That Amazon link is just a link to an Amazon reseller based in Latvia. I am tempted, but installing them myself isn't really an option, so it might be a bit tricky going through a reseller I don't know. The resellers all seem pretty small to me, not that that is necessarily a problem.

I'm going to get Netgear. You guys have killed my Meraki buzz

My questions are still applicable though.....

@scottalanmiller said:

What price are you getting on Netgear ProSafe? Here it is cheaper to acquire and free after you buy it. I've never seen Prosafe come to a fraction of the Meraki costs.

http://www.uk.insight.com/en-gb/productinfo/wireless-networking/0003120178-00000001
Insight generally offer the lowest price here.

@scottalanmiller said:

But if you really want value, Ubiquiti is the obvious answer. Lower than ProSafe in price, higher in quality and performance.

Sounds good. The big suppliers here in the UK don't appear to sell Ubiquiti. I'm not sure how popular it is here. I know nothing about them. How do you manage them? Do you not need any controller? Is the base model a similar spec and quality to an MR12?

@scottalanmiller said:

you normally assume five to ten years on APs

Ten years? Really? It seems to be that there's too much development in wireless to last ten years. I'm expecting much faster transfer rates in 5 years time, never mind 10.

Anyway, the purpose of my thread wasn't to ask 'should I buy Meraki or something else', it was to get help spec'ing out the correct Meraki solution.

OK, I've looked it up in "Larousse Gastronomique", the definitive bible of food. Ice-cream was invented by the French cook of Charles I in the 1650s and contained eggs. So I'm claiming it as English and egg based You Americans can bastardise it all you like

So does ice-cream?
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/jun/17/how-to-make-ice-cream

@scottalanmiller said:

I'm home early. Worked all morning, came home early. Got a sub and some frozen custard on the way home.

Frozen custard? Isn't that, like, ice cream?

Youtube Video

Our IT supplier did a survey, which involved placing a Netgear AP in a couple of locations and wandering around with a laptop running inSSIDer recording the results. Based on this, they quoted for 6 APs in the office and 4 in the factory, plus a couple of PoE Netgear switches as none of our existing switches are PoE. All MR18s. The total cost, including installation and 3 year subs was around $14k.

The office is around 12,000 sq ft over two floors, the factory is 45 sq ft on a single floor.

I've done my own survey, but I'm not sure how to interpret the results. I placed a single MR16 AP (the one they gave me for free) in the middle of the factory, about four feet off the ground. The signal varied between -36dBm nearby to -50dBm at the far end of the factory behind some racking filled with cardboard boxes. This was on 2.5GHz. At 5GHz the results were significantly worse, dropping below -60dBm on the edges of the factory.

The office performed much worse. I placed the unit upstairs. Directly below it downstairs I got -45 at 2.5GHz and -63 at 5GHz. At the far end of the office, behind a couple of walls, I got -76.

What kind of dBm should I be expecting to avoid problems? My initial thought is 10 units seems overkill?

I'm also not sure about the logic of replacing one of our existing 24 port switches with a new PoE one, when I could buy an 8 port one for peanuts and attach it to the existing one? Alternatively, has anyone used PoE Injectors instead?

Finally, as I mentioned above, I reached out to our preferred IT supplier who will supply Meraki through a distributor but I've been told that Meraki will only supply at reduced "bid" pricing if I have a conference call via webex with them. Is this normal? It seems a bit weird.

@scottalanmiller said:

The price though, wow. It's moderately high to acquire and super high to keep. It's easily four or five times the cost of its primary competition.

Blimey! Are you sure? I've been quoted for a Netgear ProSafe Starter Kit and the price is only slightly lower than Meraki over a 3 year period. The subs for each Meraki AP is less than $100 per year.

@scottalanmiller said:

Meraki is especially good when you are integrating them top to bottom. You'll get better value if you are using Meraki System Manager (free), Meraki firewalls, Meraki switches, etc. All one interface for everything.

All our mobile devices (laptops, phones, iPads) are managed using System Manager, which I love. That's part of the reasoning for going with Meraki - they deserve some money from me.

@alexntg said:

Do you have multiple sites to take care of? Are you looking to minimize your involvement with wireless networking? Are you looking for more visibility into your wireless networks than just a list of clients? if so, Meraki may be for you.

How many users are you looking at?

Single site. Definitely looking to minimize my involvement. Not many concurrent users at all. We have around a dozen homeworkers who require wifi access for their laptops and phones when they come in to the office. Around half a dozen internal users who are mainly wired but will use their laptops and ipads in meetings. And we're planning on issuing iPods to around ten shopfloor workers for access to our ERP system.

If you like rain then I can recommend Wales.

Portland is just like Portlandia, right?

Disappointed. I thought you were planning a career change involving cooking.

I just think they look cool. I love the dashboard and everyone seems happy with them.

Nothing specific, no. Basically, I want to install wi-fi at work. I've had a quote from an IT supplier we occasionally use but they've messed me around and also, as Scott always says, never trust the advice of a reseller. My usual preferred IT supplier will sell me the units but doesn't normally get involved with Meraki, they're HP and Netgear only. So I'm just after general advice as I may be installing it myself. I'm off to bed now, but I'll post the full story in the morning if anyone is interested and would like to help me spec it up.

I know nothing....

@scottalanmiller said:

No, I know of no product that has a restriction like that. No software, hardware, real estate, etc. It's a common belief that all kinds of things require one to be a business but the reality is is that such restrictions have no reason to exist and so don't. Some product somewhere is like that, but I can't think of any.

I've had problems the other way round, where I've tried to buy a consumer product with a business credit card and it's been declined because the credit card is registered to a business address.

1TB of data for $30, add e-mail and a bunch of other stuff for an extra $20. Is there anything else in the market that offers anything similar?

Is there anything to stop a home user signing up for an O365 Business Plan? Do you need to be a registered business or anything? Because otherwise, 50 quid a year for a 1TB storage plus business class e-mail seems like a bargain? If I want more storage for my Hotmail account it's around six times more expensive!

@garak0410 said:

I know OneDrive isn't an online backup

What are the differences between OneDrive and an official online backup?