Powerful dual band AP - ideas?

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Need a super powerful dual band AP to replace the WIFI of my RT-N66U. I'll keep it for everything but disable the wifi on it.

Any ideas?
 
Soldato
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I'm using a Netgear WNDR3700 (with DD-WRT), the range is pretty good on it, not sure how it compares to an RT-N66U though. You can pick them up second hand for a good price.

Best AP I've used for range is a Ruckus 7363 I was evaluating for work, that's enterprise kit though and pricey.
 
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Was that inc an IOS device in regards to the range
I was testing with a laptop mostly, had some iPads connected but not for testing range.

IMO you're much better off to get two or three cheap AP's and use power line sockets to place them around the building, or even use WDS.
 
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Ruckus APs are very good, I work with them every day and have 2 in my house. Usually one is enough for a single floor venue (pub for example) and the 7363 can handle upto 300 clients! They do cost about £300 each so are true enterprise quality. For home use try a Ubiquiti Unifi which can be had for about £60 are are also good.
 
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I'm using a Netgear WNDR3700 (with DD-WRT), the range is pretty good on it, not sure how it compares to an RT-N66U though. You can pick them up second hand for a good price.

Best AP I've used for range is a Ruckus 7363 I was evaluating for work, that's enterprise kit though and pricey.

We Install and "maintain" these at work (within schools) fantastic bit of kit when using a zonedirector, especially with "meshing"

Back to the point, everytime somebody wants an AP the Asus' get recommended.
 

RSR

RSR

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Id look at a Unifi AP from Ubiquiti. They are very impressive for the price Vs feature set and overall performance.
 
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There's no reason to expect a single Unifi AP to outperform a RT-N66U. Having used both I'd guess the reverse.

Installing several of them to get decent coverage in a difficult building could make sense, but it wouldn't be cheap, especially if 5GHz is required.

I'm actually using a RT-N66U in AP mode for my home network. No complaints at all.
 
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We Install and "maintain" these at work (within schools) fantastic bit of kit when using a zonedirector, especially with "meshing"

Back to the point, everytime somebody wants an AP the Asus' get recommended.

Yeah, it was for a school WiFi overhaul project I was leading, Would have been over 50AP's total due to it being a private school with old buildings and crazy walls. Great Kit, and worked out to be pretty good value too once you factor management/licensing in. I've been tempted to pick up a Zonedirector 1100 and 4 or so AP's for home, but it would purely be for my own entertainment as my current setup works fine for pushing Plex and my pitiful rural Internet around (Got a WNDR3700, 2x WNR2000 and a Billion 7800, with another cheap TP Link AP in an outbuilding connected back over WDS)
 
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Caporegime
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Access points with powerful transmit levels are fairly pointless in most situations (e.g. for use with an iPhone), because network traffic is rarely one-way. Multiple access points distributed with some level of thought will always be a better option.
 
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I've just bought a Unifi AP Pro and its brilliant.

Before I had a billion 7800N and a DGND3700v2 and coverage was poor and had issues roaming between the two. With the unifi I have no issues and it covers the whole house and a good area outside too. I get brilliant coverage all over the house.

Its really useful being able to block clients when you too aswell

Edit: Can also get it to transmit at 30dBm on 2.4Ghz, with a little country tweak ;)
 
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Yeah, it was for a school WiFi overhaul project I was leading, Would have been over 50AP's total due to it being a private school with old buildings and crazy walls. Great Kit, and worked out to be pretty good value too once you factor management/licensing in. I've been tempted to pick up a Zonedirector 1100 and 4 or so AP's for home, but it would purely be for my own entertainment as my current setup works fine for pushing Plex and my pitiful rural Internet around (Got a WNDR3700, 2x WNR2000 and a Billion 7800, with another cheap TP Link AP in an outbuilding connected back over WDS)

Sound just like a job I helped my boss with, 50+ AP's in a big secondary school, they had 2 zonedirectors so that they had redundency in case of failure which I thought was a great feature. Unfortunately I'm not involved in the costings side but our company is a reseller of their kit.

Ruckas at home would be sweet, but very pricey :(
 
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The world's moving away from controllers. Aerohive place all the logic in the AP so you don't have to rip-and-replace a controller when you add more APs than it can control. Meraki sort of do the same thing, but their APs become pretty useless if the cloud controller connection is down.
 

Deleted member 138126

D

Deleted member 138126

The world's moving away from controllers. Aerohive place all the logic in the AP so you don't have to rip-and-replace a controller when you add more APs than it can control. Meraki sort of do the same thing, but their APs become pretty useless if the cloud controller connection is down.
I think you were the one recommending the Cisco small business WAPs? If so, how would you compare them against the Unifi Pro?
 
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Sound just like a job I helped my boss with, 50+ AP's in a big secondary school, they had 2 zonedirectors so that they had redundency in case of failure which I thought was a great feature. Unfortunately I'm not involved in the costings side but our company is a reseller of their kit.

Ruckas at home would be sweet, but very pricey :(

In Somerset?
 
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I think you were the one recommending the Cisco small business WAPs? If so, how would you compare them against the Unifi Pro?

Very capable units. The radios are easily as good as the UniFi, the diagnostics are much better, and the support actually exists.

There is an 8 or 16 AP limit on a cluster though, so they aren't the product to use for anything other than small deployments.
 

Deleted member 138126

D

Deleted member 138126

Very capable units. The radios are easily as good as the UniFi, the diagnostics are much better, and the support actually exists.

There is an 8 or 16 AP limit on a cluster though, so they aren't the product to use for anything other than small deployments.
Cheers, thanks for that! Adding a couple of the Ciscos to my shopping list...
 
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In Somerset?

It was in Derby mate.

Quite interested in the unifi/cisco solution myself for home. Need to look into the Cisco stuff but the unifi stuff looks ace and considering the long range one can be had for 70ish quid and it is a managed system makes it potentially a bargain.
 

Deleted member 138126

D

Deleted member 138126

Quite interested in the unifi/cisco solution myself for home. Need to look into the Cisco stuff but the unifi stuff looks ace and considering the long range one can be had for 70ish quid and it is a managed system makes it potentially a bargain.
The thing I don't like about the Unifi is the requirement for the separate controller to configure it. It's not a huge deal, but just one more thing to look after at home.
 
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