Cisco Wireless WAN Reviews

We have it on campus. When the users try to connect to the WAN, we have to use that for this objective, or we have to make a wireless independent Wi-Fi using Cisco Umbrella for Meraki. Those are the two cases we use.

It's practical because, for example, in remote locations, we use a captive portal. We try to allow users to use authentication through a username of this company. Another thing is the firewall. In the console, we have to restrict or block traffic using the portal. It's a very useful feature. 

Another important thing is Cisco Umbrella for Meraki, that integration. But it's not too customizable. We have only three levels: default, basic, or moderate, but we want it to be possible to configure it more granularly. Users have different requirements, so we can't satisfy them because we only have three levels of restriction in trying to browse the Internet.

It's easy to deploy because using Cisco Meraki cloud makes it easier to deploy access points quickly. In one instance,  a department asked for a Wi-Fi connection, and we were able to deploy this quickly.

Recently, we integrated Cisco Meraki with Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella. But, for example, with the integration, we don't have traffic statistics. I don't know if the provider or the partner made a mistake, but we lost the traffic statistics. 

The observability of the traffic for one client was wonderful before. But after when we implemented Cisco Umbrella in all branches, Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella, the integration was not good because we lost the observability of the traffic. Because I think that Umbrella encrypted the traffic before ingressing it to Cisco Meraki. I think that's the reason we lost the observability.

Other things that we explained, for example, is the WAN asset to rate. For example, we can help a user that tells us that the Wi-Fi or the network was intermittent. So when we have to troubleshoot this issue, we can't see anything. So all is okay. However, the experience of the user was bad. We tried to use the dashboard, but the information wasn't useful. We worked to change the model of Cisco Meraki to try to help. And that solution worked. But the information in Cisco Meraki portal was not good, and it was sad.

I have been using it for three years. 

I don't know if it's the model of the Cisco Meraki product because we have a high density of users. Right now, I don't know if the model of the system supports a lot of users or concurrent users. So, we opted to install more access points. I think that we need more information or more help from partners to assess what model is correct for this environment.

It's very easy to scale because we can deploy other access points. I think that it's easy because the configuration, we only need the IP address. It's very easy to deploy the configuration of access points because we have to assign a profile configuration. So it's very easy.

The partner provides the support. We only call the partner to solve the issues. I think that the partner uses Cisco if the problem is severe. So, with Cisco, we don't have contacts because the partner contacts them if they need help.

For example, the panel, when we have these problems with Wi-Fi, we ask them. So, we use the site survey, the conclusion, or the accommodation. So, in this site survey, we got the majority of the average number of issues that we have. We overcome that issue. 

But, after that site survey, using the current tools in Cisco Meraki, we could not solve those issues. We need a site survey to resolve everything.

The partner mostly suggests a site survey.  

I also have experience with Cisco Wireless, but based on Catalyst. And right now, we have Cisco Meraki, we are going to upgrade to Cisco Catalyst.

It is pretty fast and easy to deploy. In one hour, we are able to deploy. Right now, we have branches. We have a campus or headquarters. 

On each floor, we have a different VLAN. The Wi-Fi is on a different VLAN as well on all floors. So that VLAN passes through the SD-WAN. We use independent VRFs. So that VLAN only passes, they use the SD-WAN channel. However, we have problems with that implementation, for example. Right now, we have a problem because the smartphones can't connect to the Wi-Fi consistently. I don't know, but before, we didn't have that issue. 

The smartphones cannot connect to the VLAN configuration that we have. But now, they can connect. So, we are trying to solve this issue right now.

The integration was hard when deploying Cisco SD-WAN and Cisco ISE. In that case, it was hard. But we tried to find alternatives to satisfy the security requirements.

There is a return on investment with the right configurations. 

Cisco Meraki is cheap. Cisco Catalyst is expensive.

Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten.

We use the platform to provide seamless wireless connectivity for our company's network. We use it in the oil and gas industry to ensure strong and reliable wireless connections across our locations. The deployment is managed through a wireless controller, and we rely on the solution for both authentication and connectivity.

The most valuable features of this product are its authentication capabilities and the strong signal coverage of the access points. These features ensure reliable and secure wireless connectivity essential for our operations.

The product could be improved by making installing the operating system on access points easier. This process can be cumbersome and could benefit from a more streamlined approach.

I have been working with Cisco Wireless WAN for ten years.

The product is stable. I rate the stability a nine. 

Cisco Wireless WAN users from all our offices can connect through the wireless controller, effectively meeting our network demands. 

