Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

It is primarily used for wireless access, both indoors throughout the plant and outdoors.

One of the most convenient aspects of having access to the dashboard is the ability to work on access points from any location. This eliminates the need for a wireless controller, as all connections are made through the dashboard. This is the best feature of using this system.

The most valuable aspect of this solution is the single pane of glass management and reliability.

It has been very reliable.

The licensing could be improved.

Licensing is, in my opinion, the least appealing component. It can be difficult to keep licenses up to date in order for the system to function properly.

I have been working with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for more than five years.

We use MR74.

I would rate the stability of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine out of ten.

We rarely have any issues with them.

We only have two and didn't have any issues. 

I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.

There are no plans to expand our usage, and instead, we will opt for a single-vendor approach by replacing them with Fortinet.

Technical support is fine, but I would rate them a six out of ten.

The initial setup was straightforward.

When we initially purchased them, having these access points was particularly useful since I was the only one managing everything. It made my job much easier.

For small businesses, these access points are fantastic, as their stability and easy installation make them ideal. However, for larger businesses, the return on investment may not be as significant.

The cost of both the hardware and licensing is high, and it is more than what I would prefer to spend currently.

I would definitely try a proof of concept, unless you do a proof of concept, If they work, then, you use them. They are definitely reliable. 

They usually upgrade the firmware on their own.

I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN an eight out of ten.

We have been using the latest versions of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN because we were deploying them in a new restaurant, we had all new solutions. The only difference was that because of COVID everyone has devices on backorder and we had to compare different Meraki devices. We had to redesign our plans based on what was in stock in the wholesaler inventory. They were all enterprise-level Meraki devices.

The deployment is on-premise but we manage the solution from the cloud.

The owner of the restaurant where Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was implemented wanted to receive very detailed analytics and metrics based on the customer traffic that he would have. We wanted to capture the information from the customers either walking outside of the restaurant or enjoying the food inside, then adjust his marketing accordingly.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN has improved our organization by providing us with a sense of security. When anyone is connected wirelessly, you're not going to get compromised. You're not going to receive a bunch of pop-up ads, and the beneficial functionality of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN has been great. It has strong encryption and since my customer has a fast internet speed, they have good wireless speed.  The owner was extremely happy with the solution, not only the functionality, the daily use, but the analytics and metrics that he wanted were available.

The settings of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN can be very granular. You can lock down and block devices with the controls. For example, we have four different wireless settings, such as guest, employee, security, and backup. For example, the settings for the employees, if they use laptops, they're required to have certain settings, such as an antivirus installed. If they do not then Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN will not let them connect. This is very good protection because the network works on the bringing your own device(BYOD) principle. It's a BYOD environment now, and you also don't want them to bring infection into the environment because these people are connecting to the LAN via wireless connections. We have to be careful because we're managing it, we have to be very strict with regards to the rules and policies.

The way Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN groups certain things, as far as the devices for either monitoring and or configuring them should be done better. They should be grouped a little bit differently because if I want to configure something, a different setting on an SSID, I have to go to their specific area where I would have thought it should be clumped as a dropdown menu in another area.

It would be a benefit for Cisco to make an application for mobile devices. For example, an Apple or Android application for either a smartphone or a tablet. It would be useful to log in and use the dashboards to have a central control panel. It could be used to allow alerts to be received quickly if they went to mobiles devices. 10 times out of 10, you will have access to your phone before you have any other device on you. For example, one of the managed services that I use is Continuum which was purchased by ConnectWise making it a ConnectWise solution. They have an application for alerts that I can click on, and it will open the application on my phone. I can go in and see the alerts and trouble tickets and receive information, such as which client it is, which computer, server, or laptop. At that point, I can either click on another link and remote into it, or I can call the customer and notify them of the alert and that they could experience some delay or lag or problem with the internet connection because of their network card on their laptop. I do not have time to sit in front of the dashboard and if the alerts could be managed from a mobile device that would be a big help. 

You could spend all day looking at the bandwidth, or who is potentially looking at what in the network. Once you know what to lock down from the users, such as social media sites. If you have the employees on a separate wireless network, you can lock down all social media, to where they have no access to the social media. Additionally, you can block eBay, or anywhere you can purchase from, no porn, no adult content, it works very well wirelessly. It is a good solution.

