Cisco Wireless pros and cons

It always runs, and it's very reliable in terms of performance.

Wireless connectivity is the main feature. It is also securely integrated with ISE, which is valuable because, in the banking industry, we also cover the security aspect. This Wi-Fi controller integrates with the ISE system that we have. Every user that comes on the wireless needs to log in with the domain. If they don't, it will not allow the user to join the network. This is the key feature of this solution.

The CleanAir features and the fast transition.

The integration is great.

Overall, Cisco was stable and worked well for all our needs until we started having more and more students and teachers using YouTube and Zoom — what with classes being isolated and everything — which put a lot of strain on our Wi-Fi network.

For me, the most valuable thing about Cisco Wireless is its ease of use and stability.

The stability is great. It's very reliable.

One of the main advantages of Cisco Wireless is its DNAT compatibility. When we have dynamic segmentation, or the DNAT enabled on the LAN, Cisco Access Point integrates with the DNAT architecture. Aruba Switches cannot integrate with the Cisco DNAT architecture.

The features that I have found most valuable with Cisco Wireless is that the average connectivity for this WIFI access point is 2.5 gigabytes. That's the highest technology and highest connectivity. They started using the new technology and WIFI to get you a faster connectivity.

The initial setup is easy. It's fairly quick to deploy.

Their software's really clunky.

The main concern is the length and overlapping. We have to put on four to six access points on the same floor, and we face the issue of overlapping areas. If Cisco can extend the range of their indoor APs, we would need to install just one or two access points, and it would eliminate the problem of the overlapping area.

I wouldn't mind if Cisco allowed their premiere devices to be able to have that cloud-based support as well, or cloud-based management.

There's a delay in equipment that comes to Columbia, to our country, and that lasts almost six months.

The biggest reason why we could no longer continue with Cisco Wireless was because of the high cost to upgrade everything. It was disappointing that Cisco treated us as just another big company, and did not offer any leeway on their pricing given that we are an educational institute. And although the system we had in place from Cisco Wireless was good enough over the last ten years, it started to show its age when pushed to its limit during the pandemic.

It's very scalable, but when you shift gears sometimes, you have to do more work than people anticipate.

Older versions used to be hard to deploy. The latest OS, however, has made things a lot easier. While deployment is much better, it could always be even easier.

Cisco won't work with any other vendors. That is a significant problem with Cisco.

In the next release, they should add a better reporting feature. The reporting will tell you if you have a problem. That will make the diagnostics easier.

They are a pretty expensive option.