Cisco Aironet 2702i vs Meraki MR18 vs Meraki MR26

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KapsZ28

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Our office currently has three of the UniFi AP models which seem terrible. I have tried the AC model and also haven't been impressed with the wireless N capability.

The size of the office is 200' x 100'. The ceilings are very high so the current AP's are mounted on the walls. There are about 70 users, but most are not using wireless. I want to get something more enterprise grade than the UniFi.

It was recommended to get two Meraki MR18's to cover the entire office, but I think four or five may be more appropriate especially if one is dedicated to the conference room. It seems the MR26 has a bit more performance than the MR18, but when looking at the Cisco Aironet 2702, the price is much lower for the Cisco. Even with three year extended warranty the Cisco has a much better price. I know the cloud management is a perk of Meraki, but I am not too concerned about that. I am more looking for performance and reliability. Obviously Cisco now owns Meraki, but in the past most enterprises I have worked at always used Cisco.

What do you think would be the best option?
 
Hardware-wise, the Cisco AP's are about the best you can get. They do their own R&D, make their own chips (some, not all), and are the cutting edge of what is the best. I've seen a couple presentations on how they design them and the thought that goes into it.

That being said, to get the most out of them you need a WLC (wireless controller). I don't know if Cisco still sells autonomous units, so that is something to consider when figuring the price. You'll want a WLC2504 controller to manage them.

Meraki, other than the cloud management, their AP's are no better than any other off-the-shelf WAP. Cisco, during the same presentation even said so. Yes they were dissing their own product. Basically two different markets. One is good for small offices, the other is good for hospitals and the military, if that says anything.
 
Thanks. That is good to know. I had a feeling that the cloud management was really the only perk of Meraki. We had set a few up in the past and I didn't think they were that impressive. I just didn't realize you needed that WLC, but the price isn't too bad especially since the Cisco APs are reasonably priced. They extended support on the APs is a good price. Just need to get the price for support of that WLC.
 
Question, that WLC2504 just needs to be on the LAN with the Cisco APs, right? I see that it has several ports on it including two POE ports. Just want to make sure that the APs don't need to be connected directly to the WLC.
 
a bit surprised that the ubiquiti solution didn't work for your. Your load seems a little high assuming 80%+ of your users are on 2.4Ghz.

What firmware were you using? What problems were you seeing.
 
Mackintire said:
a bit surprised that the ubiquiti solution didn't work for your. Your load seems a little high assuming 80%+ of your users are on 2.4Ghz.

What firmware were you using? What problems were you seeing.
Click to expand...

I don't know the exact details of the issues they were experiencing as this is actually for a friend. But they did use Ubiquiti's support which tried upgrading and downgrading the firmware. Neither helped the issue. I believe it was mostly performance related.

In my office we use the UniFi AC and I am also not impressed and we have had a decent amount of complaints since it was installed. The wireless N throughput is terrible. I am about 50' away and get somewhere around 40 Mbps. With AC I will get 500+ which is decent, but there are only about two of us with AC laptops in the office.

As far as range and performance, I am pretty sure my Asus AP I use at home in a three story house outperforms our UniFi AC. And they both costs $299.
 
Comparing Unfi AC to the ASUS AC is like comparing a Semi truck to a performance car.

Unfi should handle multiple users and large loads better, but the ASUS AP is going to be faster. I think smallbetbuilder did some testing that backs that statement up.

Also the radio settings for unifi are notoriously bad when multiple APs are used. The exception seem to be the original Unifi AP.

I tend to use mine in 20Mhz mode more often and am seeing 9-11MBps which is fairly fast, but everyone's environment is different. I also only have 6 client devices, so that's also a consideration.
 
Yes, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of settings and control you have with UniFi. I know they are not really comparable at that level, but my Asus does happen to have more controls than the UniFi did.
 
Also, is there a recommendation for how many APs you should have depending on how many devices are connected? If I am not mistaken, if an AP has a max throughput of 600 Mbps and there are 10 devices connected, they are all sharing that throughput, correct?

Also what about distance from each other? I am not positive, but one place I worked the building had about 1,000 people in it. In the cafeteria it was recommended to have a Cisco AP installed every 50', but they installed them every 25'. Unless it was recommended every 100' and they did every 50'. But I remember it being pretty excessive.
 
I wouldn't put APs closer than 25' from each other. You also need to turn the power output WAY down when you do that.

For Unifi I would target 20 users per freq if they were light users you could go higher maybe 30 users.

Yes they all share bandwidth. Wide channels often cause lots of issues when there are multiple clients as does noise from other APs.

There are a couple of collage deployments using unifi with thousands of users across the campus. High density locations like conference rooms are another issue entirely.

Ubiquiti has nothing for that kind of environment. Cisco kinda does, but that
s really where products in the Xirrus and Meraki catalog stand out.
 
KapsZ28 said:
Question, that WLC2504 just needs to be on the LAN with the Cisco APs, right? I see that it has several ports on it including two POE ports. Just want to make sure that the APs don't need to be connected directly to the WLC.
Click to expand...

Yes. It can be on the same subnet or even a different subnet as long as the APs can reach it via IP.
 
I have this battle all the time, and I always go Cisco over Meraki. I have a few sites with the Meraki and it just doesn't make sense to me to pay a yearly fee to use a product that I've already purchased. (that's my opinion) If you decide you don't want to pay the controller fee, it is a brick at that point. With Cisco, I can choose to gamble and not pay smartnet (easier to just buy spares) and it comes out cheaper in the long run.

I really recommend you do a site survey, You will run into a lot of over lapping channels and issues if you do not. Even with a pretty good wireless person looking at a map, they need to check how clean the air is and if there will be any problematic sites.
 
Do you know if the price goes up for the Meraki after the initial 3 years of cloud management?
 
KapsZ28 said:
Do you know if the price goes up for the Meraki after the initial 3 years of cloud management?
Click to expand...

They're still a bit new to be asking that question, but if everything else is going up, you can bet the management fee will too...
 
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