Extricom or Ruckus (or indeed anything else really good at coping with interference)

[Vi7ER]

Hi all,

 

Just looking for up to date advice or opinions on which manufacturer to go with. I just had a quick demo of Extricom and have heard good things about Ruckus so am favouring one of those two but am open to any really.

 

Our key thing is dealing with the neighbouring schools spread of APs in all bands.

 

Anyway, as I say, any tips or thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

[dave.81]

We are a boarding school with Ruckus, there are staff onsite with their own wireless. It deals with these with no issue and changes channels to suit.

[john]

We have Ruckus at our site, and I have had it in my last 2 schools and its great, using it for BYOD, School Owned and Guest units in my current place and it works great @Net-Ctrl supplied it to us and have been brilliant

[bossman]

@Vi7ER:

 

I would also have a look at Aerohive Wi-Fi and wired network access for branch office and headquarters @Soulfish has it at his academy and has had good results.

[bio]

+1 for cisco with cleanair

 

bio..

[Vi7ER]

I've just had an Aerohive webex and they are sending me a demo unit. I do like the features and distributed nature of the Aerohive and will see how it copes in our interference zone when I demo it, as that is our key concern.

 

FYI both the Ruckus and Extricom I've had demo'd worked great despite the interference but that was not hooked up our own network which I will insist on before purchasing any solution.

 

In my mind the Ruckus tech is going to be best at actually coping with interference due to their Antenna array. Aerohive seems the most robust and feature full though.

 

Any more tips or thoughts are most welcome!

[SuperfluousAdjective]

Hi all,

 

Just looking for up to date advice or opinions on which manufacturer to go with. I just had a quick demo of Extricom and have heard good things about Ruckus so am favouring one of those two but am open to any really.

 

Our key thing is dealing with the neighbouring schools spread of APs in all bands.

 

Anyway, as I say, any tips or thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

 

Cheers

We inherited Extricom here. It is the bane of our existence. It doesn't work properly, firmware is a joke, radio strength seems weak. Simple things like link lights not working on their controllers to connected devices. Radio strength being very weak compared to other wireless solutions in our environment.

 

Coverage seems to be twice as strong when placing a Meraki or third party device directly on top of the Extricom access point to do a 1-1 comparison. Throughput and coverage was more than doubled. I would save yourself the headache.

Edited July 6, 2012 by SuperfluousAdjective

[Vi7ER]

At the moment I am pretty much leaning towards Ruckus!

 

I've not yet tested Aerohive but as I said there should be a test unit with me soon. I like what Aerohive is capable of from a management perspective, but the really important thing is just having a really solid wifi solution and I think Ruckus maybe topdog thanks to it's fancy radio arrays.

[glennda]

I've been playing with Maraki Recently and have to say the coverage seems pretty good as well as coping with interferance. In our office block alone there is 12 other AP's and it works pretty much throughout. We where testing yesterday when driving a wirelessly controlled Romo. We are on the second floor and sent it up to the 4th. Out building is a very thick wall old Mill.

[old_n07]

We are in the process of testing Meraki, Rukus, Extricom, Aerohive, Aruba and Xirrus for the next few weeks before making a descision on a solution after having HP installed and then ripped out again because it didn't work

 

Currently we have a Meraki MR24 installed in the office and it isn't performiing very well, it can't stream a HD video source from a local server without stuttering to a Macbook and we are also having problems with a Toshiba laptop with a Realtek wireless NIC.

 

We are expecting the Rukus, Aerohive and Extricom kit next week so we can do some side by side testing and the other offerings by the end of the following week.

 

We like the look of the Aerohive (with it being controler-less) and Rukus solutions but the price on the Rukus is a lot more than the Areohive when specing the triple stream AP's considering we are looking at 120 ish.

[glennda]

Currently we have a Meraki MR24 installed in the office and it isn't performiing very well, it can't stream a HD video source from a local server without stuttering to a Macbook and we are also having problems with a Toshiba laptop with a Realtek wireless NIC.

 

Which Macbook out of interest? My boss has a MB Pro and hasn't had a single problem - we are using the MR16 as these where the NFR unit's we received from them.