I am not the first to think about additional features or improvements. They most likely have a lot of features in the works. Since I have many clients now I'll subscript to their next newsletter that they put out. They may have a mobile application coming out in the near future.

I have used Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for approximately 10 years.

I have not had any issues with the stability of the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. I am extremely satisfied with its performance and quality.

The stability of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN has been great. I am highly satisfied.

I have contacted the support from Cisco. Recently I couldn't find where to do something on one of the main Cisco switches. It was a PoE switch, and I sent an email out to the support at approximately 10:00 and I received an email response early morning hours at approximately 5:00. I was very happy. They asked me a couple of questions, and then when I tried what they'd suggested that I should try, it worked. It was only one little setting that I missed, that I didn't check, and everything came up fine. Then I replied to the email, and they closed the ticket.

I'm very happy with their support. Additionally, they said in the email, if I have a critical issue that needs a more immediate response we can call a number to receive immediate support. I thought this was great. We are an enterprise client of Cisco because the solutions that we have purchased allow us this extra immediate service. 

The initial setup of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was straightforward. You create the network, you add in the license, it pulls in all the devices, then you only need to rename the devices to whatever you want. What I enjoy are the ones I always request or require is a floor plan from the architect. I upload the floor plan, and I place it on the map, similar to a Google map. I place where all the devices are located within that floor plan on the map, and I provide that as documentation to the clients and they love it.

I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN implementation a five out of five.

We do the implementation, maintenance, and support of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. You set the solution up and it runs, it is pretty simple to manage. 

We are very particular with email alerts when we receive them. When we receive the alerts, we will let the client know that on a particular evening or morning during the weekday or weekend, or early morning hours, we will be sending a firmware update or an update for the software. We do it in a way that does not affect them.

If everyone were to see all the features, utilities, and tools that can be used and the reporting that Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN can provide, I think they would be able to better justify the cost. Although, it's still a little bit on the pricey side, and for me to explain everything in plain English to a non-tech person would take a while. 

It would take me upwards of an hour because I would be a very big cheerleader for this solution. I'm an extreme fanatic about Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. That's why I wanted to show them the comparison between the Ubiquiti and the Ruckus solutions next to Cisco, and the biggest hesitation is the price of the solution, which includes the licensing, and renewal. Otherwise, Ubiquiti would win, but the problem with Ubiquiti is, they don't have the granular type of customization of reporting that the owner of the restaurant wanted.  I'm sure that once he gets started and he gets people in there, he is going to see that it is worth it. 

He won't have a problem with it moving forward, but the price was a tough sell. We thought at first we weren't going to get it. We used a report from PeerSpot for two clients to compare solutions. One of the two we did receive as a client and the other one we did not. I feel that the client that we did not sell Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN to will come back to us because they were focused on purchasing a cheap solution. However, as they say, you get what you pay for. They might be calling us back in a month to potentially change solutions.

The customer we implemented Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for found the reporting invaluable, and it paid for the cost of the implementation of the wireless devices.

My client has made comments on the price, indicating it is expensive, however you do receive a lot for the money that you did spend on the solution. The price of the annual renewal of the licensing of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a little high. We wish the price would drop.

I have looked at our parts and labor sheet, for a three-year license for three access points and the A port PoE switch, will cost approximately $1,200. It is approximately $400 a year for licensing for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

In the beginning, I had to find and figure out where to find certain functions. The logistics of where things are configured or located in the dashboard can be difficult to find, it could be more intuitive. It's not a perfect solution. However, if money weren't an object, I would suggest that everyone should use a Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN solution.

My advice to those that have not used a Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, I would recommend them to check the community forums that are available and ask questions there. They're very helpful. There are several YouTube videos that can be used to receive a good overview. They do provide useful documentation with the solution, but they tell you to go online to this specific link and it'll explain in great details step by step what you have to do. 

There are consultants, such as myself, that have YouTube channels. They show you step by step how to set up your first network from start to finish, what to change, what settings to use, what not to use, and depending on the scenario, what changes you need to make, how to use the dashboard, how to add licenses to assigned products. How to create a splash page for a guest login and if you want them to click through, and after redirect them to that client's website before they click on and connect to the internet and go someplace else. There are a lot of other outside non-Cisco vendors and consultants that put a lot of information out there. I've always told people, Google and YouTube are your best friends.

