I need to choose a wireless solution for a new office.
up to 600 devices will connect. most devices are mac books and mobile phones.
we can see hundreds of access points in close proximity to our new office space.
what are the thoughts these days on the best enterprise solution/vendor?
Thanks for your replies.
Ken King
Ubiquity
or ubikity, maybe is miss spelled
Someone correct the spelling for him please
thank you
I have had great success with Ruckus Wireless gear, specifically their 7962
access points.
Our offices are pretty noisy radio environments, typically over 70 access
points show up on scans, mostly in the 2.4 range though.
We use WPA2 with 802.11X for auth, plus a guest zone managed by the Ruckus
wireless controller, works smooth haven't had any problems so far.
Part of my decision was based on a Tom's Hardware review of access points:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/beamforming-wifi-ruckus,2390.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wi-fi-performance,2985.html
Brent Jones
Ubiquity (www.ubnt.com) has their Unifi line of products. It's still
pretty new in the marketspace and this, working out the bugs. I use
their other products exclusively for outdoor wireless.
However, in the offices ive done, ive used Cisco's WLC 4402 controller
which supports 12 access points. They have controllers which support
more APs as well.
Hit me up offlist if you have any quesrions.
-mike
Cisco's wireless solutions are pretty badass. The APs I've used are
absolutely rock solid. Set up will take a bit of time, but once you're
done, maintenance is minimal.
Ubiquiti's Unifi products are decent, and have *MUCH* improved since their original release (amazing what you can do with better code!). In the original release, you had to have a management server running on the same L2 network as the Aps - they've moved the management to a L3 model so you can put the controller elsewhere. The big PITA with their system is that any change requires 'reprovisioning' the APs, which means rebooting all of them in sequence. They've added VLANs, multiple SSID's/AP, wireless backhaul/chaining, guest portalling, and limiters to balance the # of clients / AP.
In a noisy environment, I've found that they top out at around 30 devices / AP for good performance, and 50 devices / AP for 'working/not working'. In a clean environment, I've seen decent performance with 70 - 100 devices / AP. Of course, if one bad client comes along (with a card that doesn't backoff its TX power, etc), it can wreak havoc with higher densities. You really can't argue with Unifi's price.
If you move up the price scale, Meraki seems to be a good midrange solution, and they have some really sweet reporting functionality. They're more expensive, though.
And then, yes, Cisco is the gold standard, but it will cost you some gold to get it.
Nathan
Hi,
We chose the 3Com, now H3C wx3012 controller and AP9552 accesspoints.
Initial issues where that blackberries could not connect to the wifi, the support initially was mediocre.
Do note that this was at the time that everything got sold to HP. And they did pick up the issue and came around with a fix in about a month time.
It's been working swell since then, I mean, the spelling errors in the UI I can live with. It's been stable so far. It was also by far the most reasonably priced. That counts for something.
Vlans, radius, captive portal etc, worked for me. Ui is good enough to use and diagnose clients. Wireless coverage, is ... well, it's wireless.
Reliable wireless isn't. Unless it's 5Ghz, and stopped by 1 floor or wall. I digress.
Regards,
Seth
I use ruckus in town and city installs and despite rather a lot of other APs it performs very well.
I don't have experience of them in high connected station density though.
I have had great success with Ruckus Wireless gear, specifically their 7962
access points.
Our offices are pretty noisy radio environments, typically over 70 access
points show up on scans, mostly in the 2.4 range though.
We use WPA2 with 802.11X for auth, plus a guest zone managed by the Ruckus
wireless controller, works smooth haven't had any problems so far.
Part of my decision was based on a Tom's Hardware review of access points:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/beamforming-wifi-ruckus,2390.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/wi-fi-performance,2985.html
Brent Jones
I'd recommend Aruba. Not a fan of the Cisco wifi controller gear.
cisco made the controller only to buy it?
ubiquity or Mikrotik.
END!
Any body tried "Proxim ORiNOCO AP-8000", I have them in two airport and
they really sucks 
Meraki... ;^)
Seconded!
Joe Johnson
Chief Information Officer
Riverside Consulting Group, Ltd.
Innovative Technology Solutions
365 Addison Road
Riverside, Illinois 60546
Phone: 708.442.6033 x3456
Fax: 708.443.4496
joe@riversidecg.com
www.riversidecg.com
+1 f/Aruba ... and check out the BlackHat conferences, also.
I'd like to stick my neck out for Meraki also.. They rock.
-Scott
Since we're already top-posting…
I've heard a lot of talk on the WISPA (wireless ISP) forum that 802.11g/n starts to fall apart with more than 30 clients associated if they're all reasonably active. I believe this is a limitation of 802.11g/n's media access control (MAC) mechanism, regardless of who's brand is on the box. This is most important if you're doing VoIP or anything else where latency and jitter is an issue.
To get around that limitation, folks are using proprietary protocols with "polling" media access control. Ubiquiti calls theirs AirMax. Cisco uses something different in the "Canopy" line. But of course then you've gone to something proprietary and only their gear can connect. So it's meant more for back-hauls and distribution networks, not for end users unless they use a proprietary CPE.
Since you need consumer gear to be able to connect, you need to stick with 802.11g/n. You should limit to 30 clients per AP. You should stagger your 2.4GHZ APs on channels 1, 6 and 11, and turn the TX power down and have them spaced close enough that no more than 30 will end up connecting to a single AP. 5.8GHz APs would be better, and you'll want to stagger their channels too and turn the TX power down so each one has a small footprint to only serve those clients that are nearby.
Stay away from "mesh" solutions and WDS where one AP repeats another, that kills throughput because it hogs airtime. You'll want to feed all the APs with Ethernet.
Greg
Another one which looks promising for high-density locations is Xirrus
(www.xirrus.com)
Haven't ever used them though.
-mike
Very cool. Because all the individual APs are in one enclosure and I assume are under control of one central controller, I bet they're sync'ing all the AP's transmitters to transmit and listen at the same time so the APs don't interfere with each other. Cisco does that in their Canopy line with GPS sync.
Greg
I like Cisco's WLC's as well. Where I am working we have a few hundred AP's at one of our sites with WLC's running the show. The 5500 controllers with CleanAir AP's is awesome.
Dave