Steve, >From discussions that I have had with nsrc.org (the guys at University of >Oregon known for building networks in Africa), they really enjoy Ubiquiti for small and mid size networks (they use point to point and campus APs).
This said, you are managing a campus in the US and your population will most likely come with a diversity of devices and protocols that could rapidly overwhelm your network if you don't have the features to deal with it. If I were you I would definitely look into the features (traffic management more than AP management) that vendors offer for your price point. Aruba Networks has really been creative for some of those features and University of Tennessee uses quite a few of those for traffic management. It looks like traffic management is only going to get worse since all the Wi-Fi devices vendors are coming up with all kinds of interesting protocols. It's not just about coverage and throughput anymore... Philippe Philippe Hanset www.eduroam.us On Sep 10, 2013, at 4:24 PM, Steve Bohrer <[email protected]> wrote: > A few months ago there were some generally positive posts about Ubiquiti's > Air Fiber links, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried out their UniFi > controller-less campus wifi solution, particularly with their dual-band > "UniFi Pro AP" and/or their "UniFi AP AC" access points. > > For background, we are a very small college, and currently have an older > Cisco WLC/WPS system, mostly with their A/G APs; though we have "N" in one > building. The hardware limit of our current pair of WLCs is 75 APs, and we've > hit that, so are considering our next step: Expand our Cisco system with > newer gear; or else go to something else for our un-covered buildings, and > have two systems running side-by-side for a while as we transition to the new > system. > > I want to add about 25 APs right now to cover our four main dorms, and I > think our eventual full-coverage, high-density (for small values of "high"!) > deployment might be about 150 APs total. > > Staying with Cisco means upgrading from our WLC 4402s to 5508, which also > means upgrading from WCS to PI, and it is feeling a bit like overkill for our > size. I can't say that I've been heavily using all of the features and > reporting of our current WCS. > > We are having presentations from other vendors, and my Sys Admin recommended > Ubiquiti, and their price is _amazingly_ low. WIth their gear, we could add > the new APs and also replace all of our existing Cisco APs for significantly > less than the cost of adding 25 new Cisco "N" APs+WLC+PI. For our scale, that > is really attractive. > > Part of the cost saving, of course, is that Ubiquiti doesn't have reps and a > sales team and such, so we won't get nearly as whizzy a pitch from Ubiquiti > as we have from the rest of the wifi vendors. Thus, first hand experiences > from other schools that have actually deployed this stuff would be very > useful. > > Thanks for any pros or cons you can share about UniFi. (Feel free to mention > your favorite wifi system as well, if you think it reasonable for our small > scale and budget. From the stuff we've seen so far, I like Ruckus, Aerohive, > and Meru, but don't have much user feedback on any of them.) > > Steve Bohrer > Network Admin, ITS > Bard College at Simon's Rock > 413-528-7645 > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. > ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