[old_n07]

It is a Macbook Pro about 18 months old IIRC, Meraki have been on the phone talking to one of the other members of our team and they were going to update the firmware to see if it makes any difference.

 

It was just one AP put up in the office as basic test, we will be fitting four AP's (2 x MR16 + 2 x MR24) in the test area next week so we can do some proper testing including voice roaming between AP's.

[glennda]

It is a Macbook Pro about 18 months old IIRC, Meraki have been on the phone talking to one of the other members of our team and they were going to update the firmware to see if it makes any difference.

 

It was just one AP put up in the office as basic test, we will be fitting four AP's (2 x MR16 + 2 x MR24) in the test area next week so we can do some proper testing including voice roaming between AP's.

 

Not tried voice roaming with ours yet, data roaming is fine - will be interesting to hear how you get on. I'm rolling out 8 x MR16's to a client this week (one at each office). have you done any work with there switching? Trying to get myself an NFR unit but we signed up as a wireless partner!

[old_n07]

No, we haven't used their switches got to say cosmetically they'll appeal to the Apple fan boys but I don't know how they perform as we have a Procurve wired network

[glennda]

No, we haven't used their switches got to say cosmetically they'll appeal to the Apple fan boys but I don't know how they perform as we have a Procurve wired network

 

Yes they do - I'm a procurve Fan just if the switches can perform being able to send a switch to a client and it be pre-configured with a setup would be brilliant.

[old_n07]

I can see the appeal of being abble to do the config via the internet cloud if you have multiple sites to look after http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h208/old_n07/emoticons/thumbs.gif Edited July 8, 2012 by old_n07

[glennda]

I can see the appeal of being abble to do the config via the internet cloud if you have multiple sites to look after http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h208/old_n07/emoticons/thumbs.gif

 

Not just multiple sites - multiple companies across multiple counties. With all switching for all companies in one place and just choose company and look at there switching. All depends on the performance of the devices.

[iSteve]

I would not touch Extricom with a barge pole. We had a system installed which never worked properly. The install was cheap (access points cable tied to pipes above false ceilings). Throughput was a joke. When we asked for help we were told we needed a £1300 support contract. When I asked reseller for where to find updated firmware for the switch they said we needed a £1300 support contract. We have retired the system now and it's just providing open access for 6th form smartphones / netbooks in a cafe area.

 

We are very interested in Xirrus. Not sure of the costs yet but we have a survey scheduled in a couple of weeks

[HC_Netman]

We currently have an Extricom system installed and in the past I would have happily recommended them, however, it is now near impossible to get any decent level of support for the kit without paying massively over the odds. There are very few companies that support the Extricom kit near us (North West) so they just hike the prices up. Extricom themselves don't want to know and won't release firmware updates without a support contract.

 

We are currently exploring our options to gradually phase it out as we can't afford to do it all in one go.

 

I certainly wouldn't recommend them to anyone else now - although generally the kit has actually worked quite well for us! If they had the support to back it up then maybe it would be a different story.

[MicrodigitUK]

We currently have Extricom 802.11n kit site wide. Let’s just say not impressed and wish the mony had been spent on another solution.

 

We are now in the slow process of replacing the Extricom bit by bit as we can afford it with Ruckus.

 

Sorry Extricom but the New Ruckus kit outperforms, hands down. I wish the school had never purchased the Extricom kit… What a waste of money.

 

Also used Aruba kit at an old school and would recommend that also.

 

Ruckus or Aruba I would personally recommend.

[Vi7ER]

Anyone had any hands on with Aerohive?

[old_n07]

Anyone had any hands on with Aerohive?

 

We had two AP330's delivered late Friday afternoon for testing

[Synkrox]

Dont forget to check out the HP Wireless solution - we have it here and it works a treat. Got very keen pricing as an HP bid. Fully integrated with PCM so you can see network overview both wired and wireless all from one screen. We went with the MSM430 AP's and a 765ZL that just plugs into our core switch. From power button to desktop, class set of 30 laptops in <3 mins, about 30 secs longer than wired :-)