Cisco Wireless Reviews

Primary use is for connecting staff and students' laptops, iPads, and Chromebooks.

Most of wireless controllers' features are similar, but what sets WLC, the Cisco wireless controller, apart is that it has an end-to-end solution, meaning that it's running off of Cisco switches, and a Cisco router. So all the platform, from routing to switching, is Cisco. Therefore, having a wireless controller, we can actually manage the quality of service seamlessly.

If we had chosen another product then it may not understand, or we may have to make it jump through hoops, to make it more seamless. Since across the platform, Cisco has an end-to-end solution, that sets it apart from the other vendors.

As far as the technology, pretty much everybody offers almost the same thing. It's just that they name it differently. Other than that they're the same. So the above is the reason we went with the Cisco. 

Also, because I'm Cisco Certified as far routing, switching, etc., I understand their technology. So on top of it, that also helps. I don't have to actually reinvent the wheel to make it work. So it's a  cost savings for the company, because they already hired somebody who understands Cisco products. It's a combination of those things, so we chose the Cisco wireless controller.

This product has a Clean Air Solution, which means it can detect non-WiFi signals. It not only signals but it can also detect that what type of device it is coming from. And if it needs to change the channel in order to avoid that unwanted signal, it can do so and that way the client machine will have better performance.

Also, we have also a test environment. Cisco offers a smaller version, between 25 and 50 access point controllers. It's $2000, very inexpensive. I have it in my test environment so I can do tests before I actually implement in production. That helps.

If needs to provide more visibility. It can detect and do it, but as technicians we don't have a lot of visibility into seeing exactly what's happening. It doesn't give us a lot of log information for us to troubleshoot. They probably have additional software you need to purchase to get that kind of information. But I think not all companies can afford additional software to see those kinds of details. So if the wireless controller already had, built-in, those types of things for the technician or wireless engineer, it would be more attractive for the end-user to use WLC, more than any other product.

It's very, very stable. We have hardly ever had any problems with it as far rebooting itself, or it couldn't handle the load it had, given how we initially we sized it. It hasn't caused any problems.

We've had no issues with scalability. We initially started with two controllers; as far as a failover we used technology called N+1. But N+1 did not suit our environment because we have about 750 access points throughout the campus. E1 access point can only hold 500. If that ever happened, it would mean another 250 would be hanging out there. So we changed that to 1:1. We now have four controllers. Now we're able to handle up to 1,000 access points. So scalability wasn't a problem. And, if we have to have more we could still do it. So scalability is very seamless.

I would give an A+ to tech support. It depends what kind of issue you have, they have different categories. They can remote in to view our screen and see what the problem is and can give us a recommendation and then we change it, if we think it's necessary. If it would be helpful for us then we do it, during off hours.

I have always used Cisco. I have friends and colleagues who have used Aruba and other things. As I mentioned earlier, they're very similar as far the access points go. They have a similar technology, Clean Air, etc., they have it. 

The only problem is, as I mentioned, they are not using Aruba switches or routers, etc. So when an issue arises they have to finger-point to a different vendor. So I try to avoid that kind of different vendor finger-pointing. If I can have the same vendor solution and it's stable and works well, why not use them that way. If there's any problem, it is one vendor, there is no finger-pointing.

it's not really complex. If you're familiar with the technology you should be able to follow through with any of the wireless controllers or Cisco's. They're very intuitive. If you know the terminology you just have to follow through.

As far as I know Cisco is very competitive, price-wise.

Talk to your third-party vendor. It all depends on the company size - how many employees, how big the building is. If it's wireless, and you have only 50 employees but you're using a large building floor, in that case you need many access points. But if you have 50 employees using two or three rooms, then you probably don't need it and it's going to be high density, so there is a different design. So you need to talk to a subject matter expert. Talk to them and design accordingly.

When I joined this company they already had a modular for 6509 switches. So from there I migrated to a 5508 Controller. So at the time it was much easier, since the company was already are using a Cisco wireless controller. It would have been much easier for migration to the 5508. 

We did talk to Aruba about their solution and, I think, price-wise it was very similar and that's the reason we stayed with Cisco.

I rate this Cisco solution an eight out of 10. To bring it up to a 10, as I mentioned earlier, you have to get a Cisco Prime in order to view  signal strength and what's going on, which is an additional cost. You have to buy another product to manage WLC, so why not have Cisco Prime built into WLC so there is one product? That way you wouldn't need to have to buy additional software or licenses to manage WLC. It's basically: WLC manages access points, Prime manages WLC. So why not all under one umbrella, that way you don't have to jump through multiple pages to look and troubleshoot. If all is in one place it would be much easier.

