Need professional and/or industry-grade wireless access point; what do you guys use?

RavinDJ

Supreme [H]ardness
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Apr 9, 2002
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I need a professional or industry-grade wireless access point for a friend of mine. He wants to connect a bunch of users and the distance can be quite far (within a building).

I'd like to get maybe 2 or 3 that will overlap nicely... if I can't get 3, then 2 is enough, but I'd like the signal to be rock solid.

I don't want to just get a WRT54GL and put on DD-WRT... or, do you think that would really, really be a good idea??? I can probably increase the signal strength from the 25db or whatever they have it as default, but I'd still like it to be ROCK SOLID. I don't mind paying extra; I just need to make sure it works so that I don't have to go in and fix it every other day (especially since these will be non-billable hours).

I'm looking at NewEgg and CDW and other places. Cisco? 3Com?

Budget: $250 to $500

Thanks!
 
We had this bright idea at work of using DD-WRT on WRT600N's to fill in some gaps in coverage at work. Horrible idea, these things are dropping like flies and need monthly reboots.

I'd pony up and get something worth the money (especially if it's for a business)
 
We use a blend of Trapeze and Aruba where I work but neither option comes cheap. Most of our schools use crappy Linksys AP's and it is a constant hassle to keep those things going. I know that probably doesnt help you much but for a business environment, I have to agree with Lightworker and say pony up and get a product designed for the environment your in.
 
I have had good luck with Engenius products. Good value for the money.

Another company to check out is Ubiquiti. They make some sweet gear for good value and it supposedly performs very well.

This hardware is a step up from your average consumer brands yet you dont have to go crazy with the budget for Cisco/Aruba/etc.
 
I use a WRT54GL with DD-WRT to connect everything together in my basement, and wirelessly connect it to the access point/modem upstairs. I pulled it apart (easy) and installed a bunch of copper heatsinks on anything that got really warm and it's been rock solid for the past 3 weeks while it's streamed tv all hours of the day, transferred my dvd collection to a NAS, and handled redownloading all my games off Steam. It might sound over done, but they're extremely handy little things. Unless you need wireless-N.
 
Cisco AIR-AP1131AG

This is what I generally use in this situation. They're getting a bit long in the tooth (you might be able to pick them up cheaper than the newer models), but are rock solid. I haven't restarted the one in my shop since I installed it a year and a half ago. Good coverage too.
 
Anyone know the difference between:

AIR-AP1131AG-A-K9

and

AIR-LAP1131AG-A-K9

L means LIGHTWEIGHT???

Nevermind - just Googled it. LIGHTWEIGHT means it's connecting to a Wireless LAN Controller (WLC). I definitely don't want a LAP :eek:
 
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Anyone know the difference between:

AIR-AP1131AG-A-K9

and

AIR-LAP1131AG-A-K9

L means LIGHTWEIGHT???

Nevermind - just Googled it. LIGHTWEIGHT means it's connecting to a Wireless LAN Controller (WLC). I definitely don't want a LAP :eek:


You got it. Althought the lightweight ones can be re-flashed to be autonomous, and vice versa. If they're the same price, get the autonomous so you don't have to mess with it.
 
Colubris(aka, procurve now).
Cisco AP1121 or 31. Make sure you get the non LWAPP as you can convert the full autonomous to LWAPP if you want.
 
HP bought a wireless company and is going to be moving to the company that was purchased for all their wireless stuff. It is good stuff too, I just can't remember the companies name at this time.

I use Proxim/Orinoco for our enterprise, they are rock solid and if you have a widespread enterprise you can get a management device that controls all the APs configs. So you make one change and you can push it out to all APs in the company as long as you are connected via MPLS or some other form of WAN.

A friend and I put a number of these things into production at hotels around here with active capture gateways. They are still running in those hotels and that was 4 years ago.
 
HP bought a wireless company and is going to be moving to the company that was purchased for all their wireless stuff. It is good stuff too, I just can't remember the companies name at this time.
Colubris, my first recommendation :D I even recommended them over Cisco :eek:

I use Proxim/Orinoco for our enterprise, they are rock solid and if you have a widespread enterprise you can get a management device that controls all the APs configs. So you make one change and you can push it out to all APs in the company as long as you are connected via MPLS or some other form of WAN.
::vomits:: I built out a network that included about 600 AP2500's and 500's... they were terrible. Im sure most of you experienced this too if you ever went into a panera bread. They would lock up after the most little amount of traffic. Maybe Proxim got their stuff straight.. but when I used them 6 or so years ago they were terrible
 
::vomits:: I built out a network that included about 600 AP2500's and 500's... they were terrible. Im sure most of you experienced this too if you ever went into a panera bread. They would lock up after the most little amount of traffic. Maybe Proxim got their stuff straight.. but when I used them 6 or so years ago they were terrible

In a former life I was an install contractor on more than a few Panera Bread WiFi installs. I did 8 of the Panera's regional to me over 6 months. As I recall the first six were Proxim, and the last 2 were Procurve, I think. It's been 7 or 8 years...
 
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