Cisco Wireless Reviews

We have a business center with about 600 tenants. We use Cisco wireless throughout our business center. We have a coverage shortfall for WiFi access for our customers.

We have 600 users in our building spread between roughly 20 to 25 different companies. We all have different needs and different security issues. 

The flexibility on the controllers isn't that great.

We always have to inject a third-party if we want to do things on social media, etc. If you have a guest network, you can make some connections with guest networks within your social media account — that's not the case with the standard solution from Cisco. You always have to get a third-party solution.

Our solution is prehistoric — it's seven years old. Still, they have perfectly served all of our needs. But now the market is changing. Because of COVID-19, more and more people are using wireless solutions. They're using Teams. They have bandwidth issues. That's a limitation with Cisco — you have to change all your APs again.

There's no way to upgrade it to make it faster and better, overall. The only thing you can do is add more access points, but then you have to license each access point. 

This solution is highly stable. We have only had one issue in seven years. We had one issue with our controllers. We upgraded our controllers and there was a little bug, but that was solved very quickly.

Also, we've never experienced any downtime.

It's scalable, but there is a break-level replacement cost.

We expanded seven years ago. If we want to expand further, we'll have to replace our controllers and add new access points. So expandable? Yes, but it's pricey.

Cisco has a great support team. We pay a lot for support, but they are very accurate. They are very fast. They are very good and they have great knowledge.

We have a very good partner for technical support. We have a contract with them. The support is always great but it's limited to just one product.  

The initial setup is fairly complex because we have a lot of VLANs in order to enhance our customers' user experience.

This solution is expensive, but you get value for your money.

Cisco is not cheap. That's actually an understatement. Our Cisco partners want us to partner with Cisco Meraki solutions because their cloud platform is monthly-based. We pay roughly $2,000 a year with our current subscription.

I would recommend this solution to other users. If you're interested in Cisco, Meraki is a good choice, but they are lagging a little bit behind in terms of technology. If you compare Aruba with Mist, Mist has the most advanced wireless solutions that you can possibly get at the moment.

After over seven years of use, overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.

We use the solution for switching and routing. We also have access to resources around the local area network.

The product is compatible with a lot of mobile devices. It is easy to manage and administer.

The security must be improved. The vulnerabilities are easily exploitable. Security features must be added.

I have been using the solution for 13 years.

The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a nine out of ten.

The tool is easy to scale. I rate the scalability an eight out of ten. We have 2000 users in a single location. A user can have four to five devices.

We were using another solution, but it was incompatible with the Identity Services Engine we deployed. So, we switched to Cisco Wireless.

I rate the ease of setup a seven out of ten. The time taken for deployment depends on the number of access points we want to connect. It takes a week to deploy the tool for 1500 to 2000 devices.

The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. We are dependent on the dollar. There is a global economic issue.

I recommend people use the solution even if it means that they have to start small. Initially, the investment can be expensive, but the product is robust and enduring. We can use it for a very long time. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use the solution because we consistently upgrade the laptops and desktops to ensure synchronization with the SIP set.

All the features of the solution are good. The enterprise environment seamlessly integrates with Cisco Wireless.

The solution's pricing should be improved.

I have contacted customer service and support about licenses and other technical aspects. I have not faced any issues.

In my latest company, we use Aruba Networks and Cisco Wireless on-site. We use Aruba for IPs on Azure, while Cisco Wireless is used on Azure as well due to the high cost of data processing. For Aruba, we use models like the 5747 and the latest 370 series. In addition, there are other services like the 7200 controller and the 5700 series used across various rooms.

The pricing is a bit high, and I would rate it a six on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most expensive.

The solution is good for our environment. Overall, I rate it a perfect ten.

We use Cisco Wireless for networking in an education center.

The most valuable features of Cisco Wireless are security and the ability to manage everything easily. Other solutions, such as Aruba are differentiation.

If you use the EAP for wireless security it is good. The only setback is the user has to have their own login, it is easy to do. If you make a user group for many students because they do not know the password. Having everyone use a group user account is not good. It is best for every student to have their own login. The connectivity will be better.