If it's the first time you're implementing it, there is a different way of doing it. Now, I think, Cisco offers a different type of a wireless controller. It can be cloud-based, it can be on a switch module, or it can be just an appliance. So it's based on what your environment looks like and what kind of failover you want. Based on your needs, that's how you have to design. 

Also, look into other products and evaluate them yourself. Have a demo on your site for Aruba or Cisco and see, regarding the high density, how many clients are connecting to one access point and where the breakpoint is, those kinds of things. Evaluate yourself and go with whatever makes sense for your company.

Survey/design and deploy Cisco Wireless (3500/3600/3700) in hospitals/universities.  The object was 100% coverage with RTLS support.

The challenges are RF propagation control and saturation with RRM. Another is future-proofing capacity. In the 3700 series, ATF was the limiting factor in Cisco’s solution.

Compared to other solutions, captive guest network is one of the best isolation and tunneling. All other features of RF are average.

• The ability to disable RRM or set hybrid RRM. This provides a more granular design of RF in the environment.
• CLI controller/RF debugging.

• RRM
• ATF
• Ortho-Polarization
• AP concurrent client processing

No issues with stability.

Performance issues.

I would rate tech support 7.5 out of 10 on the RF side. Overall, it’s what you would expect for Cisco.

Switched to Cisco because of upper-level decision.

Pretty straightforward if you understand RF and what the options mean on the WLC.

Expensive.

Aruba, Aerohive, Ruckus, UBNT, Mikrotik.

I’ve been working with Cisco Wireless since 2008. Although CPI and controllers have come a long way, the AP is the limiting factor. There are a lot of assumptions in the controller algorithm.

Don’t just conduct a passive survey. Set up three APs and do an active survey with RRM enabled among three.

Cisco’s wireless solution is a seven out of 10, in my experience, compared to other solutions. It has limitations on the polarization processing.

Mobility device support. It can provide support for real-time applications, such as VoIP and Video Conferencing over wireless infrastructure.

For industrial IT (sensors, programmed logical controllers, trains, ports, mines) and IT for offices, we can support real-time information, reducing risk for people, speeding up time to market and giving real-time access to information and communications.

This is a good product but some basic configurations were missed such as:

• The bind configuration between a physical port and an IP address
• Health check for authentication/authorization server.

Three years.

No.

No.

Seven out of 10. They are slow to answer.

Yes. We switched due to company decisions.

Complex. The solution works for beginners with basic implementations.

It is an expensive solution.

Yes, Aerohive and Aruba.

A couple of features stood out: the most important feature was the ease of installation. Coming from another network vendor background I was surprised at how easy the controller was to configure. The ability to build policies based on device and application type is very powerful. The controller has a built in best practice analysis engine that will not only give your setup a best practice score, but also automatically change settings to increase the score. The controller automatically implements advanced Cisco wireless features like Cisco clean air, coverage hole detection, client load balancing and band steering amongst other things.

Business systems reach was significantly increased through extensive wireless coverage throughout the entire company head office building (5 stories). The technology also enabled the client business to safely provide internet access to guests, through the Cisco lobby administrator portal, which the receptionist manages without intervention from the IT department.

Rack mount brackets must be automatically included in the cost. Aesthetically the 2504 chassis has room for improvement. Product is not the cheapest on the market, can be more competitively priced.

This solution has been running for a year. We have dual Cisco 2504 wireless controllers for high availability (software version 8.1.102.0). Managing 40x 1702 Cisco wireless access points.

The issue we encountered was enabling radius authentication for the employee wireless network. Most of the issue was Windows server related though.

The two controllers running side by side was extensively tested by die client: during production the primary controller was unplugged and within a few seconds the access points registered to the secondary controller. The client even went as far as unplugging various access points to test if the coverage hole detection worked, and was not disappointed. There was never a need to restart the controllers or any of the access points.

The project was sufficiently scoped from the beginning which prevented any scalability problems.

Good.

Good, provided there is a maintenance contract in place.

The previous solution consisted of a wireless controller and 15 access points. There was a lot of labour hours that had to be wasted on fine tuning the wireless settings, the wireless network just did not meet the clients expectations. The issues were escalated to the distributor and the vendor directly, which made resources available on site but still took days to get stable.

Very straightforward. The new software version introduced a wizard which guides you through most of the initial configurations in a few simple steps.

Working as a solutions architect for an IT service provider I did the scoping and implementation for the client.

