Suitable WAPs for a rugby club

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Earbanean

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#295334 22-Mar-2022 12:12

I help out a bit at the local rugby club. They have finally just had fibre installed and now need a WiFi upgrade. The club is multiple rooms split over two levels. WiFi use includes a few laptops, plus a couple of mobile eftpos machines. This could be extended to include members/patrons use when in the club if that didn't affect the 'admin' users. Currently WiFi is from ISP router in an office in one corner which is not good enough.

My proposal is to put in 2 x WAPs. One on each level and both cabled back to a PoE switch next to the router. That will be easy to do, due to exposed beams etc. So I need to choose a suitable WAP.

At home I have Cambiums, because of the deal on the e400s a few years ago - and I like them. However there seem much cheaper options, that will probably do what I need. e.g. A Grandstream GWN7630 will do 4x4 Wave 2 AC for $170. Equivalent specs in Cambium, Aruba, Ubquiti seem to mostly be over $300.

So my question is what do you get for the extra cost on the dearer WAPs? I need multiple SSIDs, probably VLAN tagging and band steering would be good. I don't think I need single touch, cloud management of the WAPs, because there are only two. I don't need the roaming to be very sophisticated, because users will mostly go to one level or the other. I don't think I need WiFi 6 at this stage.

Will the GWN7630s do what I need? Any other thoughts, suggestions, or things I've missed?

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#2890001 22-Mar-2022 12:24

I know you said WiFi 6 not needed, but you may find some benefits with better bandwidth sharing with multiple clients connected. If you're looking at Grandstream then consider the GWN 7664 - it's 4x4:4 ax rather than the ac wave 2 of the 7630. Alternatively, more GWN7660s might be a better fit for multiple rooms - bit of a balancing act around the shape of the space probably. A long skinny space may be better served with multiple lower capacity APs whereas a square space would be OK with a single AP in the middle.

rp1790

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#2890003 22-Mar-2022 12:26

GWN7630's are a very capable AP and I'm sure they would be ample for what you're looking at doing, also very good range and performance! One other suggestion might be the Negear Omada AP's. Theyre very capable also and have a great mobile AP for configuration, I install these in most of my family's homes.

lxsw20

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#2890015 22-Mar-2022 12:57

Probably a good fit for Aruba InstantOn, too. Quite affordable stuff.

Earbanean

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#2890127 22-Mar-2022 14:56

lxsw20:

Probably a good fit for Aruba InstantOn, too. Quite affordable stuff.

Yep, I agree about Aruba Instant On and they're were the first thing I was looking at. However, for similar base specs as the Grandstream above, an Aruba AP15 would cost around $350. That's twice the cost of the Grandstream. I'm not saying it's not worth that, but the question in my first post was, what are you getting for the difference in price? And are they things I need in my use case?

cyril7

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#2890133 22-Mar-2022 15:13

Hi, my 2c, the Grandstreams are well worth the look as are the Aruba. I would avoid UniFi, I have a modest number out there and recent controller changes have made them a bit of a nightmare to be honest.

Clearly to support isolated SSIDs you will need a better router than the ISP provided one.

Cyril

Earbanean

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#2890149 22-Mar-2022 15:44

cyril7:

Clearly to support isolated SSIDs you will need a better router than the ISP provided one.

Yep, definitely. I want to get WAPs that can support multiple SSIDs and ideally VLAN tagging, so they can continue to be used if and when we want to split to 'admin', 'members', 'guests', etc access. As you say, at that point I'd need to upgrade the router. However, up till then, the Spark router should be fine. That means I can delay that purchase and just bed the basics in for now.

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Linkzor

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#2890299 22-Mar-2022 19:34

Remember that 802.11ac is 5ghz only so the 2.4ghz radio on the GWN7630 is 802.11n only. Pretty much every device produced in the last 2 years has a 802.11ax adapter. From personal experiences there's a massive everyday difference in throughput between 2.4ghz 802.11n vs 2.4ghz 802.11ax.