I rate the scalability an eight. 

While the support services are generally good, the team can take time to get an engineer immediately for critical issues.

Neutral

The initial setup of this solution was easy. It took about one hour to deploy, and there were no significant difficulties.

The implementation was done in-house.

The product is highly-priced. For example, an access point can cost around $1,200, which is quite expensive.

This platform is a good technology with stable performance. However, its high cost is a significant downside. Other solutions like Aruba or Ubiquiti offer similar capabilities at a lower price point.

I rate it a seven out of ten. 

I use the solution in my company since it is a deep and developed solution. It is also reasonably priced. The tool is scalable.

Nothing is special about the solution.

The security features in Cisco Wireless WAN is nothing special and works as usual as the other tools , like, Cambium and Aruba.

The main issue associated with the product revolves around the licensing part and some support-related problems. The licensing area and support require improvements.

In my country, the technical support offered is not good enough. The technical engineers who can support us are not that good. There is a shortage of technical people in our country. It is difficult for us to find someone who can help us.

I have been using Cisco Wireless WAN for four to five years. I am a customer of Cisco.

There are some problems with the product's stability. Sometimes, it gets unstable, and I believe that it may be because of the interference from other wireless products in our environment. So, I would not say that it is Cisco's responsibility or fault.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Across my company, we mostly use Cisco Wireless WAN with around 300 people.

My company uses the product on a daily basis.

I rate the technical support a four out of ten.

Neutral

There are other networks here in our office, and I already had a Cambium solution.

The product's initial setup phase is difficult but not too much.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model. Cisco already has a cloud solution from Meraki, but we are not using it yet. We have plans to deploy a wireless cloud solution, Meraki.

The solution can be deployed in a few weeks to six months.

The product's benefit is good, especially since it does not hang.

Cisco is much more expensive than the other vendor solutions.

If you have a lot of money, I suggest you go for Cisco. If you have budget constraints, then I suggest you go for Cambium.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

We use Cisco Wireless WAN in our academic institution, both on the campus-wide and dormitory networks.

What I like the most about the solution is how widely available it is.

In terms of improvement, there is always something that could be enhanced. For example, we can't change wireless channels in Cisco Meraki due to a recent standard update. We have asked for help, but no solution has been presented to us yet.

I have been using Cisco Wireless WAN for two years.

It is a stable solution.

The solution is fairly scalable. There are approximately 44,000 users of Cisco Wireless WAN on the campuses, while in the dormitory areas where Meraki is installed, there are approximately 2,000 users.

Cisco's technical support is very good and they answer quickly. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. It took about two weeks to get it up and running. An engineer and a technician at our company deployed it. We began by planning access point locations over a couple of days. Using ICAO 610 for setup and having access points with serial numbers made the initial setup quick, taking just a few minutes. Then, we spent a few days configuring the network settings.

Our university has experienced a positive return on investment, and I believe Cisco Wireless WAN will continue to benefit us for at least a decade.

It is quite an expensive solution, but I am positive it is the right choice for our institute. We have an EA for Meraki, so we pay for access once a year as part of our licensing arrangement.

I would recommend Cisco Wireless WAN to anyone who is considering using it. It is a great solution for campuses and universities. Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

I worked for a university in Florida that wanted a campus Wi-Fi. So, we chose Cisco and deployed it on the entire campus. It was part of a bigger project that included firewalls.

The performance of the solution is valuable. It works incredibly well.

The product must be made more user-friendly.

I have worked with the product for a year.

The tool is quite stable. We have the least amount of drops. The network latency is one to five milliseconds.

The tool is scalable. However, it is not as scalable as a cloud solution. We had around 2000 users.

We contacted Cisco for some escalations to troubleshoot via remote access. The process was pretty straightforward. We raised tickets and got hold of the technical support team. They did some hotfixes.

Fortinet is easy to use. Even if we do not have formal training, the learning curve is easy. We can figure it out by going through the interface. The Fortinet Cookbook is simple to understand. Fortinet products are easier to integrate. It is a lot more complex for Cisco. However, Cisco is more stable than Fortinet.

The deployment process was a bit complex. We took two months for planning and one month for staging. We simulated everything before the deployment. It was like a parallel system. We built a new infrastructure and switched everything to the new infrastructure. Building the new structure and testing took us three to four months.

We are system integrators. We deployed the solution with some help from Cisco. However, we did not use any professional services from Cisco. We are a Cisco Gold Partner. We do all the configurations.

