectivity to the AP. Ruckus and their partners are well known for doing site surveys that say you need less APs to start due to beamforming as a method of trying to undercut their competition on price. Then when/if you need more APs for performance reasons they'll say it could have happened with anyone... which is true it could have happened with any other vendor, however, it is much more likely to happen from the vendor who is purposefully ignoring the challenges of client to AP connectivity to make a sale.

 

Interestingly, a comparable Ruckus AP with the same QCA and CPU/RAM is often slightly more expensive from Ruckus than say Aruba, but they often say you need less APs to show a reduced overall cost. This is dishonest in my opinion and if your Ruckus reseller is promoting less APs due to beamforming without properly explaining the downsides they are not trustworthy.

 

Can I ask what your recommendation is?

 

It depends on the use case and the needs/budget of an organization. Cisco and Aruba are best for on prem wireless. Meraki and probably Mist are best cloud based. Mist is still new so they lack a lot of features. A lot of their marketing is nonsense, but they do have an interesting approach. Most Meraki vs Mist bakeoffs will go to Meraki though due to it being the more complete cloud product. And Ubiquiti for the super budget conscious.

 

EDIT:Cambium, that's the one I was thinking of.

 

You can do a lot better.

Edited March 2, 2020 by SuperfluousAdjective

[psydii]

Not quite what you were asking, but possibly relevant and they deserve a shout out: We paid Lever to do our RF site survey independent of resellers. https://lever.co.uk/ They can of course to the whole thing. They were vendor neutral and would have preferred to do the survey using the APs we were deploying. But their data did help show all of the options and gave us a great deal of power when negotiating with the design teams at the resellers. My recommendation would be to design RF for voice, *BUT* enable 80Mhz channels. From analysis unless an area is particularly busy the clients and the APs often manage to make use of it, and only when things are busy do they fail down (automatically) to 40 or 20 as needed on a per transmission basis.

 

If you are going 1:1 and genuinely expect heavy usage (e.g. more than say 60% of rooms with 25+ devices generating a lot of traffic such as roaming profiles, folder redirection, photoshop work etc) then a design with *lots* of 20Mhz channels might be better - but this model then required more APs. Practically speaking I have never seen a school that really had anywhere near this sort of load - most 1:1-like deployments are actually pretty light on network traffic. Schools are not 'high density' designs.

 

Here is a pretty good explanation for why 80Mhz can work in an enterprise system, provided you are not requiring guaranteed bandwidth above the 20Mhz base channel, and why 11ax is better at it that 11ac. https://www.extremenetworks.com/extreme-networks-blog/will-802-11ax-make-80-mhz-and-160-mhz-channels-usable-in-the-enterprise/

[SuperfluousAdjective]

How do you know they dial home.. doesn't every system dial home these days . just look at Google and any other website that captures your usage it's how all these companies produce statistics.

 

Not every system will call home, and if it does it is often an opt-in model or at the very least well documented. It is odd to secretly push a change to a product to allow for call home functionality with no statement on privacy or what is being transmitted. This should have been made clear. There are many organizations who cannot have network equipment in their environment that call home. Ubiquiti should have known this. Even if the data is anonymized it can still be a security risk or a compliance violation.

Edited March 2, 2020 by SuperfluousAdjective

[TechMonkey]

They are fourth. Cisco, Aruba, Ubiquiti, Ruckus...

 

Doh, stupidly laid out graph is stupid! That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Though I would still contend that top 4 is top brand.

 

Thanks for the info and response.

[synaesthesia]

Not every system will call home, and if it does it is often an opt-in model or at the very least well documented. It is odd to secretly push a change to a product to allow for call home functionality with no statement on privacy or what is being transmitted. This should have been made clear. There are many organizations who cannot have network equipment in their environment that call home. Ubiquiti should have known this. Even if the data is anonymized it can still be a security risk or a compliance violation.

 

Unfortunately in this day and age, it will be the rare few that don't call home and even rarer for companies, no matter on their size or moral standing, to not keep a few things back. I mean, it's not as if FIFA, the FIA, any country's goverment or pretty much ANY corporation on the planet isn't filling us with lies is it? (Just a few random examples there, as we all know how trustworthy these all are.) Cisco's moral compass is rather like Jack Sparrow's, if you get my meaning.

[mavhc]

Fictional, and at the bottom of the sea?

 

I'd rather hw reported back to the company that it's terrible and needs fixing than they just ignored the problem, but if they're not saying what it's reporting back and why and let you turn it off, they're bad. (See MS)