I just moved house and my current Juniper Firewall / Wifi is not powerful enough anymore to cover the wireless needs in the house.
The signal and speed are just too limited.
The devices that would connect are a few phones, tablets and occasional a laptop.
I am thinking to add 2 devices in the house. One downstairs in the living room and one upstairs in the centre of the house where my office is situated. Important is that I can publish 1 or more SSIDs where the devices jump to the strongest AP available.
This is an overview of my infrastructure:
Internet Router - FIrewall/wifi - Gigabit switch with different vlans - two ethernet links to all rooms is the house
My goal is to replace the Juniper firewall with something more powerfull as it only covers 100mbit and I need more for my current internet link.
In the living room I would need a combination of switch (5 ports) and wireless.
In my office I currently have a gigabit switch but I also would like to replace this with a device that can cover wireless.
In my long search for solutions I ended up with two vendors, Mikrotik and Ubiquiti.
Ideal would be the RB951G-2HnD for both places as this would cover my requirements but I am not 100% assured that the wireless capabilities of the Mikrotik solutions would be as equally good and easy as the ones from Ubiquiti. The Unify APs look more styleish (yes the WAF is important as well) and the controller looks really nice.
I have read a lot and I am not sure what I should choose.
I see you have done your research well, the RB951G-2HnD is a very good router for small to medium needs. I would recommend Mikrotik over Ubiquity anytime because of its stability and control. But again, when it comes to wireless situation, you can never be 100% secure, it is very dependable on the indoor environment.
As for the stylish thing, you may check the http://routerboard.com/RBcAP2n This does have a less powerful CPU but has the same wireless performance.
But as I see, the cAP 2n has lower freq and it’s about $50, if you add more money, you would have better CPU so better performance.
I was talking to sales expert today and He said the best minimum buy for home is 951, maybe i’m gonna buy this for home
I have an rb2011 for a wired router(dhcp server, firewall, gateway) and use Unifi for APs. It’s a good combination. Keep in mind you need a unifi controller.
Upta camp, I have the wireless rb2011 for router+wifi and it’s good but I haven’t tried multiple mikrotiks for roaming.
Why not try to use a little bit of both?
Unify for the looks and the wireless behavior (seamless roaming, load balancing over multiple APs), routing using Mikrotik, e.g. a 850G, or even a CRS1009?
BTW, the Unify controller software is needed only on initial configuration. Once up and running and initial provisioning, it is not needed any more.
The thing is that I am not looking to combine both Mikrotik and Ubiquiti as I will rely on a firewall appliance / router that I use for my work.
So the quest is only to find a good wireless solution (preferably with integrated switch) to use both down and upstairs.
I am just wondering if there is a big difference between the Miktrotik wireless and the one of Ubiquiti. If not then I will choose the Mikrotik RB951G-2HnD as this has the integrated switch.
As long as I can perform wireless roaming that would be ideal.
I am currently not looking to combine both as my firewall / router is one I use for work. So there is no usecase in replacing my router/firewall (for now).
My quest is to find a good wireless solution (if it has an integrated switch) for both down and up stairs.
I am just wondering if there is a difference in quality versus those two vendors. If not then I will buy the RB951G-2HnD as this will cover my usecase. As long as it supports wireless roaming then that would be great.
Sure, go for 951G-2HnD, it is good choise. The roaming between the devices can be so fast that you even cannot notice that. but I have to say, technically it will not be “seamless”. It is because the client decides where to connect and the reconnection time mainly depends on the clients capabilities.
To have real seamless roaming you would need to build special controller with enslaved radios that would keep special BSSID for each client separately and move it from radio to radio according to local measurement of the signals quality. This is so much complicated that you will not be ready to pay for.
