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Good day,

I have a college cisco course, but never pursued anything further in networking. Due to my above average (but waaaaaaaay below a professional or even a student in the field) knowledge and understanding of networking I was tasked by my work to come up with a networking solution.

I will easily be able to set up the network, but since I am not working in the networking field i was hoping I could get hardware recommendation from you guys.

I get to do remote work with up to 50 people and we are lodged in a hotel like building with one internet router. The range is obviously very limited.

It’s a 3 floors concrete building made of one long hall connecting all the rooms. The current AP is at the very end of the second floor. In order to offer wifi in every room I was thinking of a switch with 4 wired AP along the 2nd floor.

We have a specific work network so this network is for pleasure only. Netflix, video games, skype, etc, etc. Which means we need a good enough network, but it doesn’t need to robustness of an important business network with sensitive information.

I would like to run it on a single SSID so regardless where the user is in the building he will automatically get connected on the closest AP.

What hardware should I avoid? What is recommended? Should I stick to professional grade or would consumer grade do the trick?

Thank you for your time,
Have a fantastic week end :slight_smile:

@Cisco

10 Spice ups
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Depending on your budget I would recommend these are made for hotel environments also use there switches and firewall for total control you can get a free one and try it out

And of course you need to consider the cabling of the enviroment find a good cabling company have them come in and give you a quote for for what you want.

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Do not use consumer grade wireless routers. It will damage your wireless issue. I would recommend to have run ethernet cables through conduit and have dedicated cabling for each AP. You need to make sure there is no much interference for signal around the locations.

I usually recommend Ubiquiti gear APs with their software wireless controller. I wouldn’t put more than two APs per floor depending on the size.

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Their are a few options, for this. Two Solutions have been mentioned 1 being Meraki and another being Ubiquiti. My recommendation would be Ruckus AP with a 1400 or 1200 Zone Director to manage this.

@Ubiquiti_Inc @Ruckus

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I would like to thank all three of you for your answers :slight_smile:

I’m leaning towards the Ubiquiti Unifi AC Pro wired directly on a UniFi® Switch 8-150W.
Using POE I’m assuming all I need is cat5 and no adapters are required to get power to the APs?

I was thinking 4 AP to cover the whole 2nd floor, about 50ft appart, but dbeato said no more than 2 per floor. Whats the reason for this? Being on the same network they shouldn’t interfere with each other?

To configure them, is it one by one, or is there a way to configure it all at once?

Once configured properly is it possible to manage it remotely from the other side of the country?

Cheers,

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If you have POE the AC Pro will be able to be powered on with CAT5E or Cat6.

What is the area of the 2nd Floor? AC Pro covers 400 FT as per below:

THe interference is with the signal of the Access Points although the will be in the same SSID they might saturate the 2.4 Ghz channel.

You will configure them all at once, but you need to adopt them one by one. (Pretty simple)

You can control them remotely using a Unifi Cloud Key or Have a Cloud controller or UNifi controller onsite (on a server, vm or workstatioN) that you can connect via VPN.

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Good choices! The switch will power the APs, so you won’t need the PoE injectors (but if you have them, hang onto them).

I agree with Daniel that you have to be wary of over-saturating. It’s hard to know exactly how many you will need without knowing how big your floor is or what signal obstructions exist, but you can get a (very) rough idea by just gauging the current usable range of the AP you have now. Since it’s at the end, does it reach halfway across the floor? If so, then maybe you only need one or two if you locate them better. Does it barely make it past one room? If so, then you have obstructions, and you may need a few APs to cover everything. Since one doesn’t work well for you, I would probably start with two and build from there on an as needed basis. Once the UniFi controller is set up and you’ve got one or more APs in place, it’s a piece of cake to add another later, so you shouldn’t feel compelled to buy a bunch at once.
Here is a decent video on how to set up the controller.

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I’ve used Cisco WAP371 with good results, between three different buildings with a single SSID. We eventually had seven of them, and people loved the fact that they could roam around without dropping a connection.

As for POE, some WAPs can only do lower-powered bands without actual power, and depending on how many devices your connecting the POE power may not be enough to handle serious use.

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Thanks again for all of your inputs :slight_smile:

It’s one long hallway so 2 would do the trick in the hall, but the concrete walls create major obstructions in the rooms. Adding the extra 2 is too much for the hall, but would provide much better signal strength in every room.

(Internet cloud)–(ISP provided Modem)–( UniFi® Switch 8-150W )–(4x Ubiquiti Unifi AC Pro)

Notice there is no dedicated firewall between the modem and switch.

Is it a must have for a non-work related network?

Edit: I’m debating adding the Ubiquiti UniFi® Security Gateway Pro 4.

Thank you :slight_smile:

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Not technically, but those ISP-provided routers (or modem router combos) tend to be pretty crappy. I would recommend you get your own, even if it’s just something simple like a DD-WRT router.

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Another brand you could consider is EnGenius Technologies.

I inherited a network with EnGenius product already on it and I was surprised at how easy it is to manage. They too have their own line of switches and AP’s that you could use to fit your plan, we recently upgraded some switches and AP’s to their new Neutron Series which makes it even easier.

I’ve never tried Ubiquti though so I could be missing out.

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If you really want a bang for buck, go for the EAP 330’s of TP-link.

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As others have suggested be sure to home run CAT5e minimum but CAT6 preferred to each AP install location. You could go with the Netgear WAC720 or WAC730 and use their internal Ensemble management to maintain connection between access points. Use a PoE switch in the wiring closet where all of the cabling terminates to and be certain to power the switches from UPS power to prevent unwanted reboots of the network.

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I’m happy with my Meraki at home and at work. I don’t have to be a dedicated wireless engineer to set it up and troubleshoot with it.

However, you may want to check out Aerohive. I’ve got a demo AP unit that can be set as a standalone AP, can be set as a controller for dozens of other APs, or can be set to connect (with a service contract) to Aerohive cloud management.

I have not set it up yet, though, so I can’t do more than say “hay this might work!”

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