$675 is cheap enough that you could buy one for home if you were sufficiently annoyed with Linksys, D-Link and the other SOHO junk makers. This might even be compelling if you can pick one up used in a few years.
For business, I'm not sure that price is the biggest concern for people buying these.
If you're a home user tired of the off-the-shelf stuff, why would you immediately go to something 10x the price when there's Ubiquiti sitting nicely in the middle with 802.11b/g/n for under $100, a/b/g/n for under $300, and a/b/g/n/ac for a bit more?
I'm running a pair of UniFi b/g/n units and a pfSense firewall that even with a mere Celeron 1047 is way overpowered for my 75mbit/sec of combined WAN speed. Combine that with switch costs and I'm still short of $675 for an entire home network.
Sure it's not Cisco territory, but it's still stupid expensive for a WiFi AP.
I agree, after reading last year's article about Ubiquiti I bought one of their uap-lr APs and even with only 2.4GHz b/g/n it still out performs my Linksys router running DD-WRT. I'm still routing via my Linksys, but I'm offloading the wireless responsibilities to my UAP. While I'm only experiencing marginally better throughput I no longer experience signal loss which was a common occurrence before with several different h/w models..
HP ProCurve (nee Colubris) MSM460 (450 Mbps 802.11a/b/g/n, dual-radio, 3 stream) is also under $500 CDN (so should be around $300-ish US) and can be used in either stand-alone mode (where you use the web GUI on the device to manage it) or controlled mode (which requires an external controller to manage).
Why would you spend over $600 US on a device that requires using a cloud-based management interface that requires a working Internet connection to use?
Ubiquiti is even less money for the hardware, the controller software is free but requires a separate server to install on, but they are constantly out-of-stock on everything.
Xirrus is not aimed at the home user market. They are the leader for high density having the only access points on the market with up to 16 radios all capable of operating in the 5Ghz spectrum.
Price is not the biggest concern.. However, this AP is more than price.. it is also performance. The Xirrus access points allow BOTH radios to operate in 802.11ac. Cisco's fastest AP is rated at 1.7Gb/s compared to 2.6Gb/s for Xirrus XR-630 and 5.2GB/s for Xirrus 2435.
Err, are you confusing concurrent operation with 802.11ac? The latter doesn't operate in 2.4GHz due to the 80MHz channel width requirement. The UniFi AP AC does support concurrent dualband operation BTW.
Actually I now see what you mean, the 2.4GHz can be switched to 5GHz operation. However I'm not quite sure why someone would sacrifice 2.4GHz operation for small advantage 2x5GHz operation in the same would give; usually it's all about coverage not maximum number of power users in a small spot. And then again you could get almost twice the amount of devices from Ubiquity plus they're 3x3 instead of 2x2.
Users per radio and connections ate marketing baloney. Connect 200 users per radio and factor true throughput and you will see what I mean.
Now, would you buy a 24 port switch with half 1Gb and half 100Mb? No... why do the same for wireless? In most cases a 2.4 radio will never do more than 150mb throughput because you do not bond in 2.4 On the other hand, trading that for an additional ac radio gives you an additional 400-550mb actual throughput... this is a huge gain.
That's blinders-on logic. Any network engineer has had to design networks for oversubscription since they first existed. Using your analysis would imply that it would be ridiculous to assume any 24 port gig switch should also have a 24gig uplink port, of which none of them do.
The true marketing spin is that getting rid of 2.4 to boost marketing throughput numbers implies that someone only owns all 5Ghz 3x3 devices, and doesn't want to use their Kindles, or Xbox, or PS, or any devices built prior to 6 months ago.
You miss the scale of things. Why run GigE at all if you are willing to give 20-50 people in a room what amounts to no more than 200-600Mb/s throughput? At least your 24port switch can have multiple 1Gig or even a 10Gig uplink and has a multi Gig back. At the end of the day, your 2.4Ghz radio is no better than 75Mb/s in most cases and no more than 150Mb/s in the best of cases when your 5Ghz can do 150-250Mb/s in 802.11n and 450-700Mb/s in 802.11ac.
Also, again Xirrus APs are not made for home but primarily for high dense areas. Even still, would you want to run on a 75Mb/s connection or a 500Mb/s connection?
This is doable if and *only if* all your devices support 802.11ac. It will still be several years before we can turn off 802.11g let alone 802.11n. Meaning, 2.4 GHz will be around for many many many more years.
Also, 5 GHz doesn't have the range and penetration that 2.4 GHz does, making it less than useful in some areas.
No... not confusing. Xirrus radios are software selectable and can support any number of configurations one being both radios operating in 5Ghz 802.11ac.
Unlike every other vendor out there, Xirrus radios are software-programmable, so you can switch both to 5 GHz (and 11ac) on-the-fly. Really makes the long-term prospects much better than other companies in the space.
For home users laptop with 2 gigabit ethernet ports + multiple antennas makes the perfect router/firewall/server/nas combo. Just add a switch and you're set.
anything from a core 2 duo on up should be fast enough to do all those duties at once for a home connection.
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Flunk - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
$675 is cheap enough that you could buy one for home if you were sufficiently annoyed with Linksys, D-Link and the other SOHO junk makers. This might even be compelling if you can pick one up used in a few years.For business, I'm not sure that price is the biggest concern for people buying these.
wolrah - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
If you're a home user tired of the off-the-shelf stuff, why would you immediately go to something 10x the price when there's Ubiquiti sitting nicely in the middle with 802.11b/g/n for under $100, a/b/g/n for under $300, and a/b/g/n/ac for a bit more?I'm running a pair of UniFi b/g/n units and a pfSense firewall that even with a mere Celeron 1047 is way overpowered for my 75mbit/sec of combined WAN speed. Combine that with switch costs and I'm still short of $675 for an entire home network.
