Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)
Score 6.2 out of 10
N/A
Currently supported by Cisco, but no longer sold, Cisco recommends migration to the Cisco Catalyst 9100 Family of Access Points, which offer greater performance and flexibility.
N/A
Ubiquiti WLAN
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Ubiquiti offers a family of WLAN products, namely the UniFi line of products.
N/A
Pricing
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)
Ubiquiti WLAN
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)
Ubiquiti WLAN
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)
Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued)
Ubiquiti WLAN
Likelihood to Recommend
Discontinued Products
Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Access Points is very useful for outdoor locations that are more exposed to the wilderness or the weather, which provides uninterrupted wifi access during high winds and bad weather. It also is useful for hazardous locations that are prone to danger or wildlife. Unfortunately, it would not be appropriate to get a Cisco Aironet 1550 Series Access Point if it is only needed for basic wifi use, or indoor use, as the extra features and price would not be necessary.
Ubiquiti is well suited to not just indoor WLAN access, but also outdoors. In fact, the range of the outdoor applications, while maintaining throughput is astonishing. I would say this is not a solution for a 1-5 person small office, due to the costs.
Outdoor mesh bridging of access points brings significant cost savings to many of our production facilities. Deploying mesh APs is a significant cost reduction over trenching conduit to connect remote areas via fiber.
Cisco APs are extremely resilient, with a failure rate of below 5% in some of our harshest environments.
Cisco APs have the intelligence to identify wireless interference sources with Clean Air technology
Management of devices has become much simpler with the UNMS application, but personally, I would like to see some AirMax-like devices from their Unifi line where everything could be managed from an Unifi controller.
Most Ubiquiti devices are 24V PoE, which is the bane of my existence. I have had several devices fried when staff plugged into standard 48V PoE. They generally don't fail catastrophically, either. You just get strange issues that are difficult to diagnose and eventually need to replace them.
Devices seem to have trouble with many patch cables/switches. Make sure you certify any patch cables you make and don't over crimp.
Sending devices from the factory with same 192.168.1.20 IP instead of DHCP makes it a pain to bulk-setup devices.
Ubiquiti makes great Access points at various tiers provided far better coverage and throughput than consumer-grade wireless repeaters and routers. We have not had any performance complaints from guests or from the administration who use the wifi on a daily basis.
The Cisco Aironet 1560 Series Access Points served their function well. They were reliable, provided decent speeds, resisted the elements, and provided a good investment. The only downsides were mostly appearance which doesn't matter that much. However, I believe that the tech in the access point is not future proof which is why I did not give it a nine or ten star rating.
Initially I had a problem with the regulatory and channel selection, it was a bug on the AP as it was fairly new, solved by TAC on engineering release, and since then it has been performing flawlessly.
Ubiquiti's support is basically non-existent by design. However, their forums are a great resource if you are willing to do the research and ask questions. Keep in mind Ubiquiti sells hardware, not support so the responses will be from the community of professionals also using Ubiquiti just like you.
Making the decision to use Aironet is more related to the type of scenario that you have. We chose Aironet because we mainly manage all the network internally and already have Cisco products to integrate with Meraki which is a good option if you are starting from scratch.
We have used products from Netgear, ZyXEL, Cloudmesh, Datto, Mereki, and EnGenius previously often choosing products based on a specific situation, since starting with Ubiquiti [WLAN] we have pretty much stopped [usage] of all other vendors in the networking field and standardized which better allows us to stock spare equipment. Best part is if you need to replace equipment it is easy to swap it out quickly as the controller also acts as a live configuration backup.
The software of the Cisco Aironet 1560 is highly scalable, the software is very powerful so that the APs can be customized to the maximum and achieve the best performance of the network at the wifi level. The use of it is very easy for people with low knowledge.
With only a few DOA's or failing devices, the AP's are of very high quality.
We expect them to run stable for many years, which is why our initial investment will be an intelligent choice compared to installing a cheaper product.
Although the AP's from Cisco is cutting-edge technology, the 802.11ac standard will be considered legacy in a few years, meaning that its a balance to purchase a well-designed product that won't outlast the tech that it provides. Imagine having an investment in a large fleet of high-quality 802.11b AP's 20 years ago. Although they would still be working flawlessly due to their good quality, the bandwidth would probably be unacceptable to most modern consumers.
