End of life wireless controllers that were rock solid workhorses
October 06, 2025

End of life wireless controllers that were rock solid workhorses

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller

We are just finally migrating off the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller after over a decade of using it as our main controller for all of our wireless access points at our main campus and remote locations as well.

Pros

  • Lots of configuration options
  • Performance is reliable

Cons

  • Could have used a better interface
  • Too many menus can make it hard to find what you're looking for
  • The Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers have paid for themselves over the years. We've had no real issues with them and the ROI would come in the stability that they provided our wireless network.
The interface, even the newer one, is not very intuitive and options can be hidden behind layers of menus, making it hard to find what you need. The newer interface looks nicer, but is also very limited, at times just sending you back to the older interface as it wasn't ever fully built out for this platform.
These Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers were our choice at the time over Aruba's offerings. We went with them for ease of use and how they integrated nicely within our existing, mostly Cisco, network environment.

Do you think Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller's feature set?

Yes

Did Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller again?

No

At this point the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers are end of life as a Cisco product, so I would not recommend them to anyone looking to purchase a wireless controller for an enterprise. However, many people are still using these, and they do work reliably, even if they are a bit long in the tooth now.

Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller Feature Ratings

Wireless LAN
6.3
WLAN Performance Monitoring
5
Power over Ethernet Support
7
Wireless Security
7

Using Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller

3000 - I'm counting everyone that connects to these controllers (we have 3 of them) for wireless access to our corporate network. These ran our wireless network until very recently. We have now upgraded and sunsetted these devices, but they will be used in one of our other campuses. They serve as the controller for all of our Cisco WAPs.
8 - Our network team provides in-house support for these wireless controllers. We all have basic Cisco Wireless skills, but we have one person that is our expert on these controllers.
  • Providing wireless connectivity for our campuses
  • Security and access control for wireless devices
  • Onboarding new wireless access points
  • These just do what they're supposed to, not much else.
  • Well, we are repurposing them as wireless controllers at one of our rural hospitals that has even older gear.
They are end of life, so we will surely just use them until they completely die on us or security updates stop being published for the controllers and they become a security liability on our networks.

Evaluating Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller and Competitors

Yes - We had an Aruba system that was just awful and constantly gave us headaches with our wireless medical devices. This prompted us to look for an alternative, and our PoC of the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers was so good that we ended up purchasing several of them in order to set up a couple of HA pairs.
  • Scalability
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Ease of Use
  • Other
I honestly think the single most important factor in our decision to purchase and install the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers was the compatibility with our wireless hardware. Since we run many various wireless medical devices from different vendors, compatibility was an issue with our Aruba deployment, and this solved most of those issues.
If we had to do it again, I don't think we'd change the way we approached the selection process and how we went about implementing the proof of concept and testing that we did within our hospital.

Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller Implementation

Just take your time when setting up the HA pairs as those can be tricky. Also take your time setting up AP groups and make sure they are on all the SSIDs you need to be on.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes - We had a testing phase that we did in our own department, and then we rolled out to our clinics before rolling it out to the hospital where it was more critical that everything worked on the first shot.
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - We had to run it by change management, but people understood and supported the initiative, as our other wireless system was causing issues for just about everyone.
  • We had issues with the firmware and our wireless Cisco phones at first, but once that was ironed out, the implementation went pretty smoothly.

Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller Support

Cisco has plenty of resources, white papers and knowledge on the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controllers. They are also pretty stable as they have been around for quite some time and were patched very frequently before they went end of life. Support was familiar with them whenever we had issues, and while getting some logs was a chore, overall the support we received was good.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
Yes, we had premium support licensing that was all encompassing for all of our Cisco gear, so that granted us premium support. We didn't specifically seek out premium support just for this product.
We have had a few issues with firmware that just didn't act the way we expected and Cisco support was very helpful.

Using Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller

ProsCons
Like to use
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Feel nervous using
  • There's nothing really elegant about the Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller UI, even with the newer updates. It works, but it's utilitarian.
  • Adding MAC addresses to lists
  • Adding new controllers can be cumbersome
  • Finding a wireless client is also pretty cumbersome

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