Need recommendations for Wifi access point

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fohdeesha

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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BLinux

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Jul 7, 2016
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Ok. I'm going to play with the Cisco option since my friend is giving me the hardware. Only concern is limited ability to get updates later on. But still going to tinker since hw is free...

Another option came up.... OpenWRT. just need to find some good hardware to run it. Updates would be available as long as the project is thriving, or I can always dig into the source code. I feel more comfortable with open source when it comes to security and it's possible to add features. Anyone go down this route? What are some good hardware options for OpenWRT?

Follow-up: The Meraki MR33 AP seems to be nice choice for OpenWRT... any thoughts?
 
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BLinux

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update: just got done testing out a Cisco AIR-CAP3702I-A-K9 unit with the latest standalone firmware... the GUI is broken in so many places, it's not even worth trying to use it. ended up configuring most of it through the CLI... performance testing was really disappointing... 100Mbps on 5Ghz and 20Mbps on 2.4Ghz and that's with my laptop 3-ft from the AP. The crappy AP I'm trying to replace gives me 400Mbps on 5Ghz and it's on another floor of the building. I don't think this model is that old, how can it perform so poorly???

friend also gave me a AIR-AP2802I-E-K9, but i haven't tried it out yet...
 

itronin

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Nov 24, 2018
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Denver, Colorado
I know Ruckus has been mentioned before by others but I am REALLY REALLY happy with the unleashed Ruckus R710's I picked up (@210.00 each shipped) off the bay. I've been running them for about 7 months on current FW and while I've got some apple devices and I have seen the slow down - but on my GF's various droid devices and her work DELL and personal Sammy laptop the performance and reliability has been really really great.

I ran a cisco 2504 WLC with 3702's until 7 months ago and the ruckus stuff is better, faster, less footprint simpler to manage for "typical use" with VLANS and multiple SSID's.

I've got an old house with lots of additions, Solid walls in the middle of the house (formerly exterior walls), rebar, lots of steel. Put one at each end of the house and I have no dead spots. They're not even mounted correctly, waist level pointing up sitting on tables. Heck I get a 50% signal about 500' away down the street in a neighbor's house. Someday they'll fix the perf bug in unleashed but honestly its been more than acceptable on my apple devices for my use YMMV...
 
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fohdeesha

Kaini Industries
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yeah, as previously mentioned you're not gunna beat the performance of ruckus, especially anything in the x10 line (r510, r710, etc)
 

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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I know Ruckus has been mentioned before by others but I am REALLY REALLY happy with the unleashed Ruckus R710's I picked up (@210.00 each shipped) off the bay. I've been running them for about 7 months on current FW and while I've got some apple devices and I have seen the slow down - but on my GF's various droid devices and her work DELL and personal Sammy laptop the performance and reliability has been really really great.

I ran a cisco 2504 WLC with 3702's until 7 months ago and the ruckus stuff is better, faster, less footprint simpler to manage for "typical use" with VLANS and multiple SSID's.

I've got an old house with lots of additions, Solid walls in the middle of the house (formerly exterior walls), rebar, lots of steel. Put one at each end of the house and I have no dead spots. They're not even mounted correctly, waist level pointing up sitting on tables. Heck I get a 50% signal about 500' away down the street in a neighbor's house. Someday they'll fix the perf bug in unleashed but honestly its been more than acceptable on my apple devices for my use YMMV...
was your performance on the 3702 as poor as what i experienced last night? i'm thinking i must have setup something wrong... the friend who gave it to me says he gets 900Mbps at his house with those same units... i'm going to at least give it another look.
 

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
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Denver, Colorado
was your performance on the 3702 as poor as what i experienced last night? i'm thinking i must have setup something wrong... the friend who gave it to me says he gets 900Mbps at his house with those same units... i'm going to at least give it another look.
my 5ghz perf was a bit better... 200-250, my 2.4 was the same or worse however even with 2 AP's I still had a deadzone in my house esp on 5ghz. I have a couple 10 story apartment buildings right behind me. the WLC saw over 300 ssid's at one point mostly on 2.4. 10 were called "linksys"... LOL...
so many networks and only 3 usable channels on 2.4 you get the picture...

typical distance to my AP was either 7 feet and no walls or 15 feet and a formerly exterior wall in between.
the 3702 like the ruckus were sitting on a table top at waist height pointed up.

Just out of curiosity how did you mount the Cisco? If it was just on a table top you might try testing using a ladder or step ladder or top of a tall bookshelf temporarily and then make sure its facing the right direction as if it was mounted on a ceiling.

I have hit close to gigabit per sec real world data transfer with my mbpro using the ruckus to my freenas box and on the current firmware.