[boringuser2]

This topic has been fascinating me because I can't find reliable information.

It seems like most people don't necessarily care per se about wifi performance because you can stuff an AP every 30 ft and call it a day.

Most MSPs seem to become a shop of some kind based around a hardware that isn't necessarily the most performant, but good enough, cheap, easy to manage, etc. (lots of UniFi shops even though I don't consider it a good solution).

In terms of performance, though, I live in a very high density apartment so I have a niche use case: I've been trying to find the access point.

So far, ruckus has been outperforming every other access point I've tried (Aruba, Unifi, extreme, etc.)

I can't find any reliable data on whether or not Ruckus is just literally the best access point, and I still consider myself in the researching phase.

Is there industry knowledge to the contrary? Are there any actual engineering standards that companies aspire to, or is it just a "most people don't measure this, so whatever" industry?

[krelas]

Just went through this for a large site installation. We had to reach out to vendors and have them send us trial units because performance data was impossible to find, it was incredibly time consuming setting up a proof of concept for each vendor AP. Also, this is only really an option open to people who are doing big deployments because it isn’t worth the vendor’s time otherwise.

I’d recommend looking at Juniper Mist for high congestion areas because their auto mode actually works and adapts to changes in the environment.

I do have to ask though, do you really need enterprise Wi-Fi? It’s not very neighbourly but buying a high end consumer Wi-Fi router that lets you pick DFS channels, picking the least congested channel, and setting transmit power as high as it will go should do the job in an apartment.

[boringuser2]

I need enterprise wifi because I want a bullet-proof network.

Do I actually need it?

Eh, no, I suppose.

But I can't stop myself from not doing it.

Also, in terms of tangibility, my 2.4ghz is so abysmal due to congestion I'm willing to do anything to maximize it. Even Aruba falls flat with this band but Ruckus does an *okay* job. It's obvious that AP performance is a factor here.

My 4x4 Wifi 6 Aruba 535 gets completely shut out by a 2x2 beige colored clunker Ruckus 510 that I got for $40. It's obvious that price, features or "newness" aren't things I can rely on to give me a good picture.

Aruba outperforms my other models -- I've spent a lot of money just testing this out myself using the use case of 40 competing SSIDs.

(According to my research juniper doesn't perform particularly well. Check the Packet6 report that Ruckus cites. Probably biased, but what else is there? "Data sheets" that don't really say much about anything. I havent purchased a test AP, though.)

[boringuser2]

Also, I forgot to mention that you shouldn't be advising people to use a consumer router if you know anything about technology.

[epcoa]

> do the job in an apartment

You should visit Chicago some time.

[mimischi]

Care to elaborate?

[epcoa]

Chicago has an abundance of deep narrow lots. It isn't uncommon to have to have apartment units that are 14-15 (4.5m) feet wide and up to 80 feet (25m) long, a hallway runs on one side with bed/bathrooms adjacent. There is no way you can adequately cover this with one AP unless you don't care about speed much on one end of the unit. If you want uniform top 5GHz speeds you're going to need 2 or 3 APs.