Help with small business WIFI solution

[WirelessN]

Hello,

I'm looking for a new Wireless environment for my company, I did some research already but it’s hard for me to find the right solution, the price difference’s are often enormous. Maybe someone of you can help me with this?


It should be possible for approximately 25 people to use the wireless network
Wifi speed of 3 to 4 MB / s
Both Apple and Windows devices must be able to connect
Using dual-band 2.5 and 5GHz
Seamless roaming between APs
Support WPA2 and RADIUS
Possibility for Guest network

Aruba
Cisco
Engenius
Apple
Aerohive
4IPNET
Ubiquiti unifi PRO

The building is not very big about 15 by 10 meters but 4 high.

Thanks!</SPAN>

 

[Criterion]

I also have a small bussines and my requirements are almost excatly the same as you've described in this thread.

Curious what people got to say, myself I was only thinking Cisco devices.

But their website is so unclear, maybe other brands are good aswell?

 

[TigCobra]

Have you looked at Meraki?

I have currently in my network some Ubiquiti and they work good for the price point, and they are a very progressive company.

 

[drebo]

My recommendation would be UniFi, hands down. It does everything you need.

 

[mammador]

As a basic network design, I'd suggest the following:

- one large router should suffice. Obtain one with the capability of a guest network and a main SSID. There should be ones available that can have dual band, and of course WPA2 by default.

- If the building is not so large, then each host/node can be assigned an IP address without much difficulty and things would generally be seamless. I would recommend a /24 subnet for both the main SSID and the guest subnet. Even though you only have 25 persons, it still allows room for scalability should you expand.

- Regarding bandwidth, well this would be dependent on the network connection you buy from your ISP. Even wireless g can accommodate 3/4 Mbps, but it's better you look for an n or even better ac router.

- The brand of hosts doesn't matter, as TCP/IP applies to all brands. So if one of your employees has an Android and another has an iPhone, it shouldn't make much difference.

- I am not sure about specific wireless router brands, however you can ask local vendors which will be suitable. Alternatively, if you already have a wireless network, you can install additional Cat 6 cabling into existent switches and install a large access point. From this, you can configure both a main SSID and a guest network. It's also advisable that critical Internet services, such as NAS and MS Exchange or other enterprise e-mail, are only accessed via the main SSID. If a visitor wants to use e-mail, s/he has to do it via their personal Gmail account or other web-based e-mail.

This is plenty of information, but your needs are not so complex and overarching, so it shouldn't be too difficult to implement.

 

[Lithium381]

You should be able to put one AP on each floor and be fine. What is your budget and level of expertise? You could get some old Cisco 1200's off of ebay for $200 total and set them up as L2 running autonomous mode, or get a cisco wireless controller for $400 and put it into a 3725 router(120) and run them in LW mode.

so for about 800 you could have 4-6 AP's off off a controller. . . but then I'm cheap and like used cisco gear because it's easy!

edit - was that 4 meters high or 4 stories high?

 

[WirelessN]

Thanks for the fast responses, it's no option for us to use second hand products. The maximum budget is about 5000 dollar but less would be better, the ubiquinti seems a very easy solution. I wonder how seamless roaming would function on products like this, can you walk through the building without noticing you switch from AP? And the building is 4 floors high.

 

[mammador]

Place an AP on each floor.

All IP addresses would be assigned by the router, so in theory it should be seamless.

 

[WirelessN]

Place an AP on each floor.

All IP addresses would be assigned by the router, so in theory it should be seamless.

Well this is not working at the moment...

Today i've been watching for some cisco products, the solution i found was a cisco 2504 wireless controller in combination with 3 cisco aironet 1140 access points. Will this be a good combination, and the minimum of 5 access points do they mean the license with this?

 

[kevnich2]

Well this is not working at the moment...

Today i've been watching for some cisco products, the solution i found was a cisco 2504 wireless controller in combination with 3 cisco aironet 1140 access points. Will this be a good combination, and the minimum of 5 access points do they mean the license with this?

What exactly is not working? My recommendation is also ubiquiti unifi. Make sure they all provide coverage and roaming is handled by the controller, should be very seamless. I am installing these in all of our office locations and roaming seems to work just fine.

 

[kevnich2]

Nevermind, I thouht you meant you'd already purchased a new wireless solution and it wasn't working.

If you need both 2.4ghz and 5ghz you'll need the pro version's, which are more expensive but still cheaper than the other vendors. I also think they work equally or better than the cisco/aruba's.

 

[WirelessN]

Hmm oke, but the ubiquiti unifi is without controller so I'm not sure if roaming would be seamless? Do the multiple unifi access points operate as one big network?

 

[drebo]

"Roaming" between APs will function without a controller. You could use multiple wireless routers as APs and "roam" between them. Typically, you'll lose a couple packets worth of data while you reauthenticate, and that's usually fine. Most applications won't even notice.

The thing that the Cisco controller gets you isn't the ability to roam between APs with the same SSID. What it gets you is the ability to roam at L2 or at L3. Basically, when you connect to a new AP, that AP establishes a tunnel with the old AP (or controller) and encapsulates your wireless traffic back to the old AP (or controller) making it appear as though you're still connected to the old AP. You also could use WCS to enable triangulation and Clean Air, but that's a LOT of overkill for a 2-3 AP deployment.

That type of roaming isn't necessary 99% of the time. The biggest use of a controller in your scenario is for a central point of configuration, which UniFi does give you.

 

[kevnich2]

Hmm oke, but the ubiquiti unifi is without controller so I'm not sure if roaming would be seamless? Do the multiple unifi access points operate as one big network?

The unifi does have a software controller that you install in a computer that provides unified configuration and admin control.

 

[WirelessN]

At the moment we have a network environment with multiple access points and the reason to buy a new solution is because there is some packet loss when roaming.

 

[xperan.rich]

Hi, I'd say you're looking at massive overkill to be implementing AP Controllers, my personal recommendation would be
4 (at most) Cisco 1130 AP's - http://www.digitaldevicesonline.com...1ag-e-k9.php?gclid=CMbb8bzhsLYCFW_KtAod6VsA0g

A Small Business Spec POE Switch (neater, saves running poe injectors all over the place, and much nicer to manage)
http://www.ebuyer.com/255592-cisco-...LHLtYDisLYCFUfMtAod0HIAiQ#product-description

And A Cisco 887 Router
http://www.hardware.com/store/cisco/CISCO887-K9?gclid=CNmg6tHisLYCFc3HtAodIiEAGw

This is making a lot of assumptions (ie that you're using a standard ADSL line, you have no backup connection etc).

This kit will do everything you want, you can create two VLANS one for internal, one for visitor trunk the ports to your AP's and segregate the traffic (ie both vlans can see the router / outside world) but can't see each other (anyone on visitor Network can therefore not see your internal systems.), providing network cables are already at the deployment points for the AP's this wouldn't be a huge task to undertake.