Cisco Aironet 1500 Series Access Points (discontinued) vs. Ubiquiti Wireless WAN

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.

Incentivized

I love the equipment for small-scale commercial solutions and quality without the price tag. I might not recommend their products for a large organization with multiple locations and servers. However, the GUI interface will allow remote access and setup across the network. I think this is a great solution for small businesses and families or home office solutions, provided there is some IT knowledge for setup and maintenance.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• Automatically load balances based on band. Makes it simple to spread out users.
• Updates can be set to automatic or manual. Automatic uses rolling updates, happens every time we update the controller.
• Continually add new features and improvements with their FREE software upgrades

Incentivized

• In the facilities where we operate, we had to put a reinforcement on the ceiling to avoid problems due to the weight of the access point.
• On the appearance, it could be smaller and lighter.
• As for the hardware, I think it's incredible, I don't see any points to improve.

Incentivized

• Supply can be a problem, especially for new products. We have had to sometimes wait for months for supply to come in.
• No phone support. Only email/chat. can be frustrating sometimes just texting someone, but have not had to contact them very often.

Incentivized

There is no other better option than this. It's the line between the commercial Cisco grade AP's and industrial ones.

Incentivized

Everything clear and easy to use

Incentivized

The combination of performance, range, low-power use, and manageability made it ideal for us.

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We have not needed to contact support, except to replace one device that was damaged in shipping. The company immediately issued an RMA without delay, and we had our replacement product within a week

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.

Incentivized

Prior to this, we used Cisco Meraki wireless access points, which did not allow for centralized control, therefore several access points shared the same SSID. Because the client's movement from one device to another was not as seamless and reliable as it is with the current Ubiquiti solution, this shift cost both time and stability during configuration.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• The cost of the equipment vs. my uptime is streets ahead of typical consumer equipment.
• Adding additional AP's is extremely easy and little to no downtime for setup.
• Transition between Unifi and Edge equipment can be a little clunky but it works.

Incentivized