[SOLVED] Church looking to expand wifi

[Velvis]

A local church that currently is just using a FIOS router and a Netgear wifi range extender (one on each end of the building.)

They would like to upgrade for better coverage and add a guest Network.

They currently have this switch: Netgear jgs524pe

Ideally if I could use that to save them some money that would be a plus.

I'd like to add poe access points but reading about that switch there seems to be some issues powering newer access points.

Can anyone recommend POE access points that will work with that switch? (As well as a guest Network)

Thanks!

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[phaZed]

Hands down go with Ubiquiti UAP's. Come with their own POE injectors and you can use it on their existing switch.

 

[SAFCasper]

Agree with Ubiquiti but can't see any reason why that switch would have problems powering newer AP's. It supports 802.3af which is pretty much standard across manufacturers.

The only devices it would't work on are really beefy AP's requiring more than 15.4W power and therefore requiring 802.3at. Or some of the older Ubiquti stuff that uses passive PoE.

 

[Velvis]

Hands down go with Ubiquiti UAP's. Come with their own POE injectors and you can use it on their existing switch.

Is there additional hardware needed to control the Ubiquiti APs?

 

[Sky-Knight]

You need a controller, so you can either buy the cloud key v2, or install the java controller on something. Either way, you want a DNS server somewhere you can put the unifi.whatever.local record in.

 

[Markverhyden]

Just to clarify you don't need necessarily need a controller 24 x 365 depending on the application. I've several sites with just the AP. They've been working with no problems. But you won't get updates or things like traffic monitoring.

You could install the controller on a local machine and use that, making sure you do regular backups of the controller.

 

[SAFCasper]

Is there additional hardware needed to control the Ubiquiti APs?

As mentioned, you need a Unifi Controller somewhere to manage the AP's. The whole Unifi system is developed around the idea of being centrally managed.

There are several options for a controller

You can buy a dedicated hardware device - the Unifi CloudKey (UCK-G2). Just hook up to a switch on-site and it's pretty much "plug and play"

You can run the controller on your own hardware. It's free to download and supported on Windows, Mac, Debian/Ubuntu. Cheap option could be the re-purpose an old PC with Ubuntu server. Or lookup one of the guides for running on RaspberryPi.

You can use a "Cloud Controller" which is basically the controller software running on a VPS instance.