Cisco Wireless WAN Reviews

I'm a user, administrator, and implementer of Wireless WAN. I work in a large company and we use the system throughout our campus sites. We mainly use version 5508 and for smaller sites, we use 2504. There are more recent products but I don't have experience with them. We currently have 50,000 people using the Cisco Wireless WAN and have no plans for further expansion.

Improvement to our organization would be in terms of IoT, I would say, because some buildings are fully covered by WiFi. We're talking about large buildings of 60 access points per building. Users have benefited from full coverage and of course, that includes cell phones which also connect to WiFi, and using the guest wireless, and the ICP. Reduction in mobile data costs has allowed for increased savings, thanks to our corporate WiFi.

Valuable features for me would be the friendly GUI. It's not a feature as such but it's the first thing I would point out because troubleshooting is very easy on it. I can literally point down to a single host, find roughly where he's located and examine the strength of his connectivity. Also, I find the mobile anchoring to be handy although compared to the newer solutions it's a little old. 

Improvement could be made in the planning - WiFi survey and planning, and WiFi key mapping - should both be included in high-end devices. You would expect them to be included in such a product. When we bought it, 5508 was a high-end device. Some aspects could be achieved automatically by the wireless controller. For example, if there is a single access point deployed in a densely populated area, there will be many users and all those users bring down the speed. I think an option where the range of the access points is determined by the signal strength of the end-users would be good. There should be a mechanism mitigating that because when a user with a low WiFi signal connects, he basically crashes the experience for everyone else. Some automation on their part would be good.

A neat feature that some of the other vendors have is that of informing, where I can tell the access point to narrow down its signal and focus it in a specific direction. That is very handy, for example, in long corridors where you don't want the access point to spread its signal everywhere but rather focus it to a narrow field of vision, so to speak. That's a feature I would like to see. Vendors like Aruba have things like tracking mobile devices. That would also be a handy feature because it allows you to pinpoint areas that have low WiFi coverage. Another feature would be a dynamically generated heat map. Let's say you can see on a heat map where the user has been and can follow his WiFi experience in terms of signal to noise ratio, signal strength and the like as well as interference by other machines detected in that path, how the access points see each other and the strength of signal they're producing. The only thing missing is the piece of software that could show you that graphically.

I would like to see a centralized management where I don't need to log on to every controller and then proceed from there. Also, a centralized management for multiple wireless control deployments and, of course, features such as user tracking so I can pinpoint the user, all the way down to the wireless control access point and switch that the access point is connected to. 

I've been using Cisco Wireless WAN for about ten years.

It's a very stable device when used properly by people who know how to configure it; a high-end quality device. Recently some of the access points have started to break down but they are over 10 years old, which is quite good.

The product is very good quality with high scalability in my view.

We currently have around 10 people in our maintenance team

Prior to Cisco, we used Palo Alto. The switch was made to Cisco because we wanted to standardize the network throughout the company. 

The setup is relatively straightforward. To configure the controllers with prep time and IP address, would take a couple of hours, give or take.

I wasn't involved in the decision-making process about alternative options before we went with the Wireless WAN.

We use dedicated wireless control for our campuses in a redundant topology, active/passive. We use both Flex connect and local, essentially switched networks. Our company uses physical machines, not cloud-based wireless controls.

I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

I use this solution because I work for a Cisco partner. We use a lot of Cisco products and it makes it easy for us to position this wireless solution for most of our clients because they already have a Cisco base. It is very easy to propose it as an alternative.

The solution has all the features we need, but it is very expensive.

I have been using Cisco Wireless WAN for over five years.

The program is very stable.

It is scalable enough for most of our clients. We have many users and don't have issues or problems with scalability.

I don't have any complaints about the technical support.

The initial setup was straightforward.

If I were to give advice to others, I would say is this: I haven't had much experience with any other option. Or if you were asking me to recommend this solution over another one, I'll generally recommend the Cisco Wireless WAN, because that's the only one I know and have experience of. I would like to see better pricing. It would also be great if one of these wireless cards could support multiple service providers. On a scale from one to ten, I will rate this solution an eight. 

We use Cisco Wireless WAN for normal campus access, for voice roaming, regular setup, some employee networks, network using portals, and simple registrations.

We acquired the Cisco Identity Service Engine (ISE), and what I found the most valuable, is the integration between Cisco wireless and the ISE. It is very useful. 