Cisco Wireless does not have a dashboard that would make it easier for people to manage the solution, such as Cisco Meraki where you are able to monitor the network through the dashboard and everything is visible making it easier. There are many things you can do with the dashboards. With Cisco Wireless if you have to manage the switches, backbone, or update the controllers you have to have someone with Cisco certification or know someone who can support you with the management of the solution. I have colleagues that have difficulties when I am away making changes to the Cisco Wireless devices and this is one of the reasons we are switching this solution to Cisco Meraki.

I have been using Cisco Wireless for approximately 14 years.

The solution is stable. However, I had some issues last month with older Cisco wireless solutions. The certificates for some access points had expired and did not want to connect to the WLC.
Finally, I found a solution and got them all to work fine.

Why did I say it is stable. Since, we had installed it from 2009 until 2020 we had no major problem.
We started with a single SSID then with 2 SSIDs then we went up to 4 SSIDs. All 3 used authentication with a radius server. The fourth was managed by the WLC as Guest wifi.
This situation had to be foreseen because Cisco had announced on June 30, 2016 the dates of discontinuation and end of life of the range of our access points. The end date of routine failure analysis and new service provision had been declared on December 29, 2017.
It took 4 years later to face this certification problem.
Our network system of Cisco was really user-friendly:
-With printing with google cloud before it is stopped.
Our new MYQ system is too
- With our IP phone system
- With all practices (Windows, Mac, Tablets, phones and chromebooks)
- With our accounting system.
We really say Alhamdoulila.

The solution has good coverage and people can have access quickly.

We have approximately 700 students with Chromebooks connecting to the network.

I have not used technical support but if you want technical support it costs money.

I have used HPE and Apple wireless solutions previously.

The installation of the solution is easy but it might not be for others. I have used the solution for a long time.

Cisco Wireless solutions should have a price reduction for educations centers. Education centers are there to help people grow and there are not large budgets. The solution tends to be expensive and it can cause difficulties when purchasing them here in Africa.

I have evaluated other solutions, like Aruba through my nephew. This is the system he used at university in the US.

I would recommend this solution to anyone, Cisco is the best. We are migrating to Cisco Meraki next week.

I rate Cisco Wireless a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case is for a guest portal type of scenario where different types of users can connect. We use SAML authentication for that. We are customers of Cisco via a third-party vendor and I'm a network specialist.

It's valuable to us that creating policies is simple. We use Cisco ISE and it works well with the product. 

I've found that the media stream and Mojo settings are not sufficiently supported. The other issue we have is that when the access point goes down, we don't get any indication of the reason. This has to be fine-tuned so that a trigger is sent to the Cisco Server or any third-party server, and we get the alerts. I'd really like to see bug-free software.

I've been using this solution for over a year. 

Stability could be improved but it's not bad. 

The solution is easy to scale and if you have the latest wireless controller, you can really extend the coverage and extend the APs.

Technical support is awesome, we're very satisfied. 

I know that Aruba is better than Cisco, they really need to improve things. 

We carried out the implementation ourselves and it was quite straightforward. It took around six to eight months to implement the entire solution, install access points, configure and fine-tune. There's no specific maintenance required, it's mostly the operational aspect, upgrading software, and hardware support. We currently have around 6,000 users. 

Cisco is a bit pricey compared to other vendors like Ruckus which have pretty decent pricing. If a customer asks me for a cost-effective solution, I may go with Huawei but if it's in the enterprise dev environment, then I'd go with Cisco, Aruba, or Ruckus as a third choice.

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

We primarily use the solution in order to provide wireless clients access to our hospital network.

The BCO is a great basic feature.

We enjoy having access to the security features and MAC filtering. 

All the files are standard and supported, which is a good thing.

The initial setup is easy. It's fairly quick to deploy.

The product scales well and expands quite easily.

The interface could be better.

It's a hospital network; we have a lot of X-ray machines and other machines which may interrupt the WiFi signals. They need to provide more stability with respect to the interference or help us can analyze what is causing the interference issues from the controller side so that we could more effectively troubleshoot.

The pricing of the product is quite high.

I've heard the WiFi 6 is in the market and I would like to explore WiFi 6 features. 

