Cisco Wireless Reviews

I'm a senior technical consultant and we are service providers. 

Cisco Wireless is scalable and very stable. They offer good technical support. 

I'd like to have better voice security. What they offer now is not good enough to protect us from an attack or a hacker. The solution requires a firewall body inside a wireless controller so that we can define a few more things and prevent attacks. 

I've been using this product for 12 years. 

The stability of this product is good. 

Scalability is good with Cisco Wireless - we have close to 500 users at just one of our sites and no problems. 

Technical support could be improved but it's fair and they do a reasonably good job supporting us when we have issues. 

All solutions in this market are more or less the same, it's just that Cisco is less cost-effective which is why we're currently testing HP. I've also worked on Aruba Access Points and HP switching systems and find them easier to configure and manage, while still providing good performance. 

People need to be aware that everything is going wireless in the next couple of years and it's a good idea to move to wireless now so that there's a familiarity with how it all works. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

I like many of the features that Cisco Wireless has to offer.

Code stability is something that needs to be improved.

I have been working with Cisco Wireless for 10 years.

The technical support is fine.

The price of this product is reasonable.

My advice for anybody who is implementing Cisco Wireless is that they need to know the products. There are a lot of features that you can turn on and off, so they need to know the product itself. It's not as simple as it seems.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The primary use case is providing network coverage to mobile devices in our company.

I find this solution easy to configure and use.

The coverage should be better.

There should be an option for a wireless bridge that can be used to join two access points.

Technical support takes too long and is something that should be improved.

It would be helpful if Cisco Wireless supported the Internet of Things (IoT).

I have been using Cisco Wireless for about five years.

This is a stable product.

Cisco Wireless is scalable, and we have more than 10,000 people on-premises who are connected to the cloud using it.

We have had problems with Cisco's technical support, so I would only rate them a five out of ten. They take too long to respond and also too long to resolve the issue.

We are also using Huawei wireless.

For somebody who knows about the configuration beforehand, the initial setup is easy. I can be set up an configured in half an hour.

The suitability of this product depends on the environment and the requirements, as every place has its own circumstances. Generally, I recommend this product.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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.

We use the solution for laptops, smartphones, and for both intranet and internet communication.

Some of the features I find valuable are the FlexConnect and overall it is a good global solution.

Before deploying a wireless solution, you have to read and plan every role, every windows system, put in your access point, and then make the audit. This solution is not the best one to do this. We use another solution that is called Eko. In the future, if this solution could have better auditing capabilities it would be better.

I have been using the solution for eight years.

The solution is stable.

We have added some access points for conductivity which have integrated well and have been fine scalability-wise, we have not done other types of scaling. Our whole company is using this solution.

You can have a setup that is simple but my company is big, with a lot of regulations to adhere to. I would say out we had a difficult installation but this is not directly related to the solution but more related to the policy of our company.

I would recommend others to use this solution.

I rate Cisco Wireless an eight out of ten.

The FlexConnect feature is the most valuable.

It would be great if it is compatible with other products.

I have been using this solution for almost six years.

Until now, it has been stable in spite of some upgrades.

It is scalable. Our clients are large companies.

Their technical support is great.

We worked with Cisco Prime and Cisco Controller.

The initial setup was quite straightforward.

It is quite simple. Even if you are not a wireless network expert, you will be able to use it by doing some research. It is not difficult or super complex.

I would rate Cisco Wireless a nine out of ten. I am satisfied with this solution.

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.

Cisco Wireless FlexConnect mode is for branches where the traffic can be switched locally. There is centralized switching for the corporate side where the wireless controller will be in the headquarters, and the branches will only have access points. We have the flexibility to use Cisco's FlexConnect for the branches and centralized switching for the corporate network. Combining these feature ensures the traffic flow for the wireless is being controlled and provides the best wireless scenario for the branches. You don’t need to go to the controller each and every time.

Cisco Wireless technology allows us to logically segregate networks, to segregate the traffic between multiple types of endpoint devices, connected to the network. For example, corporate laptops are connected to one network, corporate iPhones will go through a different network.

With Cisco Wireless we have DNA technology for the frequency in which it operates, so that in case of any frequency interference it can look for and switch to another frequency, where there no interference.

Another feature of Cisco Wireless is that we are able to operate APs in multiple frequencies by grouping the APs into multiple groups, so we can operate the wireless in one group at 2.4 gigahertz and the other group at 5 gigahertz. This allows us to group the APs based on the business case or on the bandwidth.

There are a couple of shortcomings in Cisco Wireless right now. I don't see a policy model for the wireless technology solution. If Cisco could bring the wireless architecture around with the controls, it would lead to being able to fine-tune the configuration a little better.

Cisco Wireless' stability is quite good as of now. The recent APs are coming with a backbone of up to 5 MBPS throughput, and that is quite okay.

The scalability is good.

The technical support is good.

We need to do a site survey, AP placement, and wireless configuration: Which are we going to configure, how are we going to get it authenticated, how will we go into control? So we need to have a plan. That's not only for Cisco, it's true for whichever wireless we need to deploy. We need to have a proper plan in place, but configuration-wise it is straightforward. It is simple.

The shortlist was Aruba and Cisco. The features are more or less the same, but the cost is also important.

Cisco Wireless has been around for quite some time. Cisco is a leader and its Wireless product is very reliable, so investing in it is a safe bet.

I would rate this solution at eight out of 10 because of the availability of support, and its stability.

My most important criteria when selecting a vendor are the 

• product knowledge
• support from the vendor and the availability of the technical staff to support it.