Wi-Fi Replacement

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

Im not saying its a bad thing or complaining, supplier looked after me and got me nice deals and things at cost, id listen to a sales person every now and then.

 

Ive just been bitten at the top shelf end of it, Aruba - 13k solution, EOL after 2 years. Id rather buy 3k of unifi kit and if its broke replace it.

 

Its had its issues, but were now at a point where we know the system, worked out the kinks and saved a fortune. if it lasts half the expected life we still come out ahead

 

Yes i think alot likely had this issue, i am going to presume you are on the older Aruba switches rather than the newer CX. Aruba in my opinion was a little naughty here and panicked with constraints and just EOL most lines.

Then again everyone ordering the CX range also had to wait a long time for stock and some still waiting.

[DGardiner]

Aruba's EOL is 5 years after EOS, which is announced 6 months in advance

 

Fairly certain this was pre HP Aquiring them

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

You say that, but you said previously and again in this post that you won’t recommend Unifi - so if a school doesn’t have the budget for anything more pricey you’d tell them you couldn’t possibly help and walk away?

 

Or you could put some of your team through the Unifi certifications and support it yourselves. There’s definitely money to be made there. In the same way I’m now seeing companies offering more extended warranties for Unifi and holding stock themselves to allow for RMA - though as I’ve said we’ve got plenty of their kit and had only one RMA across it all.

 

I expect the margin in Unifi kit is a lot lower though.

 

I dont recommend Unifi due to lack of Vendor support.

If a major issue was to happen (IF) then there is nowhere to go for support.

I understand companies offer the support however doesn't that just bring pricing up to the level of other vendors such as Cambium by the time you add the support which is likely more expensive than support for a higher tier vendor. Also those support companies if cant find the issue (this can happen) they would then have to also rely on online forums.

 

No vendor support i dont recommend unless as i say your technical and happy to deep dive into the troubleshooting and use online forums for help.

 

I wouldnt personally want to put any of my customers into that position.

 

Hope this helps, i also dont recommend Meru/Fortinet as its behind the times and not the nicest solution (again in my opinion)

Cambium is not an expensive product but it does have the vendor support therefore i would be happy to recommend to customers.

 

I wont be able to please everyone i understand but i would walk from a deal rather than try make a quick buck selling a solution i dont have confidence in. Again not me knocking peoples choices but from a personal perspective.

 

Margins would be low but they are for all hardware these days anyway but when they add support that boosts the margin for them.

 

So are they recommending due to the solution or budgets or are they pushing it to get the support contracts? i dont know the answer but food for thought

Edited February 1, 2023 by RedwayNetworks_Michael

[Primus]

I dont recommend Unifi due to lack of Vendor support.

If a major issue was to happen (IF) then there is nowhere to go for support.

I understand companies offer the support however doesn't that just bring pricing up to the level of other vendors such as Cambium by the time you add the support which is likely more expensive than support for a higher tier vendor. Also those support companies if cant find the issue (this can happen) they would then have to also rely on online forums.

 

No vendor support i dont recommend unless as i say your technical and happy to deep dive into the troubleshooting and use online forums for help.

 

I wouldnt personally want to put any of my customers into that position.

 

Hope this helps, i also dont recommend Meru/Fortinet as its behind the times and not the nicest solution (again in my opinion)

Cambium is not an expensive product but it does have the vendor support therefore i would be happy to recommend to customers.

 

I wont be able to please everyone i understand but i would walk from a deal rather than try make a quick buck selling a solution i dont have confidence in. Again not me knocking peoples choices but from a personal perspective.

 

Margins would be low but they are for all hardware these days anyway but when they add support that boosts the margin for them.

 

So are they recommending due to the solution or budgets or are they pushing it to get the support contracts? i dont know the answer but food for thought

 

 

The answer is no, even if you added some support/extended warranty the price is still way below the quoted price for Cambium - you say they're not expensive but remember the like for like AP is 2.5x times more.

 

There's plenty of experienced Unifi support available out there if you want it/want to pay for it - you could always invest in your staff and get them certified. I suppose if you want manufacturer support you're going to have to pay much more - across all our schools I cannot think where we've needed manufacturer support on any of our kit beyond the usual RMA process and we could afford to hold loads of cold spares and still save a fortune. Truth be told we could rip it out every few years and still come out ahead of spending more in order to get a 5 year warranty etc.

 

It's clear you're aiming at a certain part of the market and there is a distinct level of snobbery within the industry when it comes to Unifi.

 

I say all of this as someone without any financial interest in a particular school going with Unifi or not, simply as a long term user of the products and someone who likes to see the taxpayer getting value for money - schools have a finite pot of money, if we spend more in one area we have to spend less in another.

 

We don't use their products at the core switch as they don't have anything suitable, but, by spending less on edge switching and APs this allows us to invest more into the core - our budgets are fine, we just manage them effectively.