Having a single SSID and adding a personal device or an organizational device that an SSID can automatically pick and connect to would be great.

I've been working with the solution for over ten years at this point. It's been a while now. 

While the product is stable, in some areas when the user sees a disconnection, we are not able to identify whether it's an access point issue or if it is due to some interference in that area of the hospital (due to hospital equipment). We need help detecting issues via the controller.

We have around 4,000 to 5,000 users on the solution. 

It is easy to scale as it is centralized. You just need to add more access points if you would like to expand the product.

Technical support is great. One time, we had a controller issue due to a hardware failure and they replaced it within two days. They are extremely helpful and responsive. We are satisfied with the level of support they provide. 

The initial setup is very simple. It's not overly complex or difficult. A company shouldn't have any trouble implementing it. 

Initially, we need to get the hardware and put the basic configurations of network settings in order. I don't think it will take more than one hour to do the basic configuration. More complexity, however, does take time. 

The solution doesn't require too much maintenance. Our access points are very old, however, they are pretty stable. For around 10 years, we have been running on the old hardware and it is time to renew, actually, as the product is almost end of support. However, so far, the maintenance has been quite minimal.

The first time we implemented the solution, we did request vendor support.

The product is quite expensive, and it's making us reconsider staying with Cisco. 

As this solution is near its end-of-life, my company is looking into other solutions such as Aruba or Huawei. We have not decided yet on what we will do, however, the Cisco pricing is very costly. We would like to check out other options that are cheaper, and which can offer the same kind of stability and features.

I'm just a customer and an end-user.

We aren't necessarily using the latest version of the solution. Some access points, for example, are so old we cannot upgrade them any longer. 

I'd recommend the solution to other users. If you have the money and budget, Cisco is a good, stable solution.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. 

Until we switched to Ruckus about a month ago, we had used Cisco Wireless products for the past ten years at our school of about 1800 students and 250 employees, including the teachers. The teachers and students all use iPads so wireless (Wi-Fi) is a big part of our network.

We used Cisco for everything, including wired switches, wireless switches, the core switch, etc. For the wireless network we used Cisco WiSM, which is the old version of Cisco's wireless controller. Since we had used this Cisco equipment for so long and it was showing its age, we ultimately decided it was time for us to renew everything along with all the new features that are now available.

I enjoyed Cisco's Meraki MDM which we already had installed, even though at the end of the day it was too expensive for us to continue in that direction when upgrading.

Overall, Cisco was stable and worked well for all our needs until we started having more and more students and teachers using YouTube and Zoom — what with classes being isolated and everything — which put a lot of strain on our Wi-Fi network. 

The biggest reason why we could no longer continue with Cisco Wireless was because of the high cost to upgrade everything. It was disappointing that Cisco treated us as just another big company, and did not offer any leeway on their pricing given that we are an educational institute. And although the system we had in place from Cisco Wireless was good enough over the last ten years, it started to show its age when pushed to its limit during the pandemic.

Generally, and this isn't so much a question of support, it was also very difficult for us to determine exactly what the problem was when we had a problem. We didn't have enough tools for diagnosis on the system, in terms of identifying who is connected where at a certain point in time and so on. We would have liked more tools when it comes to diagnosis and traceability.

I've used Cisco Wireless for over ten years. 

The Cisco system worked well before, for many years. It was only after we started having capacity issues that we found the stability was suffering.

Along with the isolation measures, students and teachers started using Zoom and video sites like YouTube much more, which is when the wireless system started to show its limits.

After ten years of having the same system, we essentially started again from scratch when it came to upgrading. We looked into scaling up with Cisco Wireless, but unfortunately it would have been too expensive for us.

We didn't have much contact with Cisco technical support. The consultants would do the job for us, and the only time we needed them afterwards was when we had a problem with our Wi-Fi controllers. 

We had two controllers for high availability and when we realized that the second one was not working, we contacted support. Unfortunately, we didn't have SMARTnet for it, so we ordered SMARTnet to be able to exchange the device, and they said we just renewed the SMARTnet so we had a penalty of one month without the second controller.

