Cisco Meraki MG cellular gateways are a cloud managed WAN solution designed to seamlessly transpose a wireless cellular signal to wired Ethernet, providing primary or failover connectivity.
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HPE OfficeConnect
Score 10.0 out of 10
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Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) offers the OfficeConnect line of access points and wireless solutions.
It is perfect for WAN redundant connectivity when Cellular 5G is available; It solve temporary issues on delays with delivery of ISP connectivity. It plays a great role in SD-WAN environments due to the overall flexibility in combination with MXs and the wan selection based on the state of the art condition of the connectivity. It fits less in those scenario where there are multiple spots with iot devices requiring internet connectivity due to the cost, in that case it could be hard the ROI.
The PoE function works well, and I am using them to power some VoIP/SIP phones of various brands and vintages (Nortel, Mitel, LG-Nortel). The setup is easiest, no special training/knowledge is required. You can manage internal as well as guest networks using the app.
It's fantastic for being in the Meraki dashboard and actually looking at quality of signal. I can look at up times, down times, ease of use when it comes to if I would have to reboot the MG 21E in case it does have a problem.
Overall reliability: since we switched to the MG 21 E, we've rarely have a problem with it when it comes to the cellular performance going down.
From a user aspect, to just a provider of the internet source for myself, they're very easy to set up. I don't have any real complaints over it. We use T-Mobile as our cellular provider, so there is some limitations on the signal strength and coverage. We could use AT&T, but the integration between the Meraki T system and our preexisting corporate AT&T account, there seems to be no integrations there. So that's where I would say the limitations are. I would prefer that the AT&T onboarding allows us to connect to our corporate AT&T wireless account.
We checked many vendors. ALU was a primary contender. However, their acccess points are not primarily designed for cellular use case. Cellular is just an additional feature on their fully loaded APs. The fact that MEraki MG is suited for this particular use case was a major factor.
I think both are great products but HPE OfficeConnect has been more reliable and suits our budget. As HPE claims, it's one of their simplest products and if you're an SMB, this is the best option.
In terms of scalability, The MG Meraki is unvanquished! As it works on cellular signals, as long as you have the required signal strength, you are connected. Removes the dependency on cables to connect to our ISP. So geographical locations do not affect the scalability of MG. Which is the whole point of having a Cellular to Wired Ethernet Device. And it can also be managed with the web centrally.