A Partner Experience with the new Cisco WAP371 802.11ac Wireless Access Point

Hello all,

Hello all, I trust everyone’s week is going well. Today we get to hear from Michiel Beenen, the founder of TechConnect, based in the Netherlands. Michiel recently heard about the new Cisco WAP371 and wanted to see if this new 802.11ac wireless access point hit the mark. He has already deployed the WAP321 and WAP561, so the new WAP371 was peaking his interest. Here is what Michiel had to say:

“After many years of working with Cisco Aironet and Small Business devices, it was time for our company to start testing new access point models that would support Wi-Fi AC (higher speeds). But for many smaller companies and even for at home, Aironet products are just a bit to much and require way more knowledge than then you would simply need in a SMB/Home environment.

So after testing out the WAP321 and WAP561 last year we decided to buy a couple of Cisco WAP371 access points and so far the experience has been great. Installation was as easy as plugging it into your network, browsing to the IP of the access point and then following the Wizard.

The wizard will simply ask for a new admin password, Wi-Fi network names and security and if you want to setup a ‘cluster’ of WAP access points. A cluster can be very handy in a lot of cases, when you have more than one access point, a cluster takes care of a lot of things like roaming between access points and automatically updating the most important settings to each access point within a cluster (things like SSID and other settings will be automatically synced between all devices).

After the wizard is finished you get back into the graphical user interface and from there you can basically do whatever you want. Adjust settings like QoS, Radio channels, VLAN but also Guest support (with or without a Portal).

So far we have been testing with multiple iPhones, iPads, Android devices and Macbooks plus some Airplay speakers and it all seems to work perfectly fine.

Speed-wise we have reached speeds of up to 870Mbps so far over AC Wi-Fi and up to 250mMbps on the 2.4GHz band.

All in all, we are very satisfied with this product and happy that Cisco is coming up with products like this for the Small Business and Home users.”

More about TechConnect: TechConnect started in 1997