Ruckus Wireless as an Unifi alternative?

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LodeRunner

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Apr 27, 2019
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Based on the frequency graph, you've got your R710 sitting at the upper end of the DFS range. Try using the low band (36-48) or non-DFS high band (149-165). Despite higher signal power, you may be taking interference from a RADAR system or from other APs nearby in the same band. I would be curious what your retransmit statistics are, but that's understandably hard to get from an iPhone.

This is assuming you are in the US. DFS bands may/will be different world-wide.
 

audiobahn

Member
Sep 29, 2021
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Based on the frequency graph, you've got your R710 sitting at the upper end of the DFS range. Try using the low band (36-48) or non-DFS high band (149-165). Despite higher signal power, you may be taking interference from a RADAR system or from other APs nearby in the same band. I would be curious what your retransmit statistics are, but that's understandably hard to get from an iPhone.

This is assuming you are in the US. DFS bands may/will be different world-wide.
Daem... I switched over the 5GHz to Channel 56 and I'm now enjoying in-same-room speeds of 650-690 mbit on the iPhone too! Thank you! Will need to do another survey around the house later tonight but hopeful it work well. I dismissed the lower end two days ago and just left it to it's thing on Auto as it wasn't doing much for me but that problem must be related to the FW issue I mentioned earlier. Also, the 5GHz band is practically empty here so didn't think much of it.

I live in the UK, according to this: Changes to the 5GHz Wi-Fi band in the UK there's not many non DFS options. Will play around with various channels once I switch off my old wifi network (High pink peak in attachment), though 56 seems to work okay even though it's DFS. The 2.4GHz is a different animal o_O2.4Ghz_Channels.png5GHz_New.png
 

LodeRunner

Active Member
Apr 27, 2019
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Daem... I switched over the 5GHz to Channel 56 and I'm now enjoying in-same-room speeds of 650-690 mbit on the iPhone too! Thank you! Will need to do another survey around the house later tonight but hopeful it work well. I dismissed the lower end two days ago and just left it to it's thing on Auto as it wasn't doing much for me but that problem must be related to the FW issue I mentioned earlier. Also, the 5GHz band is practically empty here so didn't think much of it.

I live in the UK, according to this: Changes to the 5GHz Wi-Fi band in the UK there's not many non DFS options. Will play around with various channels once I switch off my old wifi network (High pink peak in attachment), though 56 seems to work okay even though it's DFS. The 2.4GHz is a different animal o_OView attachment 20025View attachment 20026
Nice. If you can get rid of your other device that's using ch 42 @ 80Mhz, you could drop your R710 to that band and maybe get a little more out it.

Automatic channel selection should not be trusted, I see it do dumb things (my neighbors APs choosing 2.4G channel 2, 5, 8, rather than 1, 6, 11 (the only non-overlapping channels) or setting channel-widths too wide and causing interference for others and reduced performance all around. Auto-channel in 5 G will often pick DFS bands and should (based on site surveys) be force into the 36-48 range or the 149-165 range (again depending on your local regulations). Looks like in the UK only 36-48 are non-DFS, so that kinda sucks.

Looks like you have some neighbors using 40Mhz 2.4G channels which is not friendly to anyone.
 
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audiobahn

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Sep 29, 2021
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Thanks again!

Looks like you have some neighbors using 40Mhz 2.4G channels which is not friendly to anyone.
Yeah, from their SSIDs it looks like it some TP-Link repeaters. Hopefully at least they do some work for them and not simply boost the signal with no speed benefit. Might follow the signal and have a word with them :)
 

asche

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Oct 6, 2017
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Hey there, I (or rather my wife) are fed up with Unifi's connection losses (U6-LR; UAP-AC-PRO). I had my own DHCP and roaming issues with them. So I am seriously considering to move away from Unifi.

We mainly use WiFi5 devices and don't need the latest bit of speed as much as connection reliability for our home offices.

In Germany, Ruckus is not available broadly in the used market. Now, several R510 are offered at EUR150 per piece. Would the R510 still be a viable setup going into 2022? Would the price be okay-ish?
 
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dswartz

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Hey there, I (or rather my wife) are fed up with Unifi's connection losses (U6-LR; UAP-AC-PRO). I had my own DHCP and roaming issues with them. So I am seriously considering to move away from Unifi.

We mainly use WiFi5 devices and don't need the latest bit of speed as much as connection reliability for our home offices.

In Germany, Ruckus is not available broadly in the used market. Now, several R510 are offered at EUR150 per piece. Would the R510 still be a viable setup going into 2022? Would the price be okay-ish?
I formerly had 3 unifi units (don't remember which), and had no end of stability issues. Saw a reference to ruckus here. Got 2 new R710, updated to unleashed and no regrets.
 

jei

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Aug 8, 2021
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Finland
Hey there, I (or rather my wife) are fed up with Unifi's connection losses (U6-LR; UAP-AC-PRO). I had my own DHCP and roaming issues with them. So I am seriously considering to move away from Unifi.

We mainly use WiFi5 devices and don't need the latest bit of speed as much as connection reliability for our home offices.

In Germany, Ruckus is not available broadly in the used market. Now, several R510 are offered at EUR150 per piece. Would the R510 still be a viable setup going into 2022? Would the price be okay-ish?
Maybe check this one out: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/fs-ruckus-r710-and-a-couple-iot-modules.31185/
 

dragonian

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Jan 3, 2020
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I agree with assessment that replacing unifi w/ ruckus has been faster and more stable. I replaced a nanoHD & AC-PRO w/ 2x R610 in the same locations and it has been a quantifiable improvement.

