Looking for reliable wifi ap/bridge for corprate network, cisco 1130ag?

axan

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 5, 2005
Messages
1,935
Ok I'm looking for a reliable wifi access point/bridge for my company's wifi network. I'm currently using netgear wag102 aps and for the most part they work pretty well but from time to time they crash and require a reboot sometimes I can't even bring up the gui and have to reboot them by cutting off power.
So what i need is a reliable (set it and forget it) access point that meets these requirements

a/b/g support
Multiple ssids
vlan support (able to assign diff ssid to diff vlans)
wpa/wpa2, 802.1x, wpa/wpa2-psk
separate security profile per ssid
able to bridge with other aps (need to have 2 aps in areas where there is no wired lan)

would be nice but not a deal breaker
poe
captive portal

I was looking at cisco 1130ag, does anyone have any experiance with those? will it fit the bill? cisco web page is pretty confusing, i know it meets the security requirements and it can do vlan, but it wasn't very clear on bridging. How hard would it be to set up? I'm no cisco expert but i can get through basic setup of a cisco router/switch (I'm CCNA certified)
 
I haven't had much luck with either of my 1131AGs, but have heard lots of good things about the 1242AG.
 
what kind of issues did you run into? was it setup related or reliability?
 
It seemed to me that their transmitters died. Both exhibited the same symptoms before dying, requiring daily reboots in order for them to broadcast their SSID, which eventually turned into not broadcasting at all. I could still tap into them via the wired connection though, so they didn't completely die. They just stopped being useful.... I've seen transmitters die from overheating, but I both of these 1131's were used in well-cooled rooms.
 
ok thats not good then, if i pay ~$500 per ap I want something reliable. I got my boss to sign off on some expensive aps( pretty small company so we dont have huge it budget) but if I spent the money and those things died in a month or 2 i think he would hang me :D
 
Smartnet (Cisco support contract) on them was pretty cheap as I recall. Maybe less than $100 a year. That covers phone support and hardware replacement.
 
1131 if you don't need the external antenna hookups, 1242 if you do.

Both are great AP's and work very well.
 
Already said it in another thread today, but I love my Proxim AP-4000's. I have almost 30 total some 3 years old and all running great.
 
Hey, I'm the IT guy at my medium sized business. Pretty damn big plant. I cover the entire place with 4 of these SMC routers that we have. They support everything you mentioned, and we often have people come in and need to connect to our network, i type in the pass phrase and away they are. I have had many compliments from the people that have come in here telling me how nice it is for them to come in, and have it just always work. I havnt had to reset one since we starting use them, in August of 06. I have them all set on the same SSID, but on different channels, So you can put in the passphrase, and walk around with a laptop, and you will just bounce around from AP toAP without having to do anything with the laptop I use WPA-PSK

The setup was a little tricky, but if you have any questions i can help you out. They also have good support.

The model number is the
SMC2555W

There were about 200 dollars a pop
 
thanx dethman, that's exactly the kind of reliability I'm looking for, I'll take a close look at that model
 
I have installed literally hundreds of Cisco 1120, 1130, 1200, 1300, 1400 series APs and bridges. I have only had three fail on me in the last two years. One of those was hit by lightning. Cisco had me replacements the next business day under SmartNet.

Unless you have need of external antenna I would go with the 1131abg. They will do everything you want, including repeater mode.
 
I think I found a potential problem with going with the cisco ap, according to their faq

Cisco FAQ Page said:
Q. How many service set identifiers (SSIDs) can you have per VLAN?

A. You can have only one SSID per VLAN. The use of multiple SSIDs over a single VLAN is not supported with Aironet APs.

I need multiple ssids to point to same vlan, basically there will be 3 ssids, 2 for internal employees and 1 for visitors. The ssid for visitors will point to vlan that only has internet access and nothing else.
 
Why would you need multiple SSIDs for one VLAN? I have setup multiple SSIDs before, one for each different VLAN to separate Guest, Student, Faculty, etc. networks, each with differing security and network access rights.

 
ok basically heres the setup

1 ssid using radius server and wpa2
another ssid using wpa2/wpa-psk

both need to go to same lan (our internal network) the reason for this is because some laptops can't support wpa2, and few users have laptops that are not on the domain

I spouse I could change the security on 1st ssid to wpa and teach ppl how to import the certificate from usb flash but i would rather not :p
 
ahhhh, okay, that makes sense. Upgrade the wireless cards then! Tell your boss your network is at risk of being hax0r3d with the flimsy WPA and you must purchase all new laptops to replace the old ones . . ..

or you could setup another VLAN for the less secure business clients. As long as they can route to the DC and other network resources they can still work, don't have to be on the same subnet.
 
hehe ya, I can see it now, lets buy a bunch of $1000+ laptops so our wireless is more secure :D

Funny thing is my netgear aps can do same vlan to multiple ssids no prob. Damn cisco and their strick "do it right" configurations :p
 
Why bother with the second, more secure SSID if you have the other, less secure one as well? It doesn't make you any more secure as anyone targeting you would just hit the weakest link?
 
Back
Top