I would go with the GWN7660 for only $25 extra. I'd say you would benefit more from a 2x2 802.11ax AP than a 4x4 802.11ac AP as there are hardly any devices out there with 4x4 adapters.

You can enable wireless client isolation on the Guest SSID to save you getting a better router and switches that support VLAN tagging.

nztim

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#2890307 22-Mar-2022 19:49

Linkzor:

You can enable wireless client isolation on the Guest SSID to save you getting a better router and switches that support VLAN tagging.

That creates a double nat

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

Linkzor

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#2890314 22-Mar-2022 20:11

nztim:
Linkzor:

You can enable wireless client isolation on the Guest SSID to save you getting a better router and switches that support VLAN tagging.

That creates a double nat

No it doesn't.

You can have a router with a flat 192.168.1.0/24 network. Let's say the router/default gateway is 192.168.1.254 and there are 2 SSIDs configured.

Members SSID (wireless client isolation off)
Guest SSID (wireless client isolation on)

Clients on both SSIDs will get a 192.168.1.x/24 IP however clients on the Guest SSID will only be able to communicate with the default gateway only effectively giving them internet access only.

richms

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#2890315 22-Mar-2022 20:11

Also keep in mind support when you're not there. A unifi login is pretty easy for a random to be able to log in and look at. Other gear not so easy.

Richard rich.ms

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#2890321 22-Mar-2022 20:36

I would go (and have) with the GWN7664 ;-) but it doubles the costs hence still below the mentions before.

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Earbanean

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#2890505 23-Mar-2022 10:21

Linkzor:

Remember that 802.11ac is 5ghz only so the 2.4ghz radio on the GWN7630 is 802.11n only. Pretty much every device produced in the last 2 years has a 802.11ax adapter. From personal experiences there's a massive everyday difference in throughput between 2.4ghz 802.11n vs 2.4ghz 802.11ax.

I would go with the GWN7660 for only $25 extra. I'd say you would benefit more from a 2x2 802.11ax AP than a 4x4 802.11ac AP as there are hardly any devices out there with 4x4 adapters.

Good points, thanks. I guess some of the critical clients at the moment are mobile eftpos machines and laptops possibly up to 5 years old. I'm not sure what radio the eftpos machines use. However, at the very least I guess getting ax now does future proof to some extent.

Earbanean

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#2890507 23-Mar-2022 10:26

I guess my original question still stands, even if just out of interest. i.e. An Aruba AP15 is twice the price of a Grandstream GWN7630. What do you get for the significantly extra cost?

Is it enterprise management features, sophisticated roaming, etc? Or are there more fundamental features that I could make use of in my use case?

geocom

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#2890521 23-Mar-2022 11:14

cyril7:

Hi, my 2c, the Grandstreams are well worth the look as are the Aruba. I would avoid UniFi, I have a modest number out there and recent controller changes have made them a bit of a nightmare to be honest.

Clearly to support isolated SSIDs you will need a better router than the ISP provided one.

Cyril

I agree with your comments about the UniFi stuff however the hardware is good for the price if your happy to flash a custom firmware onto it like OpenWRT you end up with a good bit of kit. OpenWRT supports quite a lot of their hardware however it is best to check the wiki to see that any device is supported.

I have quite a few AC Mesh units around the place a few U6 lites and a few U6 LR. All are running OpenWRT and have not had a issue with any of them other than the U6 LR as the 5ghz WiFi requires drivers to be installed via the web interface not difficult but was not documented as being required.

But yea if you want a out of the box great experience avoid it the software that ubiquity has designed for the network gear is not worth the hassle.

Geoff E

dt

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#2890569 23-Mar-2022 12:14

any idea's on max devices the solution would need to support? that's where you will start to notice the different between aruba and grandstream

I personally never trust whats written on the spec sheets in real world use cases

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