I have installed 2x r510s in a friend's house, and they are similar performance to the r610s. I believe that the r610s have an extra set of radio chains, which are not applicable to all devices.

I don't know about EU pricing, but I normally see well priced r510 around $100-120 USD, and the r610 around $120-150, but the spread can vary wildly, especially on the top end.
 

gerby

SREious Engineer
Apr 3, 2021
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Has anyone done a multi site setup with Ruckus? Right now I'm running Unifi APs for myself and some family members out of a central controller with separate sites. My initial research into zonedirector implies traffic backhaul; is there an option for keeping traffic local? Can I just NAT the controller or should I expect to build tunnels to protect management traffic back to the controller with ruckus?
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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I don’t know much about Ruckus but I can’t imagine it’s different than Cisco and Aruba where you can just use a controller as a controller and you can also use it to create GRE tunnels back from the AP to controller to then terminate that traffic in a different network zone, you won’t normally do this but it’s also not uncommon to do this, it’s based on SSID as well so you can have an SSID just putting the traffic on local LAN and another tunneling back to the controller and terminating elsewhere.
 

ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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ms264556.net
Has anyone done a multi site setup with Ruckus? Right now I'm running Unifi APs for myself and some family members out of a central controller with separate sites. My initial research into zonedirector implies traffic backhaul; is there an option for keeping traffic local? Can I just NAT the controller or should I expect to build tunnels to protect management traffic back to the controller with ruckus?
I have a ZoneDirector 1200 controller, which I'm sharing with friends/family in 5 sites in 2 different cities.

By default SSIDs are not tunneled back to the controller, but I have a 'Television' SSID at each site which tunnels traffic back to my home, then out to getflix (which they can't use directly since they all have CGNAT).
Ruckus has several solutions which would probably be better for this (SmartZone, Cloud or UMM), but these are all subscription-based. I'm a cheapskate & have a static IP and symmetric GB fibre, so I was happier to pay once for a cheap 2nd hand ZoneDirector, and faff around a bit with pfsense to whitelist in the traffic.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the config.
 
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sth

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Oct 29, 2015
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Has anyone done a multi site setup with Ruckus? Right now I'm running Unifi APs for myself and some family members out of a central controller with separate sites. My initial research into zonedirector implies traffic backhaul; is there an option for keeping traffic local? Can I just NAT the controller or should I expect to build tunnels to protect management traffic back to the controller with ruckus?
I'm doing this with smartzone but without the dataplane as I have local DHCP at both sites. I manage my switches with this too.
 
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gerby

SREious Engineer
Apr 3, 2021
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Appreciate the feedback! Did you just punch holes through for management traffic? I'm having trouble finding design and configuration docs for smartzone, nothing at on commscope seems to address this at the architecture level. I'd likely end up looking for a zonedirector on ebay if this is the route I choose.
 

sth

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Oct 29, 2015
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all the details re ports are in the smart zone manual available from the Ruckus site. I have it segregated to a VLAN etc.
 

audiobahn

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Sep 29, 2021
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Has anyone done a multi site setup with Ruckus? Right now I'm running Unifi APs for myself and some family members out of a central controller with separate sites. My initial research into zonedirector implies traffic backhaul; is there an option for keeping traffic local? Can I just NAT the controller or should I expect to build tunnels to protect management traffic back to the controller with ruckus?
Did you consider the option running Unleashed firmware to avoid the need to use a controller in the first place?
 
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ms264556

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Sep 13, 2021
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Did you consider the option running Unleashed firmware to avoid the need to use a controller in the first place?
I agree. Unleashed is, of course, the best solution if you don't need to remotely manage the other sites or tunnel any traffic.

But if either of those things is important then you need to spend money.

Since I think Unleashed multi-site manager is $1k, it would make sense to also consider the other options (SmartZone, Ruckus Cloud, ZoneDirector).
 

gerby

SREious Engineer
Apr 3, 2021
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There is a need for remote management but no need for tunneling; this has been quite helpful thank you all!
 

dswartz

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Jul 14, 2011
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My only complaint about unleashed: if you reboot the master, it seems to take a few minutes for the other AP to take over, and it has to 'rebuild unleashed'. Seems kinda strange that the config wouldn't automatically be synced to the backup AP and have that seamlessly take over, but that's just me I guess :)
 

Vesalius

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Nov 25, 2019
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200.10.10.5.253 and 200.11.10.5.195 are available. No release notes for 200.11 yet.

RUCKUS Unleashed 200.10 (GA Refresh2) Release Notes

Resolved Issues in Build 200.10.10.5.253
  • Resolved an issue where the client is unable to access the internet sometimes. [ER-9521]
  • Resolved an issue where AP rebooted due to kernel panic after enabling LACP. [ER-10577]
  • Resolved an issue where multicast traffic is allowed when client isolation is enabled. [ER-10555]
  • Resolved one MU-MIMO related performance issue for 11ax APs. [ER-9517]
 

klui

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Feb 3, 2019
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Thanks for the heads up! The 200.11 release notes and other documentation just landed at RUCKUS Unleashed 200.11 (GA) Release Notes | Technical Documents | Ruckus Wireless Support

It didn't mention the open mixed mode WPA2/3 for iOS devices that support 802.11k. That was what I was waiting for before I upgraded from 200.9.10.4.243. But more worryingly for those who are affected, the known issues are
  • iPhone 12 fails to associate with WPA3 WLAN
  • iPhone 12 (iOS 14.6) Safari is unable to open "unleashed.ruckuswireless.com"
  • Android phone failed to download prov.apk from the mini browser.
But a long list of neat features.

200.10 still has the mixed mode WPA2/3 bug.