I grew up where, to find something, you would have to physically go to the library, and you had to go through the Rolodex card catalog file to find a book. The process would take a couple of hours, with the technology today the process now can take a couple of seconds, and you can download a digital copy of the book and read it on your Kindle, iPad, or whatever device you choose. 

Cisco is very picky about their solutions, they strive for accuracy and non-buggy software. I commend them for that, and there's a price to pay for research and design.

I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a ten out of ten.

At World Vision, we run most of our applications in the cloud. So most of the people need to have a strong and stable internet connection. Our offices are kind of in a box with not much infrastructure in terms of the LAN. So I deploy Meraki WIFI access points and they become the connection to the internet so that people can get to the systems that they use wherever they are.

We have a centralized dashboard in the cloud. I send the access point somewhere and I configure it remotely on cloud. Ours is on premise, managed from the Meraki dashboard itself. So I could be anywhere and manage it, but we are deploying them for World Vision offices across the country.

It benefits the organization and my work because we do not have a lot of IT guys here. Before, we used to manually deploy wireless and I needed to drive miles and miles across the country to configure an access point. When it goes off, we lose connection to it. I still need to drive there, but these days Meraki has reduced the workload because I can just send it wherever it is going and configure it wherever I am. I can be in many places at once.

First of all, it helps with the workload, but also with the flexibility in that I can do everything remotely. I can view when the app is off, I can view when it's on, when it's acting up, when it's fully loaded, I can do the RF setting, even on my phone right now, in case there is any issue. This is what we found good about Meraki.

I like the fact that the deployment is so easy. Deploying and setting up a network have become so easy - like 1, 2, 3 steps and you are up and running, whereas originally we needed to log into the app and all those things. Now, it is more robust for me to deploy networks. And because of the field we are in where offices open up and others close, it helps my turnaround time to deploy these networks for the customers.

In terms of anything to improve, recently I have seen that the Meraki access point, maybe due to congestion, just kicks off my customers, mostly when they are in Zoom meetings or Teams meetings and they have to reconnect. It is not a good thing. I have been on the communities trying to find solutions, but I think Meraki is working around the clock to fix that bug. Other than that, I think it's okay. We moved to WIFI Fix, so I think that the improvements are there. They are already in R&D. So I look forward to more good things coming from Meraki.

It just kicks them off, because one minute they are connected and then they are completely dropped, and then after a minute or two, we connect back. I think it is an AP issue that Meraki might need to take a look at. If anyone has some hack around that, I would be interested in knowing what it is.

In terms of what I would like to see in the next release, for starters, I would like an air marshal not to interrupt service. I would like to be able to do a separate scan of the network while the service is still running. It is important for me to know what environment I am working in. But every time I do that, it tends to have the IP go off and everyone starts complaining. That would be a feature that I would like to be added.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for about three years.

In terms of stability, it performs until lately, when it started to kick off my people. But it is not so often. It is during peak hours, like Monday mornings when we have so many Zoom meetings and then maybe Wednesdays when it is too busy. Other than that, it has been stable. We have been okay for the past two and a half years.

The scalability is as I want it to be. The only thing I need to do is add a few licenses here and there, but it is scalable. I get a new device, add it on the dashboard, and I don't need to pay dashboard fees. Not too bad for me. It is scalable enough. I wouldn't want that to be changed.

As a rough estimate, we are about 1,200 users. That is the breadth of the network across the country. We have about 30 offices, with some more populated than others.

I do the deployment and maintenance myself - only one person.

We use it everyday. Every time someone walks into the office, they are using the Meraki Wireless at that point to connect to the internet and everyone who walks in the office needs the internet to work. It is being used 24/7.

I have spoken to support, but not too many times because we have not had that many issues. But I have contacted support and they are quick to respond. I would say for the last issue that I sent them, they are still doing the investigation on that. I checked everywhere on the communities and I think it is still something they are working around. In terms of support, when I send a ticket, it is responded to, I get feedback and then I'm asked if it works or if I still have any issues. That is also a good thing they are doing there.

Before we started using Cisco, we were using the Ubiquiti UniFi.

We switched from UniFi, because at the time, the UniFi access points were being managed locally at each location here. So we had to set up local accounts for admin. At the time, most of those controllers were on desktops which were off all weekend. So we had the whole work of going back to each office and resetting them and reconfiguring them. It was a disaster for us. So we were looking for a more centralized solution where one person could do all this stuff in his office or wherever they are.

