We were a Meru customer between 2006 and 2013. In the early years we were very satisfied. Virtual cell worked well for us, stability and performance were good as well. There was little need for extensive technical support as the system worked as advertised. Over the years the quality of the Meru solution took a substantial hit. In calendar year 2012 we had to reboot our MC4100 controller (320, 320i and 1020i AP's) every 30-60 days. If we didn't reboot clients wouldn't be able to connect. Technical support became un-responsive and often took days if not weeks to resolve issues. In fact we worked with technical support over six months to resolve our client connection problems; we finally gave up.
For us the final straw was Meru's handling of an incident that caused our 1020i AP's to reboot within 24 hours. Instead of fixing the problem (isn't that what we pay maintenance for?) they tried to fix it by selling us a new controller. Summer 2013 we rip and replaced our Meru installation with Ruckus. We have observed the following: - Drastically improved controller and AP uptime - Much larger number of clients able to connect to an AP. We regularly see 100+ client connections to a Ruckus 7372 AP. We have field verified that data flows freely even with that client load. - Built in management capability and reporting that far exceeds anything Meru has available, including EzRF - Fewer help desk calls about wireless problems - Clients that stay connected to the wireless network for days and weeks (instead of minutes and hours with Meru) Admittedly we now have a few roaming problems that we didn't have with our Meru installation. Still I'm kicking myself for not making this change sooner. Feel free to email any specific questions you may have. From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John McMillan Sent: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 11:31 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Experience with Meru Hello all, Has anyone here worked with Meru Networks gear? We've got some client density issues (primarily in auditorium spaces) that our Cisco gear doesn't support very well and we're investigating alternative solutions for those areas. We met briefly with Meru and the technology looks interesting, but I'm curious to hear if it lives up to the hype. Thanks, John McMillan University of South Alabama Computer Services Center ********** 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/.