 

Are you denying margins are lower on Unifi than on manufacturers such as Cambium, Meraki, Aruba etc?

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

The answer is no, even if you added some support/extended warranty the price is still way below the quoted price for Cambium - you say they're not expensive but remember the like for like AP is 2.5x times more.

 

There's plenty of experienced Unifi support available out there if you want it/want to pay for it - you could always invest in your staff and get them certified. I suppose if you want manufacturer support you're going to have to pay much more - across all our schools I cannot think where we've needed manufacturer support on any of our kit beyond the usual RMA process and we could afford to hold loads of cold spares and still save a fortune. Truth be told we could rip it out every few years and still come out ahead of spending more in order to get a 5 year warranty etc.

 

It's clear you're aiming at a certain part of the market and there is a distinct level of snobbery within the industry when it comes to Unifi.

 

I say all of this as someone without any financial interest in a particular school going with Unifi or not, simply as a long term user of the products and someone who likes to see the taxpayer getting value for money - schools have a finite pot of money, if we spend more in one area we have to spend less in another.

 

We don't use their products at the core switch as they don't have anything suitable, but, by spending less on edge switching and APs this allows us to invest more into the core - our budgets are fine, we just manage them effectively.

 

Are you denying margins are lower on Unifi than on manufacturers such as Cambium, Meraki, Aruba etc?

 

We are going in circles here, i have not denied anything and your missing the key points.

I have tried my best and i understand you dont like it as im not a fan of Unifi and you are despite me saying many times its personal preference.

 

As you say if you want manufacturing support you pay extra thats the difference in the support though, Manufacturer support or 3rd party.

 

I am glad you have had a great experience and loved it. However i have spoken to many other schools that have not had the same experience which is what i base my opinions on.

[Primus]

We are going in circles here, i have not denied anything and your missing the key points.

I have tried my best and i understand you dont like it as im not a fan of Unifi and you are despite me saying many times its personal preference.

 

As you say if you want manufacturing support you pay extra thats the difference in the support though, Manufacturer support or 3rd party.

 

I am glad you have had a great experience and loved it. However i have spoken to many other schools that have not had the same experience which is what i base my opinions on.

 

It's a discussion, I'm not missing the key points but you didn't answer my question - are margins lower on Unifi than they are on Cambium, Aruba or Meraki?

 

Are you sure your opinions (and many others in the industry) are not based more on margin than anything else, that Unifi have come into the market as an upstart and upset the hierarchy somewhat? If they are then that's fine, that's how business works but to avoid the issue is disingenuous.

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

It's a discussion, I'm not missing the key points but you didn't answer my question - are margins lower on Unifi than they are on Cambium, Aruba or Meraki?

 

Are you sure your opinions (and many others in the industry) are not based more on margin than anything else, that Unifi have come into the market as an upstart and upset the hierarchy somewhat? If they are then that's fine, that's how business works but to avoid the issue is disingenuous.

 

To answer your questions margins are roughly the same on all vendors, likely more on Aruba/Meraki due to cost but hardware margins are all similar,

My opinions are based on experience of my existing customers and experience of CWNP certified wireless engineers i deal with on a daily basis.

 

Hope this helps to answer your questions.

[Baerf]

To answer on what i found. We have recently gone down the Ubi route for wireless, we just wanted good wifi, and did not care about Application Control etc... For costs (and we purchased several hundred AP's) we purchased from a vendor and the margins they showed us was tiny - they were making roughly £5 per AP (less than 5%).

The reason why we went with Ubi was purely costs. Looking at Ruckus, Meraki Aruba, we were looking at doubling the project cost - maybe even more when taking into account continued support etc (there was still most likely a 5% margin per AP but as Redway states that would have equated to more margin due to high AP cost).

 

Lack of support is a concern for us, we were very clear on this when we started looking at them, and for that we built so that there so no single points of failure.

 

Ubi is in no way the best wireless solution, but it is cheaper if costs are a massive concern (for us it was, we simply only had a certain amount of cash, and a hardset of requirements).

 

We had them in for 4 months now - and had a good experience, but i'm under no illusion that we have a top tier wireless system.

[psydii]

I can understand that a specialist networking company is somewhat reluctant to recommend/sell kit where support is not good (in reality it may be fine, it may be enough, but on paper it might as well say "yeah good luck with that"). It is their reputation on the line if there is a problem with the installation.

 

We once went with Procurve for our switched network when the vendor's standard design was cisco (for this national scale project). Cisco was their preferred solution because it wasn't just reputation but financial penalties could be incurred, linked to underperformance. We went procurve because we got more bang for our buck (and fwiw most of that kit is still in use today). However there was a problem (bugs in switch firmware) and when it was first installed the network would occasionally become unusably unstable. It took months before a firmware patch was available. A stressed Solution Architect on the project observed with Cisco they'd have had actual named engineers on the phone working through the issue with private patches shipped within days, but with Procurve all they could do was send an email and wait...