I have seen an ROI on the product. We know Cisco lasts for quite a while. It's easy to get a hold of. I see good value in it. It is a good investment.

The tool is expensive.

Ruckus and Aruba are not as good as Cisco.

I will recommend the solution to others. If a company wants something stable that will last them longer, they should go with Cisco, even if it's more expensive. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

I use it mainly to provide WAN connectivity to remote users.

Coverage for the access points is really good. This is a major drive for us to get strong signals using Cisco. 

I also find the security features of Cisco Wireless are effective. Basically, I like the integration with the other vendors and native security software tools. The management UI is good. 

The product can be more cost-effective. Only the cost could be more cost-effective. But, since it is more of an enterprise solution, it is not a cheap solution compared to other vendors.

I have been using it for five years. 

It is a stable product. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. It is very good. I would rate it a ten out of ten. 

We have around a hundred in our company. We don't plan to increase the further usage for the time being.

The customer service and support are good.

Positive

We checked Aruba. We opted for Cisco because we had more knowledge about this product and liked its scalability. 

I didn't face any challenges with the initial setup. However, it takes bit of knowledge to setup. 

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a five out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy. Some effort is needed for all Cisco products. 

Documentation is very effective and there is also an active community. So, it was very good.

It is cost-effective, compared to other enterprise solutions. It has improved productivity and reduced operational costs.

Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

I would recommend to follow the documentation, deployment guides and validated designs. Designing the solution is very crucial. 

The solution's most valuable feature is its user-friendly interface. For now, my company is testing the tool on Cisco's IoT solutions. The tool is very simple to use.

The support of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using Cisco Wireless WAN for seven years. I am not only a user of the product since I also sell it. It is important for me to know how the product works along with what new features get introduced in the tool. I am a distributor of the tool.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Sometimes, there are some bug-related problems in the product, but they are not critical issues. The reason that my company is impacted by some bug-related issues in the product is that our company might not know something we should be aware of during the configuration phase. If my company faces any problems with the product, then we can connect with Cisco's support team.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company caters to the needs of small, medium, and enterprise-sized companies.

Two years ago, Cisco's support was normal. For the past two years, the support has not been good. The product's support team operates worldwide.

I rate the support a five out of ten.

Neutral

I rate the implementation process an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one means that it is a difficult process, and ten means that it is an easy process.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and also on an on-premises model.

The time taken to implement the product to something depends on the network of our company's customers network. If our company's customers have a simple network, the implementation can be done very fast. If our company's customers have tools like Meraki, the implementation process can take three to four days or a week to complete.

I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.

Speaking about whether the tool gets used in our company for backup connectivity, I would say that our company's engineers use it for testing purposes.

The security features of the product have improved our company's network safety.

The product has sometimes helped our company handle network failure, failover, or recovery areas.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

The solution is used to manage our access points in all our company branches.

I like Cisco due to the fact that it's reliable. It has worked well since 2008 without issues.

It's scalable.

The initial setup is straightforward. 

Azure needs work. We use it as the wireless controller of Cisco. It's a bit buggy. The UI needs to be more responsive. 

Technical support could be more helpful.

The solution is expensive. 

I've been using the solution since 2008.

The solution is stable and reliable and offers good performance. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

It is very scalable. It's easy to expand.

We have about 3,000 employees that use the solution.

The setup is in an airport, and we have passengers that also need the portal for the internet. We have a lot of people using the solution.

Technical support could be improved. They are helpful. However, they could be better.

Positive

We did not previously use a different solution. 

The solution is very easy. It's straightforward and not difficult at all. 

The deployment only takes a few hours. It's not a long process. 

We have about five people that can handle any maintenance tasks. That includes maybe one engineer and four administrators. 

We handled the deployment ourselves. We didn't need the assistance of a third party.

We pay a yearly licensing fee, and it is expensive. I'm not sure of the exact amount we pay.

I'm currently looking into Aruba. 

We have a lot of equipment from Cisco. We are customers and end-users. 

I'm not on the latest version of the solution. That said, I'm renovating my wireless environment.

I'd recommend the solution to others. It is good. However, it costs a lot. I'm currently looking for something more cost-effective. 

I would rate the solution eight out of ten. There is no master controller for the controllers. When we have access points in different buildings, I need a centralized management system to achieve redundancy and operations simplicity. 

We use this solution for our campus network. I work for the university's IT team, so we use it for the faculties, administrative buildings, and labs. We're very happy with it.

