Astound Managed SD-WAN Reviews

We're a church, a nonprofit, and we use it for everyday office work, for video uploading and downloading, live streaming, video conferencing, video calling, and networking. We use it as guest WiFi as well.

Moving from the system we had into this fiber optic system with the WiFi and the SD-WAN has simplified the amount of gear we need. It has made things really obvious, from the beginning of the signal path to the end, where everything is. Since it is all installed and set up at the same time, it all works together really nicely. It communicates and it tells you where everything is. It allows us to do more of the church-serving, which is our primary mode of operation, and not waste time having to become Google and YouTube IT stars.

It's super easy to manage the various network connections. We have a couple of different areas around the property where we send hard lines and have set certain things up with static IPs. It's just a huge improvement compared to where we came from. I can get in, configure, identify, and reconfigure, and I don't have to troubleshoot anything. It's all very easy and flows really well.

Having a solid signal strength around our whole property, in all the places that we wanted things mapped, makes it easier for us to do more WiFi-reliant things. We're not limited to a centralized office area where we had to connect everything and it was like a game of "Risk." As we walked away from the office, we would see how many steps we could take before losing connection. Now, we're fully confident that someone can walk to the edge of our property and still have a full signal. That has increased what we're able to do and how we do our jobs as ministry directors and pastors.

We've been able to add more internet-based solutions to our day-to-day operations, whether it's cloud-based servers or systems, or gear that works optimally over a WiFi signal. We weren't able to do that prior to the fiber optic solution because of the lack of signal and strength.

We have an app, but it's tough to get people to use it when we are offering poor WiFi. With the fiber optic solution, we're fully confident that when we ask several hundred people at one time to hop onto an app and do something, the system is not even going to bat an eye. It's going to run like a champ. It lets us optimize our workflow because it's running an optimized setup for us.

The consistent signal strength of the fiber optic, even at the end of our signal mapping, is helpful. Pretty much everywhere we had hoped to throw a solid, strong WiFi signal—from the modem all the way to the end—is solid and consistent. I can walk around our whole property and never have a weak or dropped signal. It's flawless, especially when I bounce between the repeaters and the routers.

The SD-WAN dashboards have a much smaller footprint than some of the other business solutions out there. The usability, when I have to get into the Meraki system to make some tweaks or set up some parameters, is all pretty self-explanatory. It's user-friendly if you know what you're looking for. Somebody who doesn't know anything about IT and networking couldn't get on there and just figure it out. But if you've got a really basic, internet-for-dummies level of knowledge, like I do, you can get on there and navigate it flawlessly.

The dashboards enable us to make adjustments to the network. We make some tweaks depending on whether it's weekday or weekend use. On the weekends we prioritize our internal network and throttle if we need to. The impact throttles back our guest network. When we look at the data for previous weekends, even on days we thought we would impact the network to the point that people might notice something, and even though the graph shows a dip, network-wise and experience-wise, there was zero impact on the user experience.

If, to use a less-than-desirable vernacular, there were an "idiot-proof" mode, that would be helpful. It might be something like "the paperclip guy" in Microsoft Word. When you don't know how to do something, there are some prompts. There are some help features in Astound, but they're a little less intuitive. 

As a church, we don't employ a typical IT person, so it would help if they could set up a more user-friendly layman's type of profile and settings, where everything is simplified into layman's terms. For example, it could say, "Turn internet speed up for guest use," or "Turn it down," or "Turn it off," or "Reset it."

This is not even a complaint, it's just that this field is beyond me, in my industry.

We've just been using the fiber optic internet since September of this year. But we've been an Astound Wave client for six or seven years.

For our application and use, even if we never went inside the SD-WAN or the Meraki system and adjusted anything—although those are things we will use as time goes on—it would serve us beyond what we need. We're using a "Rolls-Royce" as a commuter car most of the time with the fiber optic. It is really sweet.

The scalability is one of the big selling points for us because we have aspirations of growing and developing the physical layout and footprint on our property. As we do that, they told us they can expand the network as necessary, and we have seen just how easily and quickly it would be done.

And currently, from our perspective, we are using the system more extensively than we ever would have considered when we had our previous setup. We're using this system to increase our product and programming that we provide as a church, as a house of worship. But to the best of my understanding, we're only really scratching the surface of what the SD-WAN/Meraki fiber optic setup can do. We have no concerns, as we grow and expand and increase our media and production and lighting, that system is going to be able to take on everything we throw at it.

We haven't really had to use their technical support yet, other than to figure out a couple of things initially. It was a very easy process for us to call in and explain things in layman's terms, and for them to figure out what we were struggling with and analyze it remotely. They just were able to fix most things for us, and they were able to clearly talk us through how to do the things we needed to do that were physically onsite. That was a great experience.

I don't think I've had a bad experience with the residential Astound customer service, but to be on that pro/business level with their customer service, which is 24 hours, is great.

Positive

Before, we had a standard, almost residential WiFi solution. We're not a big church but we're not a small church. It worked for a while, but as the world has evolved with technology, we found ourselves hitting our limits. Upgrading to the fiber optic system has maximized our workflows and has made the work that we are reliant on the internet to do much more efficient and a lot more collaborative on an in-person and remote basis.

The Astound team, all the people who helped us, and all of their crews, came in and explained everything. From the get-go, from my initial emails and phone calls with them, everything was so well articulated. Our experience with every single one of them was wonderful.

When it came to the installation, all the people onsite walked us through everything. They explained to us what they were doing and why they had to do it that way. If they thought there was anything that we might be hesitant about, they would explain it to us before we did it, to give us full clarity and get our approval. From start to finish, it was top-notch service.

Because this was the first of its install for Astound in our area, they wanted to make sure they had everything, all the supplies and product in stock, before they even started installing. We had to make sure everything got done in our business work week, between a Monday and a Thursday. What they thought was going to take four days, only took a day and a half. They got us up and running. What we thought might be a full two-week project, came down to being only a couple of days.

I was the only one onsite that Astound was checking in and out with. It wasn't until I went over things with their techs that I brought in my two volunteer IT people and showed them everything. The way that the Astound employees showed me everything and explained it, I was able to regurgitate that back and my IT people ran with it. I didn't need a huge team. I was onsite and checked in and that was that. That was really nice because we have a small staff. The fact that they didn't have to impact a majority of our staff during the installation was great. We don't have the most complicated setup. I could see different industries might need more staff on hand, but it was just me the entire time in charge of the setup on our end.

We have not yet seen a return on investment yet, only because we're only two and a half or three months into utilizing the fiber optic. Financially, it was a big jump. We went from just shy of a couple of hundred bucks a month to close to $1,200. It's an expense that, although it's significantly higher than what we were paying, is worth it. And it will pay its dividends as we continue to progress and grow and maximize its use down the road. We see the potential in the increased cost.

I would absolutely, without question, recommend and advise people to migrate over to Astound Business Solutions and fiber optic. It's worth the investment and the overhaul. For those of us in industries where employing a full-time IT person is not feasible or ideal, because it's just not what we do, this system, with its 24-hour support, is ideal. It really allows us not to have to worry about it too much, other than when we want to expand and grow. And that whole experience is super easy and enjoyable and gets done quickly.