Meraki Wireless has a small business feel but big business delivery!
February 14, 2019

Meraki Wireless has a small business feel but big business delivery!

Jesse Bickel, MS - PMP | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Cisco Meraki Wireless Access Point

Cisco Meraki Wireless is the sole source for our wireless coverage for not only internal security but our guest network. We also use Cisco Meraki Wireless to provide private SSID's for internal camera systems, smart TVs, and other equipment. Cisco Meraki Wireless is the only wireless solution in a four-floor office building with about 200 employees serviced by about 20 access points. This solution addresses all of our wireless network needs for staff, contractors, guests, and dedicated technology uses.
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless does a GREAT job marketing their product and building your trust. They offer free and very informative webinars that offer free gear for your home network. They rely on word of mouth marketing and it simply works. They offer great try and buy programs as well. They stand behind their product and trust the technology.
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless administrators dashboard is top notch. Their wireless UI interface is integrated with all other Cisco Meraki Wireless products. This makes it easy to use. It has single-use credentials and is seamless.
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless support is also top notch. While they are backed by Cisco, Meraki always feels like you are working with a small business that takes your account seriously. They are specialized and a rare breed in the industry. Getting support from them is a pleasure!
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless's access points models could use some expansion for other use cases. They have a variety of applications for their limited models of AP's but I would love to see them expand their line to support larger venues or APs that can go in enclosures for large public venues. I do believe they technically could do this but it seems to not be their prime deployment demographic.
  • I believe Cisco Meraki could improve its reporting features within its dashboard. They have plenty of options for templates and reports but increases user control around data usage or trends that we can set as customers would be helpful and increase export options.
  • I would like to see Cisco Meraki offer options to dump or log data from the AP to environments locally and on a scheduled job. This would help for increased ability to troubleshoot and understand issues.
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless has served us well in allowing us to divide multiple SSIDs to multiple use cases. The configuration methodology is easy and simple and really reduced a lot of administrative overhead.
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless offers great flexible pricing plans over the support that can save you money through bulk purchase or support licenses. Once Cisco Meraki Wireless is the wireless solution you can see an increased ROI on managed services through a group buy that seems to be industry leading, they seem to have more "flexibility" than Aruba.
  • Cisco Meraki Wireless has saved us money using their reporting features by finding bandwidth hogs, understanding what type of processes it was running, whom and at what IP address, so we could remedy that issue and reduce the overall used bandwidth in the company and balance our demands vs usage.
As an overall preference, Cisco Meraki Wireless was selected because of their customer service and attention to detail to the account. They have carved out a nitch in the market and are growing their own way and style under Cisco but feels so different than Cisco. Comparing Cisco Meraki Wireless to Aruba or Cisco itself is apples and oranges. They can be compared but you need to understand your deployment. For dorms, office areas, standard businesses restaurants, etc., Meraki is bar none. For football stadiums or other large public venues, you may want to explore elsewhere.
Cisco Meraki Wireless is a perfect solution for your home, small businesses, dorms, etc. I do not think Cisco Meraki Wireless is the best solution for a full-blown enterprise, nor is it a large public venue solution. I think it technically could do it but would not bring the enterprise level of configuration and development that others could such as Cisco itself or Aruba.