The solution is deployed on-premises.

We're using the latest version.

It's a small feature, but Cisco allows me to see access points with blinking lights. This shows me which access point is which.

For example, sometimes we have more than 100 access points, and the company that did the set up unfortunately didn't document it well, so that can be a problem.

The dashboard is wonderful. It's very user friendly.

The price could be better. It's too high.

It's also hard to get the product because of climate problems.

I have been using this solution for a year and a half.

It's very stable. In comparison, Extreme's stability is not good. We do speed tests, and with Cisco, we can get 700 megabits per second.

It's very scalable. 

The solution was already set up, so we didn't need a lot of technical support.

If we need help, we can call them directly. We don't need to open a ticket.

I have dealt with Extreme Wireless, especially Extreme IQ Cloud. Compared to Extreme, Cisco is way ahead.

It's very easy to deploy. I like Cisco's dashboard. I think it's more user friendly than the Extreme dashboard.

Extreme is easy to deploy, and management is very nice, but the performance isn't good so far. We are using the essential license now, not the pilot license, which is the advanced feature license. When we get the pilot license, I don't know if my mind will change, but for now the performance is way better in Cisco.

When I'm deploying Extreme, it's hard to get information from the internet. I'm not talking about the support from the company. 

With Cisco products, there's a ton of information on YouTube, in Cisco documentation, and on Cisco's website. With Extreme, I couldn't get that information.  

With the same infrastructure, switches, logical topology, and physical topology, Extreme's performance isn't very good. It might be because of the license. When I talk with the company, they say, "If you don't have the Extreme pilot license, you can't get high balances." 

For example, you can only get 150 megabits. It's like one channel at a time. They say that when we install the license, we'll get higher balances, but we haven't experienced that yet. We are waiting for the installation to complete, and then we'll get the license.

Cisco's performance is much better.

I also have experience with Huawei. Cisco's deployment is much better in comparison.

The solution was set up before I started working on it, so I continue to deploy it. 

Compared to Extreme, it doesn't take a lot of time to deploy. We have more than 1,000 access points. It takes about several hours to deploy. It's quick to install.

The price is too high. The licensing is on a yearly basis. 

The price was built in with the total price of the access points. We bought other products, like cable covers, and some switches, so I don't know the exact price for the licenses.

The price of Cisco is twice as high as Extreme because of the exchange rate in Turkey. At the time, our currency decreased catastrophically against the dollar.

I would rate this solution nine out of ten.

We primarily used the solution for wireless connectivity. We used it for daily work. We use our own laptops, and the solution allows us to connect to the network at work.

Cisco does not work well in China. We've moved over to Aruba. 

The solution was deployed school-wide. We used everything Cisco, not just wireless. It works great with other Cisco tools. 

The solution is not well received in China. It gave us headaches as it doesn't work well in the company. 

It is difficult to get support from Cisco. 

The cost is fairly high for licensing. 

Scalability could be better.

Stability is hit or miss if you have other Cisco integrations. 

Cisco Firewall cannot recognize some applications and that makes dealing with policies difficult. Even when we whitelist, it does not work well.

My company started using Cisco in 2011. We upgraded in 2015 and realized that the solution does not provide good service in China, and we have since moved away from it and toward Aruba.

The stability is hard to qualify. It is around seven out of ten in terms of reliability. Without other Cisco integrations, it is stable. If there are more Cisco integrations, like Cisco SE, stability becomes more difficult.

I'd rate the scalability seven out of ten. It is not extremely scalable. 

We have around 500 users and around 800 or 900 devices. Some users have many devices. 

Technical support was not helpful or responsive. At the beginning stage, they were very good; however, over time, they grew worse and worse. When I worked with Cisco Firewall before, we tried to get help for a whole year, and nobody could help us, so we gave up.

Neutral

We've recently moved from Cisco to Aruba. I've noticed a few differences between the two, and I'm trying to educate myself on both solutions. Aruba made a late delivery, so we just finished setting it up last month.

We use Aruba for everything and Palo Alto for Firewalls. 

The initial setup depends on the environment. The Cisco Wireless part is easy, however, when deploying other Cisco applications, we had a lot of trouble, and it made the network more complicated. 

I'd rate the ease of setup seven out of ten. 

I cannot recall how long the deployment took. It was deployed a long time ago.

Cisco is expensive. We renew the licensing yearly. I cannot recall how much we paid for this product specifically.

I'd rate the solution six out of ten. I would not recommend the solution. We had a lot of issues with it.