What wifi system do you have?

[Squelch]

I have an ye olde HP Wireless MSM system - it chugs along quite happily but nothing special about it. It works but nothing amazing. Has no support as you can't get support for it anymore, they only want to sell me a new Aruba system - and this happened soon after we had in installed!

 

I want to replace it and have already tested a Unifi Setup that I'm happy with but replacing 70 APs across the site is going to take some budget.

 

Pete

 

Same here, had it installed as part of a new build then 6 months later it was end of life. Massive thanks to our building contractor for that

[Asgard]

I have an ye olde HP Wireless MSM system - it chugs along quite happily but nothing special about it. It works but nothing amazing. Has no support as you can't get support for it anymore, they only want to sell me a new Aruba system - and this happened soon after we had in installed!

 

I want to replace it and have already tested a Unifi Setup that I'm happy with but replacing 70 APs across the site is going to take some budget.

 

Pete

 

Ruckus when they were took over by brocade killed off a load of APs that had only been out a short time so that semi forced our hand.

 

We looked at a subscription with them and it was painful - they couldn’t decide what company our agreement should sit with.

 

Now we are on a 3yr enterprise subscription (extreme call it ENS) and the setup was painless. Suppose we are ridding ourselves of the one off Capex hit and moving it into yearly opex but it just means that every 3 years I know we have new / supported and latest tech kit. We have 75 APs on one site and 50 on another - there actually two seperate agreements but it’s just seamless.

 

https://www.extremenetworks.com/subscription/. - it says monthly but we bill yearly in advance

Edited December 1, 2020 by Asgard

[nathan3388]

We are using the ruckus virtual smart zone with 110ap across 7 sites really gd and we have a mixture of aps as well. R500, R600, R610 and r650 and these work amazingly. Easy to setup and deploy WiFi’s with 20 seconds

[Sylv3r]

Meraki in our secondary and Unifi in 6 primaries.

 

Both perfect for the size of the schools - couldn't justify the cost of Meraki for a primary and I am not sure how good Unifi would be for a secondary.

[Primus]

Meraki in our secondary and Unifi in 6 primaries.

 

Both perfect for the size of the schools - couldn't justify the cost of Meraki for a primary and I am not sure how good Unifi would be for a secondary.

 

It’s still great in a secondary!

[Max_Power]

Meraki here - 120 AP's across a large secondary - all good, no complaints.

[BKGarry]

1 secondary school here, moved from Meru to Unifi throughout 3 years ago, as the maintenance cost and cost to replace the Meru Controller was more than replacing all the Access Points and Switches with Unifi kit.

 

I have been thoroughly impressed and have even deployed a few of the HD Pros now too, in the high high use areas, and it works, it works very very well. My favourite feature on the controller is the ability to go into a switch, go to the port and just click reset on the POE and it stops the power for about 5 seconds and puts it back on, works a dream for some of those POE devices around the place that can be a little fickle.

[CalmBlueOcean]

We moved from Ruckus (x50 APs) to Aruba (x80 APs) just over a year ago. I was really happy with the Ruckus, but this was a Trust-wide upgrade that I had no say in.

The Aruba... OK, but we do get the odd connection issue with clients, more often Chromebooks (rather than Windows clients). Worst thing is our VOIP wireless phones have almost become uselsss for roaming. No one has been able to give me a definitive reason, but it seems to be related to handover between APs not quite doing the necessary, hence phone sticks on a distant AP and then loses connection.

[Reverend_Dan]

Cambium here as well, since I set it up had very little to do it just works. Got it doing possible always of wifi as well, Cambium portal for guest event days, BYOD passthrough to firewall portal authentication for staff and students and a couple of managed devices SSID's as well.

[LeMarchand]

Unifi all 3 schools.

[localzuk]

Ruckus at 5 schools and 3 nurseries. Unifi at one school with a nursery on the same site.

 

Only issues I've had were - Ruckus - when we upgraded to the v10 firmware on the ZoneDirector, our oldest laptop wifi cards stopped connecting (HP ProBook 6570b). Conveniently, those were due to be retired during the same week, so it was no major loss. Unifi - we had an issue early on where the APs would disconnect from the controller so we couldn't see what they were doing. Firmware updates have resolved that one.

[simpsonj]

For those that use Ubiquiti, how did you them installed? I'm looking for a company to do the actual physical installation as our site team are over worked as it is, without me adding to their workload!

[BKGarry]

I am afraid I did it all myself, no 3rd party involved here, was so easy once you have one setup on the controller. Have the App installed on your phone, put AP up, open App, adopt it to the controller and then Name it. Onto the next, etc etc

 

I did set all the APs up with DHCP Reservations first and added them to NPS as RADIUS clients

[simpsonj]

I am afraid I did it all myself, no 3rd party involved here, was so easy once you have one setup on the controller. Have the App installed on your phone, put AP up, open App, adopt it to the controller and then Name it. Onto the next, etc etc

 

I did set all the APs up with DHCP Reservations first and added them to NPS as RADIUS clients

 

That may be the route I have to go down. Just not sure the site team want me wielding a drill across the school!

[caffrey]

I tend to pull spare classroom drops and install them in the ceiling void - saved doing new runs

[jmak]

I tend to pull spare classroom drops and install them in the ceiling void - saved doing new runs

That's what I did too. And as we didn't have PoE switches at the time I stuffed the injectors inside the "dado rail" conduit and ran the power from there as well.

[Sonic007]

For those that use Ubiquiti, how did you them installed? I'm looking for a company to do the actual physical installation as our site team are over worked as it is, without me adding to their workload!

 

 

Did it myself.

 

You will most likely need an SDS drill if going through solid brick walls but that is pretty easy once you've had a go. It goes through walls like going through butter.

Just turn off hammer action towards the end to avoid blasting half the wall off.

 

Then a standard drill for mounting holes and easily done.

 

If fitting in the ceiling on those cardboard style tiles, that is easy too. Just bung a hole in it, secure the screw plate at the back and boom, all done.

 

 

 

 

I tend to pull spare classroom drops and install them in the ceiling void - saved doing new runs

 

 

I see the convenience but with all the metal, foil backed tiles and cables in the ceiling void I find it best to get them properly fixed to the ceiling tile looking down on the room. Better for signal.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Sonic007

[robyholmes]

I was replacing a Ruckus system and for the most part just swapping them over. I used the old Ruckus AP mounts, some spacers, then the Unifi plastic mount, nuts on the bottom and that's it.

[simpsonj]

Cool, looks like it could be an in house job, though I have potentially got a company giving me a quote.

On a related note, does anyone use the UniFi Switches? Do they have a good reputation? For the price of the APs, I'm looking at changing our Switch estate and still remain under budget. The only thing they seem to lack is a core switch that can handle a lot of fibre inputs.

[caffrey]

 

 

 

I see the convenience but with all the metal, foil backed tiles and cables in the ceiling void I find it best to get them properly fixed to the ceiling tile looking down on the room. Better for signal.

 

Yep sorry, wasn't clear enough - I fix the relocated drop in the ceiling - the AP is installed onto the tile like you say. It's just a patch cable then instead of trying to terminate an end onto solid cable

[caffrey]

Cool, looks like it could be an in house job, though I have potentially got a company giving me a quote.

On a related note, does anyone use the UniFi Switches? Do they have a good reputation? For the price of the APs, I'm looking at changing our Switch estate and still remain under budget. The only thing they seem to lack is a core switch that can handle a lot of fibre inputs.

 

We use the switches here, they are solid enough

 

They do do a top of the cab switch, the XG for fibre inputs - I think the new version is also layer 3 but I haven't investigated if that's any good (If it's unifi its probably half hearted)

 

Great for the price though

[browolf]

Ruckus but it's over 10 years old.

 

We we're planning to replace it but the DFE are looking into rebuilding half the school because it's constructed with old failing Laingspan. If the project goes ahead they will replace all the old fibre and wireless themselves!

Edited January 22, 2021 by browolf

[MatthewL]

We provision all the AP's prior to going out and installing them so its just plug and play. Have a third party come and install them for us as not allowed up steps and some need data in the ceiling as they are just dotted around currently.

 

Easy enough to do yourself if your allowed and have the tools, I've done a few at home and friends.

[RobD]

Found this guide that maybe useful for the unifi people.

 

https://evanmccann.net/blog/2021/1/unifi-ap-guide

[CraigM]

Ruckus R500 & R510 units here, previously with a ZoneDirector 1200, now moving to Virtual Smart Zone as the ZD developed a tragic case of electronic death. The whole Ruckus system has been fantastic, but their pricing & licensing costs here in South Africa have really gone up over the last few years and they are no longer the value champion. Having to get new AP licenses for the transition to the Virtual Smart Zone felt like true double dipping and left a bad taste in my mouth.

 

I keep eying the Ubiquiti equipment due to the cost and lack of license fees, but something always holds me back. I think if I had to start from scratch, I would go Ubiquiti. In my view, Wi-Fi vendors really do seem to enjoy gouging the market.