[TriLUG] Wireless AP recommendation

[Aaron Joyner via TriLUG]

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On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 1:50 PM, Aaron Joyner <aaron at joyner.ws> wrote:

> Yep, running cable is the annoying bit.  :)
>
> As for Regular vs Pro... I actually have a mix of both at my house.  I
> have a couple of the original UAC-AP devices attached to the outside of my
> house, attached to the eave on one side, and under the deck on the other.
> These use passive POE and support 2.4 and 5Ghz... but only 802.11a/b/g/n.
> That's plenty of connectivity for being in the yard, or down by the lake on
> my phone, and they're dirt cheap (~$60 when I bought them).  They're cheap
> enough that I keep a spare in the basement, so that if one goes bad I don't
> need to wait to replace it.  Well, I suppose I still have the spare mostly
> because they came in a pack of 3, and I've never had one go bad.
>
> In the "core" of the house I also have two of the UAP-AC (the older
> square model <https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00D80J2XU>).  They
> support 802.11ac, and this matters to me when I'm connected with my laptop
> and trying to download that large file to my laptop before I go get on a
> plane; I no longer feel compelled to hook up a physical cable to get more
> speed.  The 802.11ac network is almost always fast enough for my needs, and
> I only really care about that speed if I'm indoors.  They also have the
> nice advantage of having slightly fewer dependencies (no POE injector, they
> hang directly off my core switch which supports POE), so they're a
> *little* less likely to stop working when I really want them to.
>
> The latest offerings have made some of that reasoning moot, because they
> now all support 802.11ac... but note that the Pro model still supports
> moderately higher throughput by virtue of 3x3 MIMO support... so some of
> the same logic applies... but both the -Lite and -Pro are both sufficiently
> fast that it makes less of a difference.  Note that a lot of people like
> the AP-LR model, although I tend to prefer more APs, rather than longer
> ranges from fewer APs... it's somewhat dependent on the topology.
>
> Aaron S. Joyner
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 1:19 PM, Wes Garrison via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
>> The regular UAC-AP supports 2.4 and 5Ghz.
>>
>> As Aaron said, the difference is 24V passive PoE vs. 802.3af/at PoE.
>>
>> For home use, the passive is fine.
>>
>> _________________________________
>> Wesley S. Garrison
>> Network Engineer
>> Xitech Communications, Inc.
>> phone:  (919) 260-0803
>> fax:       (919) 932-5051
>> __________________________________
>> "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from email."
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 1:04 PM, Matt Flyer via TriLUG <trilug at trilug.org
>> >
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Great explanation!
>> >
>> > I did notice the two systems, the regular and "pro".  My initial
>> > thinking was that the pro version would be better, primarilly as it
>> > operates on 2.4 and 5 GHz, so that if you have interference issues with
>> > other devices you've got an option, but I am not sure if it is worth
>> > the cost.
>> >
>> > It looks like the big thing I will need to do is run the Ethernet cable
>> > from where the AP will go to the where I plan to put the switch(es).
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>