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Cisco Wireless pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco

4.1 out of 5

154 reviews
88% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Cisco Wireless supports real-time applications such as VoIP and Video Conferencing with scalable, reliable performance. It integrates with Cisco ISE for enhanced security, deploying robust policy enforcement and stable networks in sensitive environments. Despite its high cost and complex licensing, it offers easy device management and mobility in complex settings. Challenges include interference issues, migration delays to Wi-Fi 6, and missing bind configuration features. Ideal for sectors like banking and healthcare.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco Wireless offers excellent security and policy enforcement capabilities, which are crucial for network protection and control.

It is highly stable and scalable, making it suitable for various environments, including corporate offices and remote locations.

Cisco Wireless provides robust support for real-time applications like VoIP and video conferencing, enhancing communication efficiency.

Integration with Cisco ISE ensures secure and seamless authentication, improving user experience in managing wireless clients.

Cisco Wireless’s easy configuration and management, along with excellent technical support, make it an attractive choice for network administrators.

CONS

Licensing complexity and high costs are significant concerns, especially compared to competitors.

There is a need for improvement in stability and interference reduction, particularly with video calls and wireless interference.

Many users mention the high expense of Cisco Wireless, making it unaffordable for smaller businesses or in certain regions.

There are issues with firmware stability, especially in environments with diverse Access Point (AP) types.

Compatibility problems exist with certain devices, such as Apple products, and integration with other systems is challenging.

Cisco Wireless Pros review quotes

CR

System Engineer at a mining and metals company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 23, 2017

It can provide support for real-time applications, such as VoIP and Video Conferencing over wireless infrastructure.

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Operations at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Mar 13, 2018

Compared to other solutions, captive guest network is one of the best isolation and tunneling.

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Team Lead - Network and System Engineer at a non-tech company with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 22, 2018

This product has a Clean Air Solution, which means it can detect non-WiFi signals. It not only signals but it can also detect that what type of device it is coming from. And if it needs to change the channel in order to avoid that unwanted signal, it can do so and that way the client machine will have better performance.

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Network Architect at ProCom Consulting

Jun 1, 2018

The ability to deploy wireless access points with templates.

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CB

CHARBEL BAAKLINI

Senior Network Administrator at Lebanese American Univeristy

Jun 26, 2018

Device profiling allows us to have different policies applied by ISE to wireless clients.

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Network Enginer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 7, 2018

Identity PSK helps save SSIDs.

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ND

CCIE, Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Aug 19, 2018

For me, there are two important features: 1) WLAN grouping – Allows us to have different groups and, within those groups, specific WLANs, so there is no overlapping. 2) FlexConnect – Enables us to have remote offices at different locations. We can have a central WLC to control all the locations.

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Manager Corporate IT at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 23, 2018

The most valuable feature is the coverage.

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TA

Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

Aug 23, 2018

The main features are that it's secure and it's easy to distribute the SSID and control it. I also like the controller.

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MC

Technical Specialist at Wipro Technologies

Aug 28, 2018

The Guest feature is pretty good.

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Cisco Wireless Cons review quotes

CR

System Engineer at a mining and metals company with 10,001+ employees

Aug 23, 2017

The bind configuration between a physical port and an IP address is missing.

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Operations at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees

Mar 13, 2018

Improvement needed in RRM, ATF, Ortho-Polarization, AP concurrent client processing.

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Team Lead - Network and System Engineer at a non-tech company with 501-1,000 employees

Mar 22, 2018

If needs to provide more visibility. It can detect and do it, but as technicians we don't have a lot of visibility into seeing exactly what's happening. It doesn't give us a lot of log information for us to troubleshoot. They probably have additional software you need to purchase to get that kind of information. But I think not all companies can afford additional software to see those kinds of details. So if the wireless controller already had, built-in, those types of things for the technician or wireless engineer, it would be more attractive for the end-user.

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Free Report: Cisco Wireless Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Cisco Wireless. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Network Architect at ProCom Consulting

Jun 1, 2018

Most definitely the cost.

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CB

CHARBEL BAAKLINI

Senior Network Administrator at Lebanese American Univeristy

Jun 26, 2018

Many wireless controllers' firmware have bugs in their new releases, which are not stable, especially in an environment with many wireless AP (WAP) types.

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Network Enginer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 7, 2018

The software quality could be improved, in particular for the new Cisco Aironet Series 2800/3800 Access Point which is pretty Linux-based.

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ND

CCIE, Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 201-500 employees

Aug 19, 2018

There is room for improvement regarding HA issues and Radius integration.

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Manager Corporate IT at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

Aug 23, 2018

The GUI could be made more user-friendly. There should also be a dashboard where it can showcase how many end-users are connected to a particular access point.

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TA

Manager at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees

Aug 23, 2018

There is a problem with the controller. When we have to restart the controller, it does not show the time. We have to manually configure the time when we restart it. I have read about this issue, to get some information, and all answers are about having to connect it with a time server, which is very difficult.

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MC

Technical Specialist at Wipro Technologies

Aug 28, 2018

Sometimes I've seen some issues come up with the interference. That's an issue users face at times. It becomes very complex when you have a lot of wireless interference in the area, or in your office. It's because of the environment of Cisco. Maybe, in the future, they can work on this area, and fix this issue.

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