I have a few 410's that I have been running tests in our office and I see the potential in deploying the CN system across current and future opportunities in the hotel space.
I have 50+ unifi networks deployed across hotel and RV sites and have issues on a daily basis.
I have 75+ networks on Open Mesh and they are end of life in Dec 2020
I am pretty much done with deploying unifi and would like to move on....
We would like to rip and replace over time and across our hotel sites and RV sites.
Can you provide me the best opinion for hospitality use?
How has the guest experience been over time?
Will it be ok to keep the UNIFI PoE Switches in place?
We will remove the cloud key and gateways.
What router / firewall is being deployed on CN wifi networks?
This question will apply to the amount of traffic that can pass through on a daily basis.
Are the routers and switches that can be deployed within the cnmaestro cloud?
We are up against many franchise systems that require optimized networks and lean to Meraki and Ruckus for the hotel networks.
I am not looking for unifi haters. I already hate unifi. :)
I just need to be careful on my future investsment of time and money on a long term solution for hospitality and RV industry that we provide services to.
Thank You All
Peace and Looking forward to comments and praises. Maybe even some pain points that I may not be aware of.
E410 is a great product and if you need a bit higher speeds the e600 will give you that for the 5G band. E430H is also a really nice indoor AP which can mount on single or dual electrical gang boxes, generic wall, or even on a desk with the stand accessory. It has multiple LAN ports and can power a second device. For outdoor the e50x series are great products with 3 models to choose from for a reasonable price. The e700 is an 802.11ac wave 2 4x4 5G outdoor unit for high throughput needs.
I'm working for Cambium Networks as EMEA Strategic Verticals Director, watching after Hospitality vertical among others. In total transparency with you I must say that we are really successful in this market, from Hotels to Resorts, from Residences to Camp grounds and so on.
We have a full set of solutions, case studies and collaterals available to you on our website and just launched earlier today a new video for Hospitality: https://youtu.be/uJg5ew8TQBs.
May I could be of any help to you please share your contact details with me.
First discalamer; I work within distribution so while we don’t sell directly to hotels we do work with our customers on many projects in this space.
Regarding your existing PoE switches, yes you can use Ubiquiti switches with Cambium APs, depending on AP it’s wortg checking if you need PoE or PoE+.
I see Microtik routers used in this space, though we don’t touch that side.
Cambium have their own range on switches called cnMatrix, you can onboard these onto cnMaestro.
Cambium do have a router but it’s designed for home users (popular with WISPs). I wouldn’t recommend this for a hotel.
No pitsfalls I can think of from a technical side, their kit is very reliable in our experience. From a commercial side I know some vendors are very aggressive especially with the larger hotels and chains. Speak to your local disti, find out what deal registration options you have in your area. Cambium and your disti should support you.
We've been using the E series AP's for quite some time now and the firmware and features have come a long way since it was first released. We just revamped 50+ E400 AP's at a large apartment complex to use cnMaestro on premise, along withRGNets. We can do the following now that it's all tied together:
All AP's are powered by cheap 8 port Cisco PoE enabled managed switches, but we're investigating using the cnMatrix switches at new sites due to the cnMaestro integration. Having all of this manageable through one system would be be extremely helpful.
Clients initially login to a portal on an open SSID.
Clients create a new account or login to their account and get moved to their own dynamically created VLAN.
The VLAN's are secure from each other and BW is throttled across it. One big benefit is that clients can safely use chromcast, apple TV, etc, without being able to cast to their neighbors devices and vise versa. Throttling the VLAN keeps users from sharing accounts.
We use the band steering and auto-rf tools embedded in the radios to optimize the RF landscape. These features keep getting better and better with each firmware release.
We use cnMaestro on premise to auto update all the AP's firmware and settings along with keeping track of AP and client stats.
AP's are quickly and easily automatically updated (both firmware and config) as they're added or replaced to the system. It's plug and play.
All of these features are free (except for RGNets).
We also like the ability that we can deploy a one off AP or small sites that only need a handful of AP's without having to use cnMaestro. AP's can be configured individually and they can even be set as a master config for a few other slave AP's on the site.
Lastly... all of this is at a fraction of the price of Ruckus (which we also use and have extensive experience with)... with no support contracts to pay each year. The only reason I'd use Ruckus anymore is if you need an advanced mesh system... it's way better and more reliable with Ruckus ATM... but Cambium is making pretty good strides in this dept and we hope to revist meshing with their E series soon.
Thank You for taking the time to read through my post and offer your experience and details to go with it.
The system is pretty amazing and easy to use.
One thing i am having an issue with - is the client limits are not working
I have tried several areas of the cloud controlller as well as on the AP direct GUI - and each time i login while testing, the throttle does not work properly.
Any one have this issue at this time? (April 2019)
One last thing
Our current setup for most locations are at a 1 ap to every 4 rooms across the board.
We have a great mix of solid concrete and also stick built sites.
One thing i am having an issue with - is the client limits are not working
I have tried several areas of the cloud controlller as well as on the AP direct GUI - and each time i login while testing, the throttle does not work properly.
Any one have this issue at this time? (April 2019)
Joe
We've used it a few times in the past and it worked fine, and again just recently at a new deployment, we tested the rate limits extensively and it seemed to work just fine. I do remember someone else recently mention that they were having issues with this in the forum. I also see you have a seperate forum request on it HERE.
I'll piggy back off JFF and Jim on the AP set for a Cambium based hotel.
Tip for best perf and longevity
Check the reverse path RF from the typical guest device to the AP. That RF path (upstream) is highly impacted by hotel high attenuation fire rated doors and sound proof walls. If the client cannot ACK every time, packets are buffered for retransmit and the connection is poor, capacity suffers, and streaming Netflix or HBO-GOT will degrade. Don't mess with people's GOT in the last season! When the network RF factors the client device, you are in the best position to support future changes in client devices.
There are three APs offered for use indoor:
e600 is 4x4 11ac wave 2, best for conference/meeting rooms. the 4x4 streams might be overkill for the guest room areas of the hotel as the construction of fire-rated doors and sound proof walls highly restricts the RF penetration anyway.
e410 is 2x2 11ac wave 2, solid general use AP for lobby, small meeting rooms, guest rooms. Small enough to hide just about anywhere and low cost.
e430 is 2x2 11ac wave 2 with additional Ethernet ports and PoE out. The e430 is a wall plate form factor with four different mounting options (single gang J box, dual gang J box, flush, desk stand).