Which Wireless??

[magicaltrevor83]

Hi,

 

I just wanted to stick another shout in for Xirrus. We have tested all the main ones before we bought, including most mentioned here, and Xirrus was the only one who could reliably get a whole trolley logged in and working within 10 mins (from a cold boot), which was our aim. Installation across the whole site is scheduled to start in a couple of weeks.

 

Give this guy a shout, he's usually very obliging(! ) and will come out to have a chat at least.

 

Simon Hollister { Removed as requested by Simon }

 

 

 

 

Cheers

Edited September 24, 2014 by ZeroHour

[AyatollahPies]

Just stumbled across Xirrus over the weekend. They provide a free tool for inspecting Wi-Fi signals. Been looking for such a tool for ages. Looking forward to testing it this afternoon.

[Joedetic]

I can also recommend Ruckus and Net-Ctrl. They worked fantastically to get us the right stuff

[12YrsWirelessExpertise]

This is my first post on here and its really interesting to see all the different opinions on Wireless and the various solutions. I have been in IT for 12 years and a specialist in Wireless for around 10 of those. I am currently consulting for various organisations but here are some things you might find useful questions to ask when looking at wireless:

 

What is the total cost? Remember to look at installation time, cable runs, switch ports and disruption to the school!

 

Architecture - Is the system reliant on a centralised controller (which you may need buy another one for true redundancy) or is it like a true switching environment with the intelligence at the edge (i.e. controller built in to each device for fast processing and high bandwidth with central control software)?

 

Will the vendor go in a real head to head test against competitors? Try it out!

 

What is the upgrade path to 802.11n?

Has the vendor done a real life site survey? Its unbelievable to think that anyone would purchase any wireless system without having a real life survey of their environment done. Predictive means nothing. No predictive tool in the world will know exactly what the propagation of your RF environment will be. A real life site survey will give you accurate results. It may be time consuming but if the vendor is serious about their claims they will do this. And then give a 100% coverage guarantee. This will allow a much lower risk deployment.

 

What do the reseller/vendor charge for services?

 

For my opinion centralised architectures are old hat, last generation. Just like switches you need your intelligence at the edge. You need directional antennas - this increases throughput, bandwidth and coverage. Seriously, who in their right mind deploys a solution which requires a controller, and for redundancy another one and all the cost. You need 100% coverage guarantee and a real life survey. Anything is selling yourself short.

 

I am a big fan of the Xirrus architecture and the surveying methodology they have and its always done exactly what it said it would. For multiple laotops logging on, I have never found anything to come near it and I have been testing various wireless solutions from most major vendors for years. Recently heard of a direct head to head against 3 other vendors where Xirrus was head and shoulders above the rest. Any thoughts/feedback?

[Lostsoul125]

I do vouche for Xirrus as well. My workplace looked into the other Wi-Fi companies mentioned above. Xirrus was the only Wi-Fi vendor capable of meeting our needs and being within our budget.

 

When we contacted them initially, we had them come out and give us a FREE site survey within a few days. They guaranteed the amount of Arrays that we needed to power up the whole building with Wi-Fi and the site survey proved to be on point. They allowed us to have some demo units to test their infrastructure for a few days as well, so we knew what we were buying.

 

We actually saved a great amount with Xirrus. We stayed within our budget because the site survey was free, they required less cabling and devices, which save installation time...which then saved us on cost!

 

If you are looking for a company that is pleasant to deal with, definitely check them out.

[Domino]

Remember your sources people - 3 new members in one day extolling the virtues of one product with muchos marketing hablos.....

 

Not impressed

[Lostsoul125]

Remember your sources people - 3 new members in one day extolling the virtues of one product with muchos marketing hablos.....

 

Not impressed

 

That is pretty funny. I'm not affiliated with them what so ever, trust me I wish I would get paid for talking about a company. I saw all your posts about how great you believe Ruckus is, so I decided to throw my 2 cents in there and talk about my success with Xirrus.

 

Sorry if there's such thing as COINCIDENCE. I can't not speak for others but I joined to gain information and to give information.

[markcuk]

Remember your sources people - 3 new members in one day extolling the virtues of one product with muchos marketing hablos.....

 

Not impressed

 

Be nice

 

its just another opinion and another product for people to look into.

 

You gonna need 3 quotes anyway might as well look at 3 or more different solutions/products as well

 

ask for some demo equipment for a month or so and try it (most company's will do this)

 

mark

Edited May 7, 2009 by markcuk

[Domino]

You have to remember we get a lot of spam/product pushing on here- but it's good to see you're not just doing that :-)

 

If you've a solution that makes you as happy as I am by ruckus then good one

[Lostsoul125]

No harm done, i totally understand! I do agree that potential customers should check out different vendors before deciding on who to go with.

 

Speaking of which, has anyone dealt with Bel Air? I was at an educational tradeshow a while back when I had no idea what wi-fi vendor we wanted to go with. I was at the Xirrus booth asking a few questions about covering the outside of the facility, and the Bel Air guys are at the Xirrus booth trying to steal me away as a customer. Very unprofessional, I don't think any competitors have the right to stand at another company's booth to try to defer potential clients. Sad to say Bel Air wasn't even on my Wi-Fi vendor raidar.

[featured_spectre]

that said, whilst waiting for budget, we had xirrus out today, did a full site survey, 7 points would be needed in our place, whereas we would need 10 with ruckus, and 37 with Cisco!

 

As for cost, we dont know yet, however Ruckus is looking like the most effective means.

[Tallwood_6]

Well i cant speak for Xirrus but we are currently trialling ruckus and so far i'm very impressed, setup the controller and clients in a matter of minutes, coverage is speed seems very good as well. We had some aruba kit in for trial as well over the last couple of weeks, a very powerful solution in terms of what it could do but requires more time in initial setup, coverage and speed was better than are existing HP fat AP'S but is not looking as good as Ruckus. Pricing for the Ruckus also looks far more competative than anything else i've looked at thus far.

[12YrsWirelessExpertise]

Thats sounds good. Do you mind me asking how many clients and AP's? I have several scenarios I am looking at right now. And 2 other things - are all devices on a single channel? and what happens in terms of redundancy when the controller is unplugged?

I have a client of mine who could be looking at a critical availability on wireless.......although if your parting with money for something, you always want availability

[Haptic]

Well i cant speak for Xirrus but we are currently trialling ruckus and so far i'm very impressed, setup the controller and clients in a matter of minutes, coverage is speed seems very good as well. We had some aruba kit in for trial as well over the last couple of weeks, a very powerful solution in terms of what it could do but requires more time in initial setup, coverage and speed was better than are existing HP fat AP'S but is not looking as good as Ruckus. Pricing for the Ruckus also looks far more competative than anything else i've looked at thus far.

 

be sure to give us a shout for a comparison Ruckus Quote as we are very competitive against other Ruckus Resellers:cool: