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Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Enterprise Service Routers vs Cisco Enterprise Routers comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess E...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Wireless WAN (9th)
Cisco Enterprise Routers
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Routers (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Enterprise Service Routers is designed for Wireless WAN and holds a mindshare of 0.2%, up 0.1% compared to last year.
Cisco Enterprise Routers, on the other hand, focuses on Routers, holds 19.5% mindshare, down 25.6% since last year.
Wireless WAN
Routers
 

Featured Reviews

OusaidAbaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Available to users at a very low price but needs improvement in the firewall area
The product is very easy to install. When it comes to OmniSwitch 6200, OmniSwitch 6300, or OmniSwitch 6600, you can install it in an hour and a half quickly without any problem implementing the configuration, but it's not stable. When it comes to OmniSwitch 6400, OmniSwitch 6800, or OmniSwitch 9700, mostly the tools are limited in terms of the protocol. The switch cannot be managed to manage the power of our ethernet. For example, if we connect an iPhone to the switch, 740 watts will be required, but after six months, someone will discover that the port doesn't work anymore. Even if we configure it to push the power of a port, it will not work. It's not really, it's not, it's not work. At the same time, the problem was that the tool was very old, like Alcatel OmniPCX Enterprise PABX system. In Alcatel, there are only two types of architecture, the old and new ones. For example, on the outside, if there is a need for 24 ports to be implemented on telephony, then we implement less than that number to connect to the end of the phone, which is a very serious problem that is not resolved by the product.
Hafiz Umar Farooq - PeerSpot reviewer
Allows us to configure NAS through Cisco activities and to create GRE channels with different sites
You cannot configure internet policies or other options on Cisco routers. If you have a very limited budget, you can't afford two different pieces of equipment, and you can't afford yearly licensing. I would like Cisco to launch a small business router that has firewall capabilities as well. It would be a great initiative for small businesses. I would like to see two additional features: a remote access VPN with the MFA, multifactor authentication capabilities. At the moment, the ISR series only supports MFA, but not every company likes to use that tool. I think Cisco needs to consider MFA for the remote access VPN and should incorporate other MFA solutions as well. I would also like there to be some firewall features included in the routers. I'm not talking about a full-fledged firewall feature, but a limited set of features that can be used on the small and medium-sized enterprise level. These two features would be a great initiative. I would also like to recommend the licensing feature. Previously, the Cisco licensing model was either a perpetual or annual smart license. Now, Cisco has totally shifted over to the smart licensing feature, and perpetual licenses are about to be eliminated from Cisco. The licensing feature is a bit costly if we compare it to other vendors. The licensing features of the F5 are perpetual, but the support has periodic renewal. The license to use Cisco features like a firewall or the routers are actually yearly based and not perpetual. The lead times are extremely high. Normally, it's six to eight months initially, and they prolong it to up to one year for new device delivery by Cisco. If you say you need a brand new router, switch, or fiber from Cisco within one month, you will never get it, unless some stock is readily available with your vendor. Otherwise, it will initially take six to eight months, and then that will be prolonged to one year. This is what we're experiencing with our clients right now.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution's support is very great."
"The solution is easy to install."
"The operating system is good and well-made."
"The routing platform is good."
"This product is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Enterprise Routers is that they are robust and resilient."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"These routers are stable and I don't know of any problems with them."
"It's highly stable. We rarely see any bugs or abnormalities in our Cisco routers, especially for the ISR series."
 

Cons

"The tool's VPN Firewall Brick did not work well since it doesn't have an interface with the cloud to upload the last signature, so it doesn't have this mechanism."
"The licensing structure is very convoluted, and the cost of the licenses includes a whole bunch of stuff that you'll never use."
"I would like to see support for software-defined networking."
"We would like to see an improvement in the price of this solution. It is currently more expensive than other comparable products on the market."
"Sometimes, I find it hard to learn how some features of the router work. So, these are the issues that may arise when a user might not have knowledge about the product."
"Cisco routers are an expensive product."
"An area of improvement would be the way the licenses are managed because, at the moment, you pay for a license for each router as opposed to paying a once-off cost."
"They are pretty expensive devices."
"The solution is difficult to implement without a broad knowledge base."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's price is very low."
"Cisco Enterprise Routers are not the cheapest routers on the market, they are expensive."
"I like the price of the solution."
"The price should be reduced."
"Cisco is mid-tier in terms of pricing and quite affordable by most enterprises."
"The cost of this solution is very low compared to other products."
"Cisco Switches are an expensive product in India. Linksys products are cheaper than Cisco Switches."
"Cisco's prices could be cheaper."
"It is a costly solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Enterprise Service Routers?
The tool's price is very low. The tool doesn't have a license for switches. The tool has a license for a stack of racks, especially in the case of Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9900 model, it has a lic...
What needs improvement with Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Enterprise Service Routers?
Alcatel-Lucent had a VPN Firewall Brick, but it did not work very well like Palo Alto or Cisco. The tool is not classified under Gartner. The tool's VPN Firewall Brick did not work well since it do...
What is your primary use case for Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Enterprise Service Routers?
I use the solution in my company to implement and integrate it into the campus network on a connected mode or dual core, but the routers, like Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess Enterprise Service Routers, ...
How do Cisco Enterprise routers compare with Mikrotik routers and switches?
Cisco Enterprise Routers are very stable and easy to use. They offer a very solid performance and are very secure. They also have a very good, long lifespan. We feel the command configuration is ve...
What do you like most about Cisco Enterprise Routers?
The most valuable feature of the solution is that it makes it possible for users to use encryption and decryption since our company aims to achieve transparency, and without it, the other system on...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Enterprise Routers?
I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price.
 

Also Known As

Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess ESRs, OmniAccess ESRs, OmniAccess Compact ESRs, OmniAccess Ruggedized ESRs
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advocate Health Care, Al Rayyan Hospitality, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Americana, Ankabut, ASL Milano 2, Atlasonline, Ayuntamiento de Arroyomolinos, Azienda Ospedaliera della Provincia di Lodi, Azmeel Contracting & Construction Corporation
Aegean Motorway, Boingo, Chartwell School, Children's Hospital of Orange County , Department of Justice, Explorer Pipeline, Linz AG, National Rugby League, New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Telecom Italia, Transwestern
Find out what your peers are saying about Ubiquiti Networks, Ruckus, Cambium Networks and others in Wireless WAN. Updated: June 2025.
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