Cisco's Meraki MR Series is a wireless LAN solution.
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Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points are designed to provide simple installation, intuitive web-based configuration, and an integrated setup wizard to make them easy to use. Models include the Cisco WAP 150, and the WAP 125. The WAP 131 and WAP 121 older models are end of sale.
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Pricing
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points
Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points
Editions & Modules
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No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points
Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points
Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
The Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points is a good solution although not for everyone. Cost wise it is more expensive than competition. Technically speaking, if you are going for a full Cisco Meraki solution from firewall, switches, WAP, and management app, it requires a solid technical understanding of where each part and piece falls. If you have the money and the technical capabilities (in house or outsourced) then it is a solid platform that leans on Cisco's respectable history in the communications and infrastructure industry.
As an IT technician I was involved in the deployment and configuration of some access points. Work was easy to attach it to the ceiling and connect to the CAT6A network cable. The controller located in the main building transmits all settings remotely in less than 15 minutes to the access point and it is already operational. The WAP 150 has a compact style and looks great on the ceiling because the antennas are internal and radiate omnidirectionally to users. We created three networks, one 2.4Ghz, the second 5Ghz and the other exclusively for patients.
It's cloud based, so as long as we have an internet connection, we can access it. Whenever we push a change, it's one stop like a single pane of glass to manage all our equipment. And so that's what I liked about it.
So the Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points dashboard, it's a little bit like comparing Apple and Android. So with Android you can do a lot more configuration, whereas with Meraki there are a lot of assumptions about a radio resource management. There are a lot of assumptions around, for instance, when it does a heat map, it's a heat map, which is a population density rather than a wireless coverage heat map. So that can cause confusion because normally when you look at heat map, you're looking at, that is a metric for how well it's performing rather than how many devices are using it. So I think that's always at the bone of contention around one of the things it can do.
It is a solution that works very well. It is almost like setup and forget, since the solution works. When issues occur, documentation is available with detailed steps on how to solve this problems you are facing, of course Technical Support is always ready to help. We have had instances where an Access Point fails and within 2 days we have the replacement
To get basic functionality doesn't take long. Set up a new Meraki Dashboard activate the licenses and get internet connection for the APs and you are more or less done. The Dashboard will find your items and you're good to go.
We have not had any issues with the Meraki WiFi Access Point hardware but we did encounter a problem with a Meraki LAN switch that failed to power up. Upon a email into the Meraki Support, they promptly called back and we went over some quick tests to determine a power supply problem. A replacement LAN switch was sent to me the next day.
There were documents that detailed how the WiFi Access Point was to be installed and mounted. The only issue was to cable the device, we use a third party for this type of work and typically has to be performed after normal business hours. Other than that, the installation was easy.
We were more on a Cisco Wireless Controller set up, which takes a lot longer to control and that's why we've actually gone through a cloud-based product, which is very easy compared with the old traditional way that we used to have. It's more ease of software. They've got very similar features, but it's easy to set up and maintain into the future.
The products of the Cisco Small Business 100 Series Wireless Access Points family are an excellent option within the segment in which they compete. We provide many enterprise-level features with costs close to entry-level. It allows us to maintain centralized administration, scale easily, and not lose observability, and it maintains the quality and robustness that Cisco has accustomed us to.
As far as I know, it's 10. I mean, because like I said, I manage stuff in the south. I have coworkers that manage it in the north. And so the scalability of it to be able to be go in and see the configurations of the ones in the north as well as they can see in the south. So across the board, it works really well for how widespread out it is.
Uptime has improved significantly. The dashboard automatically keeps devices up to date by scheduling upgrades at remote times (say 2am on a Sunday)
Swapping to Cisco Meraki MR Wireless Access Points has reduced the management overhead. No more long controller software hardware upgrades and obviously no more need for beefy central controllers.
