UniFi and mikrotik equivalent

RouterOS General
1

Hey there,

recently i came across mikrotik and tried to learn a little bit more about RouterOS and how to work with it.
Now i feel confident enough ,to put it into practice and i am considering Mikrotik hardware for a little project of mine.

I got to provide WLAN access in a nice old fashioned country house which consists of 3 seperate flats.
At the moment there is only one tiny old speedport w503 router, which also serves as an access points to grant internet access for guests, that rent one of the flats for a little weekend holiday. (i know, i was stunned too when i saw this)
Strangely i was told, that the customers never complained about it, but of course the signal weakens when it has to get through the walls which seperates the flats from each other, though every flat still seems to have good enough signal strength to provide stable internet access. Its an adsl annex.b internet connection with ~6mbit DS and 0.8mbit US, more isn`t available, besides a hybrid lte/adsl service that a provider in my country offers. (but that wont happen right now)

Nevertheless we want to improve things a little bit.
Usually my idea was to stick with the w503 as a dsl modem and buy a RB750UPr2 with a UniFi AP
(dont know if the hex PoE lite can provide PoE to the UniFi but maybe you can clear this up for me)
The UniFi AP alone should already be a huge improvement compared to the integrated AP of the old w503.

I am used to UniFi but on the other hand i thought why dont go mikrotik only this time and switch the UniFI with a RBwAP2nD. It is placed as an outdoor AP but that shouldnt be a big deal right?
I would like to hear your “more mikrotik experienced” opinion about my choice of hardware.
Does the RBwAP2nD supports wireless uplinks too, in case i ll figure out that we need another one to increase
wlan coverage?

This will be the first time for me to use mikrotik wlan gear and i am not that sure if i am on the right path here so any help is very much appreciated.

Tahnk you in advance

Regards

2

I always use Mikrotiks for routers and only use Mikrotik for basic and short range wifi.

I use the Unifi LR APs for larger offices, or when signal is weakened with concrete walls or walls with metal studs.

The Zero-Handoff feature of Unifi works well, but since all APs would have to use the same channel, try not to overlap the signal too much. Maybe one per flat where walls block the signal.

Mikrotik doesn’t support zero-handoff but does support repeater mode. I’m not a fan of repeater mode.

I have used Mikrotiks to wirelessly bridge two LANs, it works very well, I was able to bridge two LANs that are 200 feet apart and through 1 wall (not a concrete wall).

As for POE, the Unifi’s support the 802.3af/t standard which means 48 volts. A lot of Mikrotiks that support POE don’t mention the 802.3af/t standard. That means it’s probably passive, the output will be whatever voltage is inputted into the Mikrotik. Always check PoE outputs and inputs.