 

It put the school back 10 years in terms of leadership's trust of IT, it was only after Aruba took over the Procurve division that this vendor moved back to promoting non-cisco switches again.

 

15 years later I've *needed* to update switch firmware three times across four vendors. However with wireless (again across four different vendors) firmware has needed updating almost bi-annually to maintain (or restore) stability. The only time I have had to raise a P1 ticket Aruba already had released the fix. From time to time I wonder if we could get away with Unifi, but then I remember how much damage an unstable network can do to trust.

[Cat_Jam148]

Ubi is in no way the best wireless solution, but it is cheaper if costs are a massive concern (for us it was, we simply only had a certain amount of cash, and a hardset of requirements).

We had them in for 4 months now - and had a good experience, but i'm under no illusion that we have a top tier wireless system.

Just gonna chime in here with my experience of UniFi - mid sized primary school, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it at all. We've been running UniFi kit for about 5 years now and it hasn't missed a beat. Once you start to get into large secondary schools, or colleges, that is when UniFi begins to falter.

 

We started with WiFi, which was leagues ahead of the Xirrus system put in a few years prior which had caused numerous issues. UniFi was a simple and cost effective replacement, which is exactly what we were looking for at the time. If you don't need all the bells and whistles of Aruba or Cisco, UniFi will comfortably handle what you throw at it. Our team was so impressed at the time, we ended up replacing all of the switch hardware to UniFi and its still going strong. *hopefully not jinxing us* but we've never had a serious issue with any of the kit. We have a couple of spare switches and APs ready to take over if the kit does go down, which is a necessary precaution due to the lack of support, but we've never had to use them. Any minor issues have been easily sorted by browsing forums or YT vids.

 

UniFi kit does seem to blur the line between consumer and enterprise grade, which is why I think some places are quick to dismiss, but I don't think you can knock them when it comes to value for money.

 

As always, it all depends on what you need from the equipment

Edited February 2, 2023 by Cat_Jam148

[Primus]

Just gonna chime in here with my experience of UniFi - mid sized primary school, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it at all. We've been running UniFi kit for about 5 years now and it hasn't missed a beat. Once you start to get into large secondary schools, or colleges, that is when UniFi begins to falter.

 

We started with WiFi, which was leagues ahead of the Xirrus system put in a few years prior which had caused numerous issues. UniFi was a simple and cost effective replacement, which is exactly what we were looking for at the time. If you don't need all the bells and whistles of Aruba or Cisco, UniFi will comfortably handle what you throw at it. Our team was so impressed at the time, we ended up replacing all of the switch hardware to UniFi and its still going strong. *hopefully not jinxing us* but we've never had a serious issue with any of the kit. We have a couple of spare switches and APs ready to take over if the kit does go down, which is a necessary precaution due to the lack of support, but we've never had to use them. Any minor issues have been easily sorted by browsing forums or YT vids.

 

UniFi kit does seem to blur the line between consumer and enterprise grade, which is why I think some places are quick to dismiss, but I don't think you can knock them when it comes to value for money.

 

As always, it all depends on what you need from the equipment

 

We've got large secondaries using it too.

[FN-GM]

Fun fact. Delta Airlines use Unifi access points....

[Roberto]

I’d absolutely buy unifi for my home. Or my church. And if a local school asked me for advice I’d tell them to consider it as well. I’d start having doubts about recommending it for a site the size and complexity of my former employer however.

 

I’m looking at a new office location/refit today where unifi is deployed throughout already and I’ve already recommended replacing it with Cisco Meraki because they’re unhappy with unifi and their WiFi has absolutely positively got to work for anything from running a teams meeting for 3 people through to handling the throughput necessary for the backstage /after party for a music festival (no, really!) or my reputation is on the line.

 

I know Meraki isn’t infallible, but their customer support is very good, they’re able to offer a level of guaranteed quality if I follow their model design, and they’re regarded as something of an industry standard so if there is a problem, no-one is going to say “what was Roberto thinking, selecting them for this deployment?”

Edited February 3, 2023 by Roberto

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

I’d absolutely buy unifi for my home. Or my church. And if a local school asked me for advice I’d tell them to consider it as well. I’d start having doubts about recommending it for a site the size and complexity of my former employer however.

 

I’m looking at a new office location/refit today where unifi is deployed throughout already and I’ve already recommended replacing it with Cisco Meraki because they’re unhappy with unifi and their WiFi has absolutely positively got to work for anything from running a teams meeting for 3 people through to handling the throughput necessary for the backstage /after party for a music festival (no, really!) or my reputation is on the line.

