7982 for Bar / Restaraunt

[scott_eaton]

Looking for advice into the best quality, lowest management and 'bang per buck' AP to suite our environment. The business is a rather busy bar / restaurant / nightclub with high ceilings and a few low hanging dry wall bulkheads. Most clients are within a 250' diameter circle, and are *public* only smartphones and the occasional tablet. That is our focus - public only. Currently we have half a dozen low end Ubiquiti AP's handling the environment (typically 100-150 clients max) and performance is dismal. The Ubiquiti's can handle a few dozen clients each, but as soon as those devices start moving into the building or out of the building performance dies, or if client density gets over 30 per AP or so. Various settings on the Ubiquit's does not help (RSSI, channel power, etc), so we're looking at competiting products that can handle this environment. The 7982 has good reviews for high density and is available for less than $700 MSRP if you dig around, but I'm not familiar Ruckus. Next question is if a single 7982 in standalone without additional licenses will work (two of them worst case scenario). I am not looking for devices to frequently manage once deployed and simply want painless, deploy it and forget it functionality. Thanks

[john_d]

Glad to be of help, Scott. Your needs sound fairly basic and I think getting some mid-grade Ruckus AP's will give you excellent bang for the buck to start off with. It doesn't sound like you need a controller right away. As far as 2.4GHz vs 5GHz, there absolutely is a huge capacity difference. 2.4GHz in most public settings tends to be overly saturated by neighbors, close range bluetooth devices (e.g. wearables, headphones, fitness bands, and so on), as well as personal hotspots your bar patrons might bring. You will greatly benefit from 5GHz, as most modern smartphones and tablets do support 5GHz and use it.

You don't, however, need 802.11ac. So I think the 7372 is the right sized N solution for you, and the R500 is the right sized AC solution, and you'll likely need more than one to comfortably cover all your guests... though one would give you a pretty good start on your network already!

From what you described, it doesn't sound like AC is strictly necessary, though if you expect a few years' of lifetime from your solution, I would personally consider getting the R500 as a way of future proofing for a bit longer. I believe the 7372 was introduced ~2 years before the R500. Its predecessor, the 7363, is already EOL and no longer receiving firmware updates. Of course, an EOL AP is not necessarily a goner -- it probably will still work for some time, but it won't be able to keep up with the latest and greatest enhancements from Ruckus, and won't be able to participate in a controller based network with a newer controller.

So yeah, my recommendation is start with standalone R500 or 7372, and then maybe consider a controller if you need more insight / rate limiting if you find users abusing your service for heavy streaming or need to institute a captive portal ToS screen.

[scott_eaton]

Big question: In standalone configuration do the Ruckus AP's support per client bandwidth limiting? One thing nice about Ubiquiti units is I could set a limit per connection and this kept bandwidth hogs at bay. If the Ruckus units require additional controller licensing simply to support this one feature I'll likely have to go back to the drawing board from a budget standpoint.

[john_d]

Yes, they do! Even via the Webadmin GUI, you can go to Configure, the wlan, and then Edit Settings and set a rate limit per station, in the up and down direction independently (a station is WiFi terminology for a client, so it is what you are looking for).

EDIT -- you might be able to find a standalone AP manual online, and search up "Rate Limiting" in there. But it's not terribly exciting and  doesn't say much more than I just said 😄

[Martinlutherz]

I am pleased that I landed on this page where the discussion is already in process and topic is my favourite one too. I suppose that the connectivity of internet is must thing in any restaurant because of the visitor's quality experience beyond just eating. I visited China Garden recently and I was quiet happy by their environment due to their uninterrupted internet and smooth streaming.