Sure it's not Cisco territory, but it's still stupid expensive for a WiFi AP.
kenthaman - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
I agree, after reading last year's article about Ubiquiti I bought one of their uap-lr APs and even with only 2.4GHz b/g/n it still out performs my Linksys router running DD-WRT. I'm still routing via my Linksys, but I'm offloading the wireless responsibilities to my UAP. While I'm only experiencing marginally better throughput I no longer experience signal loss which was a common occurrence before with several different h/w models..phoenix_rizzen - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
HP ProCurve (nee Colubris) MSM460 (450 Mbps 802.11a/b/g/n, dual-radio, 3 stream) is also under $500 CDN (so should be around $300-ish US) and can be used in either stand-alone mode (where you use the web GUI on the device to manage it) or controlled mode (which requires an external controller to manage).Why would you spend over $600 US on a device that requires using a cloud-based management interface that requires a working Internet connection to use?
Ubiquiti is even less money for the hardware, the controller software is free but requires a separate server to install on, but they are constantly out-of-stock on everything.
Patrian - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Cloud management is not required. Ubiquiti and Xirrus are not even in the same class.Patrian - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Xirrus is not aimed at the home user market. They are the leader for high density having the only access points on the market with up to 16 radios all capable of operating in the 5Ghz spectrum.Patrian - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Price is not the biggest concern.. However, this AP is more than price.. it is also performance. The Xirrus access points allow BOTH radios to operate in 802.11ac. Cisco's fastest AP is rated at 1.7Gb/s compared to 2.6Gb/s for Xirrus XR-630 and 5.2GB/s for Xirrus 2435.Daniel Egger - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Uhm, is that cheap? The seemingly much better Ubiquiti UniFi AP AC (1.3Gbps support) is available for ~$350 here.Patrian - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
The Xirrus APs can operate BOTH radios in AC... Everyone else only gives you one AC radio...Daniel Egger - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Err, are you confusing concurrent operation with 802.11ac? The latter doesn't operate in 2.4GHz due to the 80MHz channel width requirement. The UniFi AP AC does support concurrent dualband operation BTW.Daniel Egger - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Actually I now see what you mean, the 2.4GHz can be switched to 5GHz operation. However I'm not quite sure why someone would sacrifice 2.4GHz operation for small advantage 2x5GHz operation in the same would give; usually it's all about coverage not maximum number of power users in a small spot. And then again you could get almost twice the amount of devices from Ubiquity plus they're 3x3 instead of 2x2.Patrian - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
Users per radio and connections ate marketing baloney. Connect 200 users per radio and factor true throughput and you will see what I mean.Now, would you buy a 24 port switch with half 1Gb and half 100Mb? No... why do the same for wireless? In most cases a 2.4 radio will never do more than 150mb throughput because you do not bond in 2.4 On the other hand, trading that for an additional ac radio gives you an additional 400-550mb actual throughput... this is a huge gain.
L0cus - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
That's blinders-on logic. Any network engineer has had to design networks for oversubscription since they first existed. Using your analysis would imply that it would be ridiculous to assume any 24 port gig switch should also have a 24gig uplink port, of which none of them do.The true marketing spin is that getting rid of 2.4 to boost marketing throughput numbers implies that someone only owns all 5Ghz 3x3 devices, and doesn't want to use their Kindles, or Xbox, or PS, or any devices built prior to 6 months ago.
Patrian - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
You miss the scale of things. Why run GigE at all if you are willing to give 20-50 people in a room what amounts to no more than 200-600Mb/s throughput? At least your 24port switch can have multiple 1Gig or even a 10Gig uplink and has a multi Gig back. At the end of the day, your 2.4Ghz radio is no better than 75Mb/s in most cases and no more than 150Mb/s in the best of cases when your 5Ghz can do 150-250Mb/s in 802.11n and 450-700Mb/s in 802.11ac.Also, again Xirrus APs are not made for home but primarily for high dense areas. Even still, would you want to run on a 75Mb/s connection or a 500Mb/s connection?
phoenix_rizzen - Monday, March 17, 2014 - link
This is doable if and *only if* all your devices support 802.11ac. It will still be several years before we can turn off 802.11g let alone 802.11n. Meaning, 2.4 GHz will be around for many many many more years.Also, 5 GHz doesn't have the range and penetration that 2.4 GHz does, making it less than useful in some areas.
Patrian - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
No... not confusing. Xirrus radios are software selectable and can support any number of configurations one being both radios operating in 5Ghz 802.11ac.ThugEsquire - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Unlike every other vendor out there, Xirrus radios are software-programmable, so you can switch both to 5 GHz (and 11ac) on-the-fly. Really makes the long-term prospects much better than other companies in the space.Communism - Tuesday, March 11, 2014 - link
For home users laptop with 2 gigabit ethernet ports + multiple antennas makes the perfect router/firewall/server/nas combo. Just add a switch and you're set.anything from a core 2 duo on up should be fast enough to do all those duties at once for a home connection.
Conficio - Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - link
LOL - I have dozens of laptops lying around with two gigabit ethernet portsZerointerrupt - Friday, March 21, 2014 - link
And now we have our first Meraki clone...ThugEsquire - Friday, May 22, 2015 - link
Having used both, the Xirrus is far superior to anything Meraki's got. Especially when you look at the Cloud UI for each.