Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points vs Cisco Mobility Express

Likelihood to Recommend

As any Cisco Aironet Access Points, the 3800 model is more for power users than beginners. It is for sure very more complex to maintain and trouble shoot than solutions like Cisco Meraki APs.

By the way, there are a lot of settings that can be customized and it is really interesting for difficult environments like industrial factories.

The 3800 model is also robust so it should stay durable and reliable.

But if you want to use the mesh mode or make a wireless bridge, this model is not appropriate as it is not supported for now.

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Computer Networking Company, 10,001+ employees

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With all that was said in the [Things Done Poorly] section, I believe [Cisco Mobility Express] has been extremely helpful in allowing me to complete my tasks at hand. I trust it. It's dependable. It's reliable. An excellent product to say the least. One which I'm glad we have on campus and one which I hope we maintain.

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Verified User

Administrator in Customer Service

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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Pros

Cisco APs are managed very easily from a Cisco WLC controller.
Cisco APs provide lots of enterprise-grade options such as rogue detection and automatic power configuration.
Cisco APs have many different mounting options, which makes them very versatile in a healthcare environment.

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Verified User

Technician in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 1001-5000 employees

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It gives our company reliable connectivity to our network.
It gives a detailed approach to what functions are available and how to change them.
It is easy to troubleshoot problems in the system.

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Verified User

Administrator in Human Resources

Utilities Company, 201-500 employees

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Cons

Outdoor capabilities. We have actually blown up a few outdoor units. Water got inside the outdoor units and had visible rust
Costs compared to other AP’s in the market. Ruckus and EnGenius work out a bit cheaper
Mounting options are limited

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Ashveen Nandan

Manager Information & Communications Technolofy

Fiji AirportsAirlines/Aviation, 501-1000 employees

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There were some minor issues, but were solved with a firmware update.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Consumer Electronics Company, 201-500 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points 7.9

Based on 3 answers

We are all happy with Aironet and Prime.

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Montasir Azad

Sr. Information Security Lead

Choice Hotels InternationalHospitality, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Cisco Mobility Express 8.0

Based on 3 answers

I can not think of a scenario that I ran into an issue with an outage. As I said, sometimes it is difficult to gain access to the product in the morning hours (may take about 3-4 tries to get in). I've never experienced an unplanned outage. Once, you're on - you're on for about 7 hours (if not longer).

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Verified User

Administrator in Customer Service

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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Performance

Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points 9.5

Based on 2 answers

The Cisco 3802 product performance is excellent. Not only for the speed and range of the wireless it provides, but also for the fact that - when deployed in a large scale environment - the performance does not fail. It provides the same network connectivity for users ranging from 1 to 30-plus concurrent connections.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Oil & Energy Company, 1001-5000 employees

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Cisco Mobility Express 7.7

Based on 3 answers

We have little network downtime, if any. The product works well for our company of 400 and we have very minimal issues that come up and most are fixable very quickly.

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Verified User

Administrator in Human Resources

Utilities Company, 201-500 employees

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Alternatives Considered

Our selection of Cisco Aironet Access Points versus the Meraki Access Points was entirely on a political basis with our vendor. In the future, we are actually looking to migrate towards the Meraki system. Even though the Meraki feature-set is lacking, we really only require those features, and our cost would be largely cut by this migration. It would be a solid win, but maybe not recommendable to everyone.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 1001-5000 employees

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We did not evaluate any other controlerless solutions, but we have received good feedback from multiple sources about Mobility Express and that's why we have selected it.

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Verified User

Employee in Information Technology

Consumer Electronics Company, 201-500 employees

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Scalability

Cisco Aironet 3800 Series Access Points 8.5

Based on 2 answers

Contrary to a solution like the Cisco Meraki access points, the Aironet access points like the 3800 are linked to the Controler. And depending on the version of the controller, it will support only some models of access points.

For big sites, it may be difficult to upgrade the controler to support new ap models like 3800 because we still have old access points.

And it is also the same between new access points and old client devices so it is always a bit tricky.

After that, if the access point model is supported by the controller, it is really simple to install a new one

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Computer Networking Company, 10,001+ employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Users are able to carry on with their work while moving, changing seats, rooms or having an ad-hoc Skype meeting on the way to lunch. It is always hard to justify the value of connectivity but be assured, when it is not working the business impact is immediate.

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Verified User

Consultant in Customer Service

Information Technology and Services Company, 10,001+ employees

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I can speak for myself, the product has worked well that each employee is able to work from an on-campus setting to an off-campus setting without restrictions
The way we set up the campus schedule is one item which we need to have done right - this product helps us when students are deciding upon which courses to take.
Accuracy is one thing which my employer is after, this always me to be as accurate as possible

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Verified User

Administrator in Customer Service

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No