The integration support technology should be improved. We have more sites to the technology itself and before we only had to connect the access points to a controller. Now we use most of the pieces of what the wireless as a concept can provide. So more integration and support will be great. 

I have been using the solution for eight years now.

The program is very stable.

I believe the solution is scalable and it is easy to add more users.

The technical support is really good.

We have been working on Cisco for many years now, so we just upgraded to Cisco Wireless WAN.

The initial setup was really easy and straightforward.

Cisco is more expensive than other solutions.

The reason why we chose Cisco over another solution, is that Cisco is very strong here in the Aruba and Ruckus region. We have a vendor specifically in Saudi Arabia. What I like about this solution, is that it is always available and it's up to me to integrate, something called the DNA. I like the features that Cisco provides and it a solution that's easy to work on. I like the integration between Cisco and all the other Cisco products when it comes to network roaming, the DNA. So this is the integration that I'm looking forward to integrating, Cisco wireless with the DNA.

On a scale from one to 10, I will rate this an eight. The reason why I don't give it a ten is because Cisco is rather expensive. I would like to see it being more affordable.

We use this solution to provide wireless service in our hospitals.

The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is stable and the support is good.

The worst thing about the Cisco controllers is that they only have two ports. The design of having only two physical ports is very bad.

I have been using this solution for six or seven years.

This stability is one of the major reasons to stick with this product.

We have about ten thousand users in our environment.

We run different hospitals and on a daily basis and we have between eight and ten thousand clients.

Cisco is always number one in terms of technical support. There is no doubt that they are better than any other vendor.

I also have experience with solutions from Aruba and Avaya XE. We removed the Avaya units after their merger and are sticking with solutions from Cisco and Aruba.

I have a lot of experience with this solution, so I find the setup to be easy.

Between Cisco and Aruba, I would say that the features are similar. Each of them is better at different features.

Wireless solutions are not something that you need to change very often. We have older models installed and they are still working fine. Changing the entire environment involves a lot of money and a lot of effort.

My advice to anybody who is considering this type of solution is to first look at your ecosystem and then choose the product. Don't just choose one without looking at what other types of products, such as switches, you already have.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

It's a good solution and it works very well. It has great integration with other Cisco products. It's good for the management team to only have one brand, one manufacturer of products. 

I like how the look and feel of the product are standardized to match other Cisco solutions. 

The pricing could be improved in future releases. It's quite expensive.

I've been using the solution for six or seven years.

The stability of the product is good. I haven't heard anything bad from customers, who seem quite happy with it.

The solution is scalable.

The technical support for the solution is pretty good. I'd rate it eight out of ten.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The solution is quite expensive.

We use the on-premises deployment model. We're a Cisco partner.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

Flex-connect.

It helps to connect AP's in multiple branches.

There are a few software bugs.

Cisco 5500 Series Wireless Controller. We have used it for about 4 years.

No.

No.

No.

Customer Service:

It's the best available in the market.

Technical Support:

Also excellent.

Very straightforward.

In-house.

It's very reliable and can be used for long term purpose.

1.One of the reasons we selected this WWAN modem is the underlying support for all the high speed modules and speed which is higher than 100Mbps. 2.Can be used to easily setup a high speed ISP or mobile network 3.Another deciding factor was the support for large number of devices that can interoperate easily with Cisco WWAN card 4. Failover support. There is a secondary link which can take over in case the primary goes down. 5.It provides transparent handoff support for devices which are using older technologies. 6.Provides higher bandwidth to support high definition video calls. 7.Supports advanced features like quality of service (QoS)

While deploying the module, we had to struggle with the telemetry system server setup as it had some module compatibility issues with tracking system

Cisco LTE WWAN provides an easy way to setup an high speed, robust and secure network with speeds of 100Mbps and above. It supports a large number of network devices and can easily integrate with devices running on older technologies as well. We tested the HD video call feature as well and found it to be of very good in terms of video, voice quality and overall speed. We faced some module compatibility issues with Cisco WWAN while setting up the telemetry system server setup. Overall a good product and provides large number of features for providing high speed network.

This product is fulfilling our technological requirements to setup a high speed 4G environment in a large ISP / Mobile network. Easily manage and configure in existing network without any changes. This module provides automatic secondary link whenever the main link is down.

When I tried to setup in Cisco ASA 5500 series IPv6 network then I faced a module compatibility issue. Cisco will remove this obstacle in future. It is not possible to setup a GPS tracking system and telemetry system server with this module.