kevin_lane Posted January 24, 2012 Posted January 24, 2012 what do people use for their wireless infrastructure , how well does it perform, what would you change about it
m25man Posted January 24, 2012 Posted January 24, 2012 Ubiquiti Unifi, Brilliant, Nothing.... Deploying UniFi - Ubiquiti Networks Forum The big guys are running scared and its long overdue.
john Posted January 24, 2012 Posted January 24, 2012 Ruckus from @Net-Ctrl Performs great, had it in all the schools I have worked in and its been no problems and the same goes for the support from the team at Net-Ctrl What would I change about it.... Bring back Douglas the dog (sorry Edugeek joke and long story!) no seriously, I don't think there is anything at this moment I would change with it as it just works and does as it says, and Ruckus are very happy to take feedback on the product and do so as I have seen over the last 4 - 5 years its been in the UK 1
MatthewL Posted January 25, 2012 Posted January 25, 2012 Aruba - its great works well, only thing I would change is to revamp our whole network and start from scratch as its shocking. One thing I would make more use of is their RAPs if we could afford more of them.
EduTech Posted January 25, 2012 Posted January 25, 2012 I also recommend the Ruckus equipment, I recommend you speak to @Net-Ctrl for further information as they have a wealth of knowledge on wireless as a whole and will be able to provide you with the best solution for your environment. I have deployed Ruckus Wireless to Schools & Businesses and it has not failed me yet from 5 APs Including a External Site to Site Bridge to 25+ APs @john - Yes Douglas should come back he seems to have gone a bit quiet! ;-) James. 1
mavhc Posted January 25, 2012 Posted January 25, 2012 Cisco Well Enabling 802.11n wasn't quite as simple as it should have been
kevin_lane Posted January 25, 2012 Author Posted January 25, 2012 brill think Ruckus might be the ticket then "hopefully" thanks people
netadmin Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 We use Ruckus. It really works great, although we purchased the single band "N" access points; if I had to do the install again, I would have gone with the dual band "N" access points to give a bit more speed and more capacity for the future.
psydii Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 Dual Band, Dual Radio APs that support at least 3x3 MIMO Ideally 3x3 (or better) Wireless clients. A metal roof to create viritual APs in the sky (just lucky there) A support contract with the manufacturer. Certified structured cabling between your APs and the rest of the network A site survey to check there's no nasty RF interference on site. End users devices purchases specification requirement that they must work with {insert wireless vendor here} Handover documentation and training. What would I change? More radios from day one. We planned for blanket coverage with some areas having better signal than others, to be augmented over a number of years with additional AP's based on device usage around the site. In practice we should have bitten the bullet and gone at least one radio per classroom (in our case that would have physically been one AP per two classrooms). I've never yet had a controller fail in the seven years I've been running controller based WLANs, but having them as a single point of failure for what is now in effect THE network infrastructure worries me. Even with a 4hr swap out contract.
m25man Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 Sorry but... With Broadcom manufacturing .ac chips, handset vendors already planning integration and AP manufacturers already lining up kit, unless your controllers and AP's are upgradable to as yet un-established standards anything on the current vendors shelves is likely to be obsolete before you have even managed to get part of your ROI.... A few key design enhancements in 802.11ac compared to 802.11n are 1. Wider channel width i.e. 80 MHz mandatory, or 160 MHz optional (40 MHz maximum in IEEE 802.11n) 2. Higher modulation i.e., 256 QAM (64 QAM in case of IEEE 802.11n) 3. MU-MIMO (Multi User MIMO, SU-MIMO in case of 802.11n). 4. Short GI which is 400 μsec 5. STBC (Space Time Block Coding) and LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) codes 6. Maximum up to eight spatial streams (four in IEEE 802.11n) The SAI 802.11ac PHY includes support for these features: - Support for all channel combinations including 160 MHz contiguous as well as 80+80 MHz combination - Full PLCP header support for VHT mode including VHT-SIG-A/B as well as VHT-LTF and VHT-STF - PHY configuration and legacy protection in mixed mode – including CTS/RTS and L-SIG-TXOP - All MCS and FEC modes defined by the standard - Multiple antenna support in a number of modes including o NxM MIMO combinations (Up to 8x8) with no restrictions on N and M o Spatial mapping and STBC support o All CSD combinations o SU and MU MIMO - Receiver supports includes channel estimation and MIMO detection - Beamforming support includes o Steering vector calculations using antenna mesaurements o Implicit/Explicit beam forming reports o VHT compressed beamforming report o MU-MIMO beamforming report o MIMO beamforming algorithms using received reports - Performance data for this is measured o Using channel definitions from the 802.11ac standard (in draft form) models a-f o Delivering performance data such a BER/PER as well as RSSI and Channel frequency response per link. The next 18 months in the WiFi market is going to get really interesting, that's for sure. I for one will be sure not to go spending £000's on obsolete kit.
m25man Posted January 26, 2012 Posted January 26, 2012 A very interesting video from the wifi mobility symposium today, the Ruckus guy definately not comfortable with the comments of his peers. If you have 47mins to spare its worth a view. Gigabit Wi-Fi (802.11ac/ad) Discussed at the Wi-Fi Mobility Symposium on Vimeo 1
steveg Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 We've got Ruckus kit in 2 schools and love it - it just works. Have deployed netgear git (managed) in 2 other schools, and it works ok, and unmanaged netgear kit in countless others, which also works fine for smaller deployments. We've just purchased 6 Unifi access points, and are about to do a strait swap in one of the managed netgear schools as a trial. I will do some tests before and after to see how it compares. - The price on this kit seems too good to be true - 6 ap's and a controller (ok software only so you have to run it on a vm or old pc) for £400! Steve
Soulfish Posted January 27, 2012 Posted January 27, 2012 Big fan of Aerohive here. Just works, and no controller to worry about
gshaw Posted January 30, 2012 Posted January 30, 2012 (edited) Keep the replies coming guys, I'm considering Ruckus, AeroHive and now Ubiquity (due to the crazy low price)... Gut instincts say... Ruckus - proven and nice solution, good performance and seems to cover with less APs than some competitors... just the cost for controller that's a bit of a pain AeroHive - nice management, like the controller-less solution but don't like the fact the costs are just shunted onto "management" which becomes an ongoing cost (or an upfront VM purchase that's the same price as the Ruckus controller!) Ubiquity - so cheap I could cover the whole building for the same price as 1 controller for other solutions but I have some doubts over long-term reliability and build quality (it's almost too good to be true so have corners been cut somewhere?) Edited January 30, 2012 by gshaw
witch Posted January 30, 2012 Posted January 30, 2012 Ruckus in one School - Meru in the other Just works
m25man Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 Keep the replies coming guys, I'm considering Ruckus, AeroHive and now Ubiquity (due to the crazy low price)... Gut instincts say... Ubiquity - so cheap I could cover the whole building for the same price as 1 controller for other solutions but I have some doubts over long-term reliability and build quality (it's almost too good to be true so have corners been cut somewhere?) To all Ubiquiti sceptics, invite me along to your next money burning session I like a good laugh.... just spend the £199.99 inc VAT & delivery and test it for yourself it's like Marmite.
IrritableTech Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 We have a ruckus system supplied by @Net-Ctrl which works really well. Full site coverage, healthy throughput throughout. Our biggest issue is our rubbish LEA internet connection which is really throwing a spanner in the works of our BYOD plans.
gshaw Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 (edited) To all Ubiquiti sceptics, invite me along to your next money burning session I like a good laugh.... just spend the £199.99 inc VAT & delivery and test it for yourself it's like Marmite. I'm sure it'll work and work well like your live site suggests Question is with 1y warranty will it keep working reliably for 3-4 years solid or are we looking a gift horse in the mouth??? Edited January 31, 2012 by gshaw
m25man Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 @gshaw I think £54 a point (£74 with .af adaptor) 1 yrs warranty is a pretty fair. I expect 3 yrs on £3k server but even then they want additional premiums for 4 hr on sites and stuff. I have heard of an installer in the midlands charging £1700 pa for a maintenance contract on a 20 point installation. (Wish I had thought of that). @SYSMAN_MK whilst Unifi are only 2.4Ghz, Single Band, Single Radio - but then again so are more than 70% of the BYODs that pass through my system. On the Dual Band Ciscos and ZyXEL's we had previously we hardly ever saw a client associate with them at 5Ghz, the odd Mac and occasional iPad. 2x2 MIMo can deliver 300 Mbps (150 Mbps Full Duplex) wireless throughput, but that uses a 40Mhz channel slot which mashes the 1,6,11 cell planning so as most installations use a single 20 MHz channel this seldom yields more than 65Mbps using single slot N, so without Dual Band there is no requirement for Gigabit backhaul so why waste more money on providing it. The PoE is passive 24v and standard throughout Ubiquiti stuff, why? Prior to Unifi they specialised in Point to Point which isn't reliant on 802.11af and a lot of it is run on batteries and Solar/wind power and lots of switch gear isn't a requirement. Once again without having to change radio production too much costs are kept to a minimum. Obviously high density deployments such as schools that already have 802.11af everywhere this can be a frustration but for an extra £20 a point can be solved easily. As and when UBNT deliver Dual Band Dual Radio (and they will), with Gigabit and .af compliant PoE they will just plug in along side or replace the existing units. Unfortunately I expect they will be three times the size and four times the price but even then will still be half the price of their competitors.
psydii Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 whilst Unifi are only 2.4Ghz, Single Band, Single Radio - but then again so are more than 70% of the BYODs that pass through my system. On the Dual Band Ciscos and ZyXEL's we had previously we hardly ever saw a client associate with them at 5Ghz, the odd Mac and occasional iPad. But BYOD's won't be doing the bandwidth heavy stuff like syncing offline files and roaming profiles so being able to keep the institution's devices on the 5Ghz range has its uses. 2x2 MIMo can deliver 300 Mbps (150 Mbps Full Duplex) wireless throughput, but that uses a 40Mhz channel slot which mashes the 1,6,11 cell planning so as most installations use a single 20 MHz channel this seldom yields more than 65Mbps using single slot N, so without Dual Band there is no requirement for Gigabit backhaul so why waste more money on providing it. That's where single channel architecture has its benefits , and a network that supports 5Ghz as well as 2.4. Just out of interest, how many APs, institutional devices, BYOD devices do you currently see and what do you expect to see in a couple of years?
m25man Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 Absolutely agreed, but how many schools actually have a/b/g/n laptops? How many are actually getting more than 65Mbps connection rates? Making wireless clients try to do the same work as wired desktops has been a utopia that has consumed more of school budgets than I care to think of. 11ac may change this forever - in the future. The private schools are clearly heading up the BYOD campaign and there is a definate increase in the use of RDP and VDI. So if you deliver a usable wireless infrastructure they will definately come. Just how many I have no idea but I'm certain that the way it's used is going to shift the traditional bottlenecks to different places. Where we used to worry about how to get 20 laptops logged in over wifi it will be how do we throttle 200 BYODs through the web connection!
psydii Posted January 31, 2012 Posted January 31, 2012 Almost every laptop I have every bought for a school has been a/b/g/(n) going back to when the rules on the 5ghz band was relaxed. I do wonder whether this is in part why my experiences have been so positive. That said some early n kit was totally bobbins. So you will have to excuse me if I am skeptical that 11ac is going to obsolete my shiney 3x3:2 dual band 40Mhz Channel'ed n network any time soon. Maybe we'll be looking wistfully on in four or five years. But as an interim, right now, depending on what you want it to do I must say that Ubiquity stuff looks interesting. But for many hundreds to thousands of devices I think Meru or Xirrus have the most promising technology. You are right about the problem at the edge - caching and traffic shaping are going to become key technologies in a NM's arsenal.
m25man Posted February 1, 2012 Posted February 1, 2012 But for many hundreds to thousands of devices I think Meru or Xirrus have the most promising technology. You are right about the problem at the edge - caching and traffic shaping are going to become key technologies in a NM's arsenal. I would also have to agree this is something we have looked at for complete in bowl stadium wifi distribution, a 20,000 crowd could easily create 2000 wifi users for which we need 8-10 Xirrus units and a gigabit Internet backhaul. With around 30 home matches a season it would take years to recoup the capital outlay which is why we keep it simple with 16 Unifi and 200 users DHCP lease time of 2 hours. If we stay up next season I might splash out on the Sonicwall Web Accelerator Appliance
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