WiFi for a small office (1-2 APs)

Question

Computer networks

Now in the office there is a D-Link 2100AP, which is not at all satisfied in terms of its stability. Previously, when there were a couple of clients, it was still somehow going on, but recently the number of wireless devices has exceeded 10 pieces and there is a need to replace it with something sensible. Before that, I didn’t have anything “more difficult” with WiFi than a home router / AP, so I don’t really understand what equipment I need to look at (we use Juniper routers, but everything is very poor with WiFI, and the price tag there is not humane at all). In the "budget" implementations, I noticed a certain popularity of Ubiquiti equipment. As I understand it, UniFi APs are intended for office networks. They also have a free software controller, which is available in Win/Mac/Lin versions. Who has experience deploying networks on Ubiquiti UniFi equipment. What are the pros/cons of it. Is it worth overpaying for the Ubiquiti UniFi-LR version (as I understand it, the difference is only in the coverage radius of one point)? Maybe there are some more interesting alternatives?

Answer 1

if you buy a UniFi LR , do not try to upgrade it to AirOS! dots 100% die. And they are reanimated through UART
, to be honest, I didn’t notice any special range compared to the DAP 1360 long ones ...
by the way, I have a dot on the ceiling, I’m standing above it on the next floor - the phone shows a 50% signal, the long signal will be stronger ...
... but there is an incomparable plus - they do not heat up and do not hang.
Personally, I would recommend studying Mikrotik devices.

Answer 2

I have 5 outlets in my office. 2 separate networks (2 Vlans). I do it in a heap with a software router (linux server). no problem. usually 10-15 people work stably. speed of 10 confident Mbps.
their minus and plus at the same time, is that the router is placed in another device, which will require you to route, dhcp, firewall - on the side. but everything is very flexible. local authorization can also be taken out by third-party Guest Portal or Radius. in fact, authorization differs from a simple router with WPA2-PSK, in that there is a binding to a Mac address. therefore it is necessary to keep a guest network separately., for employees separately. and periodically change the WPA2-PSK password. although I repeat, authorization is easy to take to the side: I tried to do authorization by SMS - everything worked.
Access Points: Now they have a new model with uplink 1G. previous models were with uplink 100M.

Answer 3

We have a network deployed with 3 UniFi AP APs and 3 UniFi AP LR APs - with a controller, of course. The points are located on two floors, according to the TD in each room with an area of ​​​​approximately 300 square meters. After some time, problems appeared - there are clients on new Macbooks - their network began to fall off. We thought that the channels with neighbors overlapped - we tried different options - basically now we slightly overlap with neighbors, but the problems still remain. Tried to change the firmware - also did not help. But the problem is not global, but some kind of selective for two laptops.
Somehow I noticed that this client falls off the poppy book, we try to connect - and it says that the password is not correct (we have WPA2-ENT domain authorization) - and on RADIUS in the log it wrote that the password or login is not correct - how did it happen - unclear.
A couple of times on the Android tablet I saw that access had fallen off, and for 30 seconds it was hammering and could not get an IP address - and there were a lot of requests - where is the plug - until they could catch it.
PS If I'm not mistaken, then by default LR has the same power of 20 dB as non-LR - but manually you can set increased power up to 28 dB.

Answer 4

This building www.nlr.ru/guide_m/plan/vnp.html covered 5 floors with 24 UniFi AP LR points
At conferences, I saw load peaks of 30 people per point. You can configure at what maximum number of clients the point will give the client to the next one.
Of the 24 points, 4 were changed under warranty. They tend to die spontaneously, which is generally acceptable for such a budget iron.
So I can recommend, with a limited budget, if you buy with a small margin.
Pay attention to PoE - there is a non-standard 24-volt Passive PoE

Answer 5

Thanks to all. I think on one UniFi-LR and stop for a start.

Answer 6

Ubiquiti don't know how to roam normally? Or do you not need to?