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Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers

Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers

Overview

What is Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers?

Cisco offers wireless LAN.

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8 out of 10
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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Product Details

What is Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers?

Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers : Cisco offers companies a comprehensive wireless portfolio to address the needs of networks, from small deployments all the way up to large enterprises. Optimized for 802.11ac Wave 2 and Wi-Fi 6performance, Cisco wireless LAN controllers are highly scalable, service-rich, and resilient platforms that provide centralized control, flexible management, and troubleshooting for large and small-scale deployments. Cisco aims to equip companies with the tools they need to help grow their network as their business grows with their wireless LAN controller portfolio.

Cisco promises to deliver key wireless innovations through custom-built access points that go beyond the Wi-Fi 6(802.11ax) wireless standard to provide radio-frequency excellence for high-density environments.

Cisco now offers a two-question, two-minute interactive tool to identify the Cisco products and services that help solve up to five network challenges.

Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers Video

Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers Competitors

Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers Technical Details

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Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers Downloadables

Frequently Asked Questions

Cisco offers wireless LAN.

Fortinet Wireless LAN are common alternatives for Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 8.2.

The most common users of Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(129)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 66)
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Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers are suitable for environments that have 2 or more Access Points that are creating coverage for an area. The Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers helped our company provide the coverage we need with the Access Points. Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers was helpful in keeping the Access Points up to date as well and showed us the outside rogue devices that were trying to access our network. The Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers dropped the rogue devices and kept an record to see what IPs were hitting our network.
Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The interface using the GUI again to do parts of my job, to be able to make configuration changes to them, they do not want to stay. Well, when I make changes, they don't. I can't rely on when I hit save or apply that those changes are actually made. I usually have to go back in, refresh pages, double-check, and make sure things actually went and behaved the way that they should. So I have to reload pages multiple times to even get into and be able to see the information I'm looking for. I just have a really hard time with the gooey on those two particular wireless controllers that I use regularly. We have moved to a newer one and I don't have as much experience on that, so I can't speak as to whether that gooey is improved or not. I think it has, but it's still too early to say.
Paulo Thame | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It's well in administrative networks, also you can integrate with active directory users to delivery access to one or more wireless networks. You can easylly create many SSID's with different vlan access and deploy it at the same AP.
Is possible create SSID's with 802.1x or PSK in the same AP.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
Joyal John Peter | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
It's more suited for enterprise lever indoor environments. There are multiple options and solutions that Cisco offers as per each and every different client's needs. The price range for the different models depends on the feature and technology that's needed for each site as per the decision maker and is mostly on the economical scale. The Cisco Wireless solution is not very performing and shows stability on outdoor solutions. They tend to have frequent failures and bugs compared to other vendors.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Setup is very quick as it is designed for smaller organizations. Of course, this comes with its own limitations, but it's really the question of what you need. If you can cover your office space with 3 to 4 access points, you got a pretty good alternative to the more enterprise-level of Cisco Wireless products, but you still get excellent throughput and signal strength.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
You can use it in rough environments and where the critical places where uptime is more likely considered. Since it is easy to configure, you can install it in remote locations so in case of replacement the local engineer or any person can easily replace it as it will reduce the traveling cost. Many companies are budget-constrained so where pricing is considered, this product is not for them as they can go for alternate options. If you wish for high customization then this product did not support it so you can move to the other competitors.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I'm an old-timer. When Cisco first introduced WiFi APs, my first AP was a hairnet 350. It was so popular we bought over 100 of them for our users. At the time they had to be administered individually. When the controllers came out and you could use them to manage many APs it was better than sliced bread.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
These WLCs have become a critical piece of our infrastructure and we depend on them daily. These are normally deployed centrally in a server room or data center but they can be set up to manage access points at other remote locations in flex mode. The 5520 should be used for larger deployments when you have hundreds of access points that need to be connected. We have our setup in a HA pair so if one goes down the wireless will stay up. I would say these are for medium to large businesses who are willing to invest a lot into their wireless design because they are not a cheap solution but they work great once you invest in them and get them set up.
Mohd Shahid Ali | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
ResellerIncentivized
Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers can be used in various types of Scenarios where you have a large number of users and need wireless connectivity and were the scenarios where you have more guests/visitors to provide wireless access through different types of login portals and authentication methods. There are scenarios like big events you can have a single authentication for multiple devices.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Healthcare, industry, small office or big office - it just suits well in every environment, and with [a] good knowledge base, you can be sure that no question [goes] unanswered. It is easy to get started using it, the wizard is intuitive and will get you up and running in matter of minutes.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers are enterprise-class wireless controllers. They are made and well suited for medium to large enterprises where there are more than 20 or 50 access points to manage and monitor. Small businesses will find it very heavy on their budget and if they do not [need] such a large solution, then they can opt for another less expensive wireless solution that better fits their requirements.
Derek Benson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
For a large (several hundred+) corporate environment, you will probably want a [Wireless LAN Controller] to be able to scale your AP footprint. Cisco [Wireless LAN Controllers] stand up to the task and, as mentioned, once you get it set up how you want, it really doesn't need to be messed with except for periodic updates. Just manage your APs from there.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In the few years that I installed several Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers, I never had any hardware or software problems, the support is very complete from Cisco and the documentation on the website is very complete compared to other vendors. Based on the software, it shows that there is a lot of work since updates are constantly coming out. But at the cost level it is very expensive compared to other solutions.
Bruno Carvalho | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
It is great for controlling access points that are spread across different environments, even on different and distant sites and subnets. Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers helps us in IT to optimize the administration and maintenance work. With Prime management software we have the complete solution that includes monitoring and unified management. At the WLC we set up the captive portal to protect the network from attempted access by attackers and allow them to connect only those who have the credentials.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Ease of deployment.
  • Deployment security.
  • Real-time control of the access point.
  • Protocol extensibility.
  • Transport extensibility.
  • Reduces the amount of processing within access points, freeing up their computing resources to focus exclusively on wireless access instead of filtering and policy enforcement.
  • Enables centralized traffic handling, authentication, encryption, and policy enforcement for an entire WLAN system.
  • Provides a generic encapsulation and transport mechanism for multivendor access point interoperability, using either a Layer 2 infrastructure or an IP-routed network.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Would quickly recommend [Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers] to a colleague or local organization if they're already invested in Cisco equipment as they may likely be able to add their existing AP's to a current controller. If they were building their network from the ground up I may recommend a higher class series of wireless LAN controllers.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Ok so Cisco is known for good hardware, and super stable software. This lineup is no different. You can pretty much bank on your devices staying up for as long as they have power. Throw a UPS in there and they will run years straight. This continues the tradition and gives you that warm and fuzzy feeling when you know your network will stay up.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In locations with heavy metal construction or storage, parts warehouse, press shop, etc, we observed low network coverage as compared with cambium network equipment. Connections drop and reconnect when a metal wall came across the device and access point. The issue was resolved by adding multiple access points and reducing transmit power to avoid interference.
February 11, 2021

King of WLAN

Irfan Ahmed | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
In large networks where users connectivity is not important in front of smooth data transmission Cisco is recommended because Cisco provided very very best connectivity for users and specially data transmission. HA is very excellent. We tried many times as drill we found very good results users even feel any shifting during drill.
In small networks it's not or less appropriate due to cost and other issues (small office always had financial issue).
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I can easily say that if you have the budget that allows for it, I would quickly recommend Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers to anyone with lots of APs to manage or many or complex WLAN configurations. There are other less expensive products from other companies, but if you want a solid choice that rarely fails, then Cisco is it.
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