The pricing on the Cisco devices can seem high, but compare apples with apples and it will become clear that Cisco is not that expensive. The controllers need to have licenses for the access points that it manages, so plan ahead and have enough licenses ready for the amount of access points in the environment.

• HP MSM 720 wireless controller.
• Aruba instant access points with built in controllers

The underlying wired infrastructure is important, make sure it has enough capacity so avoid causing bottlenecks on the wireless network. If possible keep the network on a specific vendor for ease of management and support.

Security features

We can deploy a simple guest captive portal to allow guests to connect to the internet.

More languages on the captive portal.

I've been using Cisco WLAN Controller 2106 for about one year.

I had to reboot the controller a couple of times to force correct EAP key exchange.

I had to reboot the controller a couple of times to force correct EAP key exchange.

Since it's a very small controller, I was already prepared for a small deployment.

Not used at all.

Not used at all.

No previous solution used.

A bit complex. There's no logical order to setup what you need, but with some reading, it's totally feasible.

I implement it myself. I work for a Cisco partner.

Plan the network first and decide if this box is big enough for your deployment.

From a technical perspective, the ease of centralized management and provisioning. Also the possibility of a single breakout point to the LAN which helps confine user traffic without additional setup.

Before 2008 all hosts were connected to the wired infrastructure. Introducing a wireless infrastructure is probably the biggest single improvement in the network area we have had over the last few years. For example, employees can access their documents during a meeting, suppliers can give a presentation, and visitors can access the internet, etc. without going through the process of wiring and reconfiguring switches.

The monitoring system has room for improvement. All the pieces of data are collected but it is not always easy or possible to present it the way you like it.

For about six years with the initial single controller setup. We moved to a dual controller setup in active/standby mode two years ago.

Cisco WLC 5508 with Cisco Wireless Control System and 2600/3600 series access points

We did not have any issues with the deployment of the single controller setup. Later on, with the deployment of the second controller, we have had some minor issues which were swiftly resolved by the supplier team with some help from the vendor.

No issues so far.

The product is scaled for 500 APs. At this moment we have little under 450 APs connected without any scalability issues.

8/10 for both the vendor and supplier.

9/10 for both the vendor and supplier.

No, the Cisco WLC is our first wireless solution.

Initial setup was straightforward. Then again, initially we started with only the very basic capabilities of the Cisco WLC.

Both implementations were performed by a supplier team with support from an in-house team for integration into the local network. I would rate the expertise of the supplier team a solid 8/10.

We are a non-profit organisation. ROI was not the main drive to buy this product as manageability and reliability were.

We are bound to a supplier and therefore can choose from a limited number of vendors. We use Cisco for our wired equipment, it is then reasonably to first have a look a Cisco‘s wireless solution.

The Cisco WLC has many features. Plan carefully which to use before you start to implement.

Scalability

• Multiple SSID's
• Ability to offer WI-FI to guest in a secure environment

None.

Two years. (WLC 5508)

Older WAP's can be an issue as the firmware makes them problematic. Requires upgrading the WLC firmware to see units properly.

None.

None.

8 out of 10.

8 out of 10.

Several. Cisco is more scalable and actually less costly over time.

Fairly straightforward - need to understand the Cisco way of breaking things out but otherwise no issues.

We implemented it in-house.

Approximately $20,000 with no additional costs.

• Meraki
• SonicWALL

Understand your need. Let the need drive the purchase not the other way around.

• Certificate based authentication
• ACL for Guest

Right now more than 90% of our employees connect on wireless only. That minimizes a huge CapEx on LAN infrastructure. Users can connect from any of the offices of banglalink. Roaming is the biggest advantage we have got so far. For security purposes, certificate based authentication ensures that only banglalink employees can connect to those SSID.

• Reporting
• Active Passive Failover on Controller

More than four years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Good.

Good.

We previously used an Aruba solution and we switched because Cisco had a flexible deployment model, it is easy to operate, and has a stable OS.

Initial setup was, of course challenging. However, with the vendor, we worked hard on troubleshooting issues. For example, redundancy during controller failover was very challenging as the AP was taking long time to join with controller.

We implemented it in-house.

I think we got our ROI within a year.

We have two controllers in our 55 offices with more than 175 APs. It costs us around 100k. Currently we don't buy any support from OEM or a vendor, and we keep all necessary APs in stock. For the controller it costs us around 3k yearly.

We compared it to Aruba which was our existing solution.

Fantastic product for an indoor wireless solution. Smooth seamless AP handover, excellent Tech support, integration with other peripherals (AD, Cert server, SIEM etc.) and stable hardware. These are the reasons you should choose this product.