The initial setup is quite straightforward.

It takes me five minutes to set up a network, because I configure everything in the dashboard. I only have to synchronize. I need to onboard it and assign it a network and it is up and running.

I do this deployment myself. I buy the equipment. It comes in, I onboard it and I send it out to the field. I tell someone to power it up and it is good to go.

We have seen ROI, yes. Because we save. Just imagine for three years we saved all that transport costs, fuel costs, and admin costs that they had to pay me to go out of office. They had to pay for the driver, the car and all those things. So we have cleared on that. Originally, we used to employ temporary staff who would help with the manual work of removing the access point, putting it back up, and troubleshooting. All that now is at zero. And the beautiful thing is that this Meraki Wireless shows us our utilization, so we get to know how the internet is being utilized and we can possibly leverage ISP on reducing the cost on bandwidth, because we require more. I have conversations with them to reduce the cost of our bandwidth and give us more bandwidth for that data. It also has the analytics that know what our customer is doing. I really think that the organization has obtained its return on investment. This is why when I say that we need another $13,000 next year, they will gladly give it to me because they know that the solution helps us do our work.

Each Meraki license is around 130. We pay $139 for three years. So every three years we spend about $13,000.

We also checked out Ruckus Wireless. I went with the Meraki because it gave me more capability in what I was looking for

My advice to anyone considering Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is, if you can afford it, I think it is a good solution. If your CBA, cost benefit analysis, is okay - I would recommend Cisco Meraki because it helps you reach many, many points from just one center. It has simplified my work because before I had to travel every day to a different place because of a different wireless issue. Now I have remote oversight over all of them. I can know what to do if someone called and said, "Something's wrong here." First take a close look, study some of these things, maybe come to PeerSpot and get some notes before embarking on Cisco Meraki.

On a scale of one to ten, for point to point for big crowds, I would give Meraki a nine. A nine because there is always a need for improvement. This is only on the technical part - of course if you factor costs and all, I may have a different score, but for me as an engineer, I give it a nine.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN facilitates daily operations by providing reliable connectivity for devices like PCs and machinery. It allows customers to access the Internet and essential applications without needing Ethernet cables.

The platform's most valuable feature is the ability to detect network issues through a dashboard.

The product's interface should be user-friendly. The integration options with third-party applications need enhancement.

I have worked with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for the past 2 years.

The product is super stable. I would rate the stability a ten.

We work with many customers using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, with deployments ranging from small offices to large enterprises. It is sometimes deployed in principal offices, catering to a user base of 15 to 20 individuals. Additionally, there are instances where larger-scale deployments are undertaken, accommodating up to a hundred users.

I rate the platform's scalability an eight out of ten.

Whenever we raise the ticket, we receive prompt assistance from the technical support team.

Positive

The product operates on its cloud platform, but some customers use AWS for certain functionalities. Deployment time varies depending on the scale of the project. It involves setting up wireless access points, configuring IP addresses, and connecting them to the network. Additional configurations are then pushed through the dashboard. It takes approximately a day to complete.

I would rate the initial setup process a ten out of ten.

I would rate the pricing of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN as a five. It could be more affordable than other solutions like Aruba.

Customers appreciate the ease of network management provided by Cisco Meraki's centralized dashboard, simplifying operations.

The cloud-based management has made a significant difference in the IT environment of our customers. It enables seamless access and connection to the dashboard, allowing them to troubleshoot network issues promptly. Customers no longer need to connect to the on-premises infrastructure or use specialized tools; instead, they can easily access and manage their network via the dashboard of any device with an internet connection.

It offers built-in security features like firewalls. We have purchased additional licenses for features such as SD-WAN technology.

Before installing it, the users should consider space requirements, network topology, and compatibility with existing IT infrastructure.

I would rate it a nine.

My customer wanted to configure the solution as Wi-Fi instead of a firewall service.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a user-friendly solution that has good performance and stability.

The solution's pricing could be improved.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for two years.

I don't recall facing any bugs with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, but the patches are done remotely.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is a scalable solution.

It was easy to deploy the solution. We had some help from the support team, making it easier to deploy the solution.

I read the document for a day and deployed it the next day.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is an expensive solution.

Users with a big budget should go with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. Customers with a low budget can choose Meraki Go, which is less costly than Cisco Meraki and does not require any license.

