Cisco Meraki Wireless LAN Reviews

We primarily create outdoor usage of city-wide networks. It's mostly for visitors to the city and students at the university.

Multiple access ID capabilities, meshing, and the quality of the product itself are all valuable features.  

Unfortunately, we have to deal with European privacy laws and as far as we can see, the solution is not compliant with these. It's why we're not able to continue with Cisco Meraki. They need to become compliant with GDPR laws.

They should make the solution more transparent so we can better see what the system does.

The solution is stable. We haven't had issues with the hardware.

The solution is scalable.

Sometimes it takes a while for technical support to get back to you and their suggestions have been inaccurate occasionally. However, largely we're satisfied with technical support. The time they gave us inaccurate information, the situation was related to an HD problem of GDPR security. The answers provided were not accurate for countries in Europe.

The initial setup is straightforward but we've had a lot of experience with the solution. An installation of an average of five to 10 units takes half a day to a full day.

We handled the implementation ourselves.

We work mainly with small and medium enterprises. We deploy the MR72 and 73 versions of the solution.

In general, the solution performs well in Europe, but it doesn't comply with the GDPR, so we're not allowed to use it.

I'd rate it eight out of ten.

It's a cloud-managed network, which makes it easy to manage and to configure. You can configure the access points before it reaches your offices and can configure it through serial numbers. You can add the serial number of the access point and the Meraki dashboard. It's easy.

In a future release, they should offer a next-generation UTM, where you can manage all items and the network, and have it include a lot of security features like fingerprinting functionality.

The solution is very stable. It is a very manageable and secure system.

The technical support is very good. They reply immediately.

I work with various versions of the solution, including MR32, MR33 and MR42. We're a reseller of the solution. We typically handle enterprise-level clients.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We have previously used PBXs, wireless solutions and LAN solutions. Our strategy is now to move everything to the cloud which is why we moved to using this solution. 

The fact that Cisco Meraki is cloud based and is reasonably priced has been most valuable.

It would be useful to have a service management platform integrated within this solution where we can measure the customer experience. It would also be useful to have assistance with the go-to-market strategy when using this solution.

We are a partner of Cisco and we have been working with them since 2006.

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution solution. We are based in Mauritius and since it is a small island, the scale we need fits into the range that Meraki can offer. 

This solution has a good support team and when we raise a support case, it is resolved quickly. We have a local representative for Cisco and they facilitate any support we need. 

Positive

The initial setup was straightforward and deployment was easy. 

We have our own team who are certified in using this solution and who implemented it.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten. 

We use Meraki Wireless LAN to provide wireless services at a school.

Meraki WLAN is easy to deploy, includes a cloud controller, and updates continuously. It also offers high visibility. 

We had one location for over a year, so I was familiar with the console for three years and the wireless solution for over a year.

Meraki WLAN is solid. I can't recall the last time I had to replace an AP or anything like that.

I would say that Meraki WLAN is scalable, but the licensing makes it a little difficult. You can't just add on more APs within your scope. You have to purchase more licenses to scale.

I really only used my sales engineer for support. He was able to answer most of my questions, but he was previously an engineer before, so I didn't have to call them. 

Deployment is straightforward. It requires very little configuration.

The licensing isn't very customer-centric. They may have improved it, but previously, if you forgot to pay on a certain day, your service would be shut off. 

From a purely technical point of view, I would rate Meraki WLAN eight out of 10. If you are considering implementing Meraki, I would suggest considering the size of your team. If you are strapped for resources, I would say go with something else over Cisco. But as far as functionality goes, I would rate it over some of the others, like Juniper and Mist.

Its management is most valuable. It is the major feature of Meraki.

Integration with the corporate LAN where Catalyst products are installed is a major challenge.

I have been using this solution for the last seven or eight years. 

We cater to medium and enterprise companies. We have good experience in managing large networks. 

Because it is a part of Cisco, we are getting good support.

It is easy. Its ease is the main thing.

Its price is higher than other products. It is above the expectation of customers. So, every time we need to fight for a good price. 

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

I do networking fit-outs for schools. I'm an advisor to about 30,000 schools.

The most valuable thing to me is the stability of the product.

I've been in the business 47 years, and I've been using Meraki for as long as they've been in business, which is about 14 years now.

I don't have an issue. It meets specifications.

I don't get involved on that end of it.

I don't get involved in the setup or installation.

The price could be slightly better, but then again, we negotiate deals every time so the market price isn't really relevant.

I would rate it eight out of 10.

Our primary use case is for business, the end within the business, no guests or anything like that. We use the on-prem deployment model of this solution. 

The most valuable feature is the stability. It works and doesn't stop.

In terms of improvement, we're waiting on is the new standard WiFi 6. That's really where the research comes into. With wifi coming out, we're going to refresh everything. Hence we're going to look at the top three players.

I'd like better integration with security providers. 

It is stable. We've never had any bugs. 

It's scalable. We have between 50-100 users in my company. The users are our general employees. 

We don't require any staff for maintenance. For the deployment, we required four staff members. We have plans for increasing usage. The idea is to double it in size with Wifi 6. 

We were in touch with technical support a while ago. They just said what was in the book.

We previously used Aruba Wireless. We switched because of the price. It wasn't my choice, it was my client's choice. 

The initial setup was complex. It took about 200 hours. 

Our deployment strategy was to get it all in and then get all hardware in, put one service layer at a time. When it's finished, disable all the old stuff. After migrating the clients, disable all the old stuff.

I reached out to Cisco for boilerplate plans and worked on their standard design for a smaller office.

After the third year, because it's Cisco, the prices go higher. 

My advice to someone considering this solution would be to use the white paper comparisons, they're excellent. Particularly not a newspaper review of a product, as it comes out of the box. That does nothing. But it has to really be an installation that is similar to yours. It might match the number of sites or match the number of consumers in the end but it has to be similar in some ways. Not a lab, a lab work doesn't tell you anything. That's like a practice run. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We use our Meraki system to provide new IOD access and internal access for wifi devices.

It provides an easy login page for most students.

In terms of wireless network visibility, we have a lot more insight into what students are doing now. We can track down peer to peer very quickly and can just lock it down. If we find an offender that gets caught with the law, we can direct the authorities directly to them.

The solution also reduced our false positives by about 50%, as well as saves us time, money, and administrative work.

The management and upgrades are very simple and straightforward.

Traffic analytics give us insight, but they don't decrypt anything.

I would be interested in seeing more enterprise-level, advanced user features.

Technical support can be improved, as well as having more detailed capabilities to go without using an API.

I would rate scalability as five out of ten. It's kind of hard to say.

Their technical support is hit or miss.

The wifi solution that we had before wasn't great so we had to go with something else.

It's a pretty good value, but not great. Pricing is on a yearly basis for the Meraki solution.

The biggest lesson we've learned is that wifi systems are very complicated. My advice is to be sure you understand the depth that the system gives you.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten. It's a pretty solid solution. It lacks the advanced features that I would like to see to do proper wireless engineering, but it's a pretty solid solution.