 

I know Meraki isn’t infallible, but their customer support is very good, they’re able to offer a level of guaranteed quality if I follow their model design, and they’re regarded as something of an industry standard so if there is a problem, no-one is going to say “what was Roberto thinking, selecting them for this deployment?”

 

 

Whats that old saying "no one ever got fired for buying Cisco"

[Chris_Cook]

My local sainsbury's too.

 

I don't think there is any issue around the hardware and software. Its a really capably and reliable solution. But the pre and post-sales support could be much better. If they sorted that out they could sell to a lot more organisations.

[speakercon]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does tech spotting in shops! I noticed Asda used to be cisco but seems to have moved to Aruba, IKEA still has cisco and the coop has Meraki.

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does tech spotting in shops! I noticed Asda used to be cisco but seems to have moved to Aruba, IKEA still has cisco and the coop has Meraki.

 

you are not the only one haha, my Mrs always asks why i always look at the ceilings haha

[mavhc]

Next question: What feature/missing feature made you pick/not pick a specific vendor? What can your Wifi do that someone else's can't?

[FN-GM]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who does tech spotting in shops!

 

Also guilty of this! There is a Facebook group dedicated to it!

[DrCheese]

Yarp, Guilty of it as well

 

[Baerf]

I’d absolutely buy unifi for my home. Or my church. And if a local school asked me for advice I’d tell them to consider it as well. I’d start having doubts about recommending it for a site the size and complexity of my former employer however.

 

I’m looking at a new office location/refit today where unifi is deployed throughout already and I’ve already recommended replacing it with Cisco Meraki because they’re unhappy with unifi and their WiFi has absolutely positively got to work for anything from running a teams meeting for 3 people through to handling the throughput necessary for the backstage /after party for a music festival (no, really!) or my reputation is on the line.

 

I know Meraki isn’t infallible, but their customer support is very good, they’re able to offer a level of guaranteed quality if I follow their model design, and they’re regarded as something of an industry standard so if there is a problem, no-one is going to say “what was Roberto thinking, selecting them for this deployment?”

Honest question, but is the poor wireless experience due to it being Ubi, or is it due to poor design / implementation?

 

I used to install Citrix for a living, and the amount of times i would get comments about how bad Citrix was based on their own experiences (slow being the main culprit), and after a quick look seeing how poorly it has been implemented (or even how bad the underlying network / AD was) it was no wonder they were having a bad experience.

I'm not trying to justify our solution, but as mentioned we've had no complaints since it's been installed. The near zero support is a key issue, but equally when we were a Cisco house their TAC support was so expensive, and just awful. We had major issues with an iOS release at the time, and we just couldn't get them to help us - with their line being we had to wait a few months before the next firmware release.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Baerf

[Roberto]

Honest question, but is the poor wireless experience due to it being Ubi, or is it due to poor design / implementation?

 

Oh, a bit of both, primarily poor design/implementation. Absolutely no doubt. But even if I had wanted to keep Unifi (and I should clarify, I did investiage this idea with our internal network specialists) the age of the kit and the state of the design would have meant a full rip and replace either way.

 

 

I used to install Citrix for a living, and the amount of times i would get comments about how bad Citrix was based on their own experiences (slow being the main culprit), and after a quick look seeing how poorly it has been implemented (or even how bad the underlying network / AD was) it was no wonder they were having a bad experience.

 

Yep. Couldn't agree more.

 

I'm not trying to justify our solution, but as mentioned we've had no complaints since it's been installed. The near zero support is a key issue, but equally when we were a Cisco house their TAC support was so expensive, and just awful. We had major issues with an iOS release at the time, and we just couldn't get them to help us - with their line being we had to wait a few months before the next firmware release.

 

A bad implementation of top-of-the-line equipment can easily be worse than a spotless implementation of "average" equipment I think.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Roberto

[mavhc]

A good system is hard to install incorrectly, or at least has tests to tell you what's wrong. If it can't debug itself and needs expensive humans, it's a brittle solution sold to giant companies who'll be forced to pay millions for support anyway

[Baerf]

A good system is hard to install incorrectly, or at least has tests to tell you what's wrong. If it can't debug itself and needs expensive humans, it's a brittle solution sold to giant companies who'll be forced to pay millions for support anyway

I'm not convinced that the Cisco wireless was a good solution. If we are talking about Cisco networking (switches, routers etc..) then i would 100% agree, expensive, but definitely up there as top of the range. But their wireless and VOIP solutions (i believe, but could be wrong, that Cisco purchased their wireless / VOIP platforms rather than built from inhouse) I've always considered average at best (we had all 3 solutions together for the best part of 7 years). Meraki is different beast than their Aironet (it was Aironet that we had), but their licensing model just rubs me up the wrong way.

 

Sorry, i'm hijacking the thread.

Edited February 6, 2023 by Baerf

[Jaan]

Also guilty of this! There is a Facebook group dedicated to it!

 

and what's this group called?