We did not appreciate the way they handled it, because even though it wasn't a lot of money to them as a big company, it was a lot of money to us. I don't believe that was the right way for them to behave, especially with a school. We would have teachers come and tell us, "What's going on with the Wi-Fi? It doesn't work." But I couldn't really tell them, "It's a Cisco resource," and all that.

Actually, we have now switched to Ruckus only about a month ago. After evaluating the costs for upgrading the entire wireless network, we found that it would have been too expensive for us to continue with Cisco Wireless.

For deployment and maintenance we had three technicians and we also had support from our consulting company. We actually changed consulting companies twice, and we used them mainly for making updates and changing the setups.

With the most recent consulting company, we unfortunately lost contact with them and didn't have the documentation to finish the job that they had started.

The licensing system is very rigid. I work for a school and we are just treated like big companies. At some point, there's a limit to what we can do about that.

I can't remember what we paid for the equipment, though in the end we bought some extra switches from an aftermarket company. We started doing our own replacing of equipment, which we didn't really use. The SMARTnet contract was only for the core switch and the Wi-Fi controllers, and we didn't go that way for the rest of the equipment.

If we had, it would have cost something around $2000-$3000 per switch, and we have 30 of them, so it wouldn't have been affordable for us.

The best advice I can give is to always get a second opinion. When I arrived six years ago, we had way too many access points, and the density was causing a lot of interference. It was only after removing some access points that we had better Wi-Fi. When asked, the school said that they had originally added more access points because the Cisco technicians told them to.

I would rate Cisco Wireless a seven out of ten. 

I use Cisco Wireless for education as I am managing a school. We use it for connectivity for students and teachers. It is an international private school. This is why we have to get high speed connectivity.

I have not used the solution for enough time to give a full evaluation but I will tell you the estimate - I estimate that it will reduce the time for a student to do their work and reduce the time for copying and transferring data through the local network. That's the reason that what we needed to get this hardware.

The features that I have found most valuable with Cisco Wireless is that the average connectivity for this WIFI access point is 2.5 gigabytes. That's the highest technology and highest connectivity. They started using the new technology and WIFI to get you a faster connectivity. All companies jumped from Wave 2 to WIFI 6 for the high speed.

I selected Cisco Wireless because I found they improved everything, but there is still a gap in Cisco reporting. It did not invest more into giving accurate reports. That's the missing thing in the solution. 

In the next release, they should add a better reporting feature. The reporting will tell you if you have a problem. That will make the diagnostics easier. Although, we have not had problems that required a lot of diagnostics.

I just implemented the Cisco Wireless WiFi 6 last weekend.

I would be liar if I answered if it is stable because it has only been up for two days.

But the Cisco solution overall, and Cisco Wireless generally, are 100% stable.

It is scalable. We have around 2000 students and teachers using it because we are an educational institution.

I'm the IT manager. My role as IT manager is managing the whole technology results.

We require three staff people for deployment and maintenance of Cisco Wireless - a network administrator and two IT specialists.

They are good.

I have been using the Cisco solution since 2011.

The initial setup right now of the access points to the WIFI, and to the switches are managed by FortiGate firewall and the wireless controller. So the routing is through the FortiGate firewall and the activity is through the Cisco switches managed through the wireless controller.

The plan was to upgrade the firewall and remove the old non-supported access point from the system because I used hybrid between these two and WIFI 6. Because this hardware is very expensive to get all at one time, we have a plan to replace all access points for these.

The development takes three days. But the delivery takes a long time. They take a lot of time to deliver hardware. 

We implemented with a Cisco partner. They were experts. They did all they were supposed to do and it was active within the time as planned.

Two days is not enough to see ROI.

But for the previous experience, yes, I can see ROI. The old access points stayed with us since 2015. I have some working since 2017. I removed some from the system, so I have all 2017 access points still working. That is quite a reliable system.

Any people who are looking to get a stable solution with and long life and long time connectivity should go with Cisco.

The big lesson is that when you invest in expensive hardware, you have to understand that it should be a trusted hardware to give you stability and to make sure that your investment will be returned soon. The cost of implementation and downtime with Cisco are less than with other solutions.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give Cisco Wireless a nine.