Cisco Meraki has physical boxes for centralized cloud management. If we are talking about a dashboard, we can configure location-wise, which will be called a network. In an organization, for each location, we can create a new network where it will be managed centrally. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN alone does not give security. In every company, the front-end will be firewalls, which will take care of the compliance part.

Overall, I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine out of ten.

The last company I was working for did an overall network revamp project where they replaced all of the access points, switches, and firewalls. We replaced all the aging equipment with new ones including Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN solutions.

The automatic VMware update is very useful because you don't have to worry about outages and planning for VMware updates. It is very advantageous from a management point of view. The ability to restrict and review the clients connected to each of our segments. Additionally, the solution is easy to use.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could improve by having more granularity in terms of the data displayed. However, I understand that with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN, you need to have a compromise point to what are the functions that you're going to provide to the users versus ease of use. More granularity in terms of the data and the things that you can do to the devices would be helpful. For example, when we wanted to make a change, restriction, or segregation within Palo Alto, we can go to the level of detail that we want. The amount of detail provided is amazing, it is very granular. However, it comes with much more difficulty, it requires a technical understanding of the environment compared to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN. 

I used Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN within the past 12 months.

I have not used the technical support because the equipment was new.

We used other vendor devices previously, such as Dell PowerConnect. We were looking for a solution that was easier to configure and maintain while not compromising the visibility of our environment. That's why we chose the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN solutions because they have user-friendly dashboards to use the equipment and at the same time, it does provide the visibility that we needed to control our traffic in all our branches. 

When you are deploying equipment in remote areas where you don't have many employees having a cloud dashboard where you can make changes to your equipment easily is a large benefit. Having a centralized, single pane of glass dashboard where you can manage all your equipment in one place has been helpful.

The initial setup was very easy considering it is a Cisco solution.

It took us approximately two to three weeks, to migrate small branches which were quite fast. We hadn't migrated the head office systems when I left the company but that implementation would have been more complicated because that's where the data center is involved.

We hired a network architect as a consultant and that team helped us do the whole migration and implementation. When we were doing the setup of switching and the access points, it require a lot less preparation because of its ease of use. Other solutions, such as Palo Alto, required a lot more planning.

We have 12 branches and our head office and we use one person for marinating and supporting the solution. However, we did outsource the support, we pay annually for support from a third-party company that helps us maintain our equipment. They are on call if we need them.

I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN an eight out of ten.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN was easy to deploy and use, it gives us the functionality that we need to maintain our infrastructure functions, and at the same time, it does provide the security that everybody's looking for these days. We did replace the firewalls with Palo Alto, which gives us another layer of security because Palo Alto's very good in that regard.

The most important feature is flexibility.

I believe it is user-friendly. The techie guys don't care for it, but in my opinion, essentially, it has a very simple interface. Most other vendors are now including those in their dashboard features and interfaces as well.

The only concern is when the license has expired and it will no longer function, the entire network goes down, without any notification, or warning.

The price could be reduced.

I have been working with Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for four or five years.

The first implementation we did was with the MR32. MR32, MR42, and MR62

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is stable.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is easy to scale.

Technical support is very good.

I used to work for VS Information Systems, and I'm currently looking after the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN and the data center infrastructure.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We use a couple of guys for the more physical aspects of the implementation, such as access point mounting.

Because they are cloud-based, we are only using one person for maintenance.

Previously, I did the majority of the configuration by myself. Now, another person has been assigned to the configuration part.

When compared to other vendors, Cisco's pricing is higher.

We did some research and found that we already had the HP solution in-house. Because of the features and feasibility, flexibility, and everything else, as well as the cost, we like the Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

We haven't received any requests for additional features at the moment. Previously, any request for additional features was made on the other Cisco dashboard, and the majority of them were already implemented on this one.

We have a partnership with Cisco.

For my experience, I would rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine out of ten.

We are using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for our corporate network for internal users. 

The most valuable features of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN are the ease of use and the ability to manage it from the cloud.

I have been using Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN for approximately one year.

The stability of good for Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is scalable.

The support from Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN is good.

We used Cisco Aironet before we switched to Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

The initial setup was simple. However, the full deployment could be easier.

We used a local partner for the implementation. We use four technicians for the maintenance and deployment of the solution.

The price of Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN could be improved, it is too expensive. We pay for the solution on an annual basis.

We evaluated other solutions before choosing Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN a nine out of ten.