Likelihood to Recommend 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.
Read full review In a corporate environment that requires strong security and the ability to block / allow a large variety of users, the Cisco Wireless platform excels. The system is extremely robust and can provide literally a blanket of coverage, with very good performance. They also offer external/out doors access points which provide excellent performance. Because the system is well built and designed, you often go through the lifetime of the product (you really need to apply updates) with very little issues. However, when you reach the end of the support life on the box, it is not cheap at all to upgrade/replace. You really need to keep an eye on the current life cycle and plan accordingly for a replacement date and fund.
Read full review Pros 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 Read full review It's Cisco and like all our other Cisco products, chiefly switches, once you get it set up to your liking, it just runs itself after that. The reliability factor has been huge for us. Ease in deploying new APs has been nice. We have a DNS record (and DHCP Option 43 as a fallback) that helps new AP find the WLC. The WLC takes it from there. Good monitoring of connections, kicking people off, [and] blocking certain MACs are all useful features. Read full review Cons 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. Read full review Configuring wireless settings is very confusing because various settings are scattered all over the interface in different tabs Lots of settings use Cisco's technical verbiage rather than common phrasing, so it's confusing what a lot of settings will do and requires researching the meaning before modifying the setting The interface could be easier to use to do simple tasks such as reboot an access point Read full review Likelihood to Renew There is no other better option than this. It's the line between the commercial Cisco grade AP's and industrial ones.
Read full review Although it is a very good product, support is easy and can manage by Level 1 support persons and downtime is too much less but still there is a cost factor matters which is consider by each organization. Furthermore, organizations also compare with other competitors so it is hard to pursue and defend the high prices.
Read full review Usability Everything clear and easy to use
Read full review As I said before, the only thing we miss in our old model is the fact that the management interface never received an improvement in design. It has the same look and feels since it was launched. It's not that it's hard to use. It's just the case of could be modernized.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Downtime fear is the first fear which IT persons look and want to eliminate as much as they can but eventually you have to face it as nothing is perfect. Cisco Wireless Lan controller are feasible to use and easy to manage and other than this their issue reported are pretty low so you can get the best up time. now it also depends on scenario as well as environment.
Read full review Performance 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.
Read full review Cisco Wireless Lan controller are feasible to use and easy to manage and other than this their issue reported are pretty low so you get the better uptime. if your get the uptime then it means its a stable product in your environment. Product performance also depends on the product management and Cisco Wireless Lan controller management is easy so you can get the great output.
Read full review Support 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.
Read full review As usual, the support from Cisco's TAC (Technical Assistance Center) is lacking. Granted, they always get the job done , but the amount of lead time on a non-emergency is enough to make you just handle it yourself. The good news is that if you ask for Cisco's assistance and forget about it, they'll jump on by the time you've forgotten where you were in troubleshooting it and have it fixed for you.
Read full review Implementation Rating That was a great experience of having a new project and working on it. Although we got some hurdles and challenges but we overcome all the things and try to work efficiently for this. in this time Cisco support team also helps a lot an give pro tips which help us.
Read full review Alternatives Considered 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.
Daniel At Director De Tecnologías de Información
Read full review The Aironet access points are used for employee WiFi access, and they integrate well with Meraki. They would offer a separate guest network, too, but the decision was made to physically separate the guest network, so even if a bad actor would gain access to the ethernet port of the AP, they'd still not see any company traffic.
Read full review Scalability 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.
Read full review Cisco is a brand name and people trust on it. if any one thing about the networking then Cisco is among those brand which is count as trusted brand and people rely on it. Also it support is good so people can use it. Cisco Wireless Lan controller are easy to use and manage so it requires less effort.
Read full review Return on Investment 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. Read full review Positive impact 1. Our employees are able to move around anywhere in our 12-story building and have access to our corporate network. Employees are not tied down to an office and can easily move around to meetings and stay connected. Because the equipment is so reliable, we do not have any unscheduled outages. Employees come in the building and connect without issues and have a sense that the wireless network "Just Simply Works." When performing network maintenance, I usually have to block out several ours for our maintenance window. Upgrades sometimes do not go as smoothly as planned. This can be frustrating for the engineer. Read full review ScreenShots