Wireless standalone v managed

[m25man]

This thread details the conversion of 1142 LWAPP to Autonomous so I think it's pretty likely that the reverse is possible.

https://supportforums.cisco.com/thread/2055997

 

Personally i think it seems a pretty pointless exercise to go through for just 8 APs

 

If you want to get the most from your existing real estate follow the Cisco recommendations here http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns394/ns348/ns767/ratification_checklist_brochure_c11-557441.pdf

As you will see Cisco recommend 5Ghz N deployments to suit your AP's

[Arthur]

Surely the fact the WAPs move round with the trolley is probably why you have so many issues?

Correct! SMT have now seen the error of their ways.

 

I don't see why an unmanaged AP moving around with a laptop trolley, where those laptops/netbooks have already associated with that AP, should be an issue.

You haven't met our teachers. We get WAPs being left in classrooms, dropped on the floor, go missing, interference from overlapping channels, poor throughput, laptops not connecting to the network, teachers switching the APs on after the students have booted up their laptops, damaged Ethernet cables, damaged network and electric sockets (caused by the teacher forgetting to unplug the cables when moving the trolley), broken antennas... the list never ends!!!

 

As Michael mentioned above, fixed WAPs would solve almost all of the issues, but there are still plenty of reasons why a proper managed wireless system would be advantageous.

[SimpleSi]

I am simply trying to find a solution to speed up our current setup, literally up to about 25 is fine, then after the last 5 you can really notice the lag, so my initial idea was to double the AP availability.

 

"1/2 hour arguement" is a Monty Python joke

 

In my school that had 15 laptops and used Bufallo standalone APs (1 per class), when we bought 30 netbooks, I simply added another standalone AP with a differerent SSID to each class and setup half the netbooks to connect to orig SSID and half to the new one

 

I'd thought that this would work just as well using your Cisco APs

 

Si

[Michael]

Arthur's taken the words out of my mouth. This is what happens in my experience too, so I assure you it isn't just your school!

 

This is why given the choice of comparatively small Primary school budgets, I'd rather have a WAP high up the wall in each teaching area rather than less WAPs and a controller or portable WAPs. In a Secondary school environment, you would typically have 100 WAPs at the very least, so a managed solution is both financially possible and justified. It would make managing the whole thing easier, even for a team of technicians.

[beany1]

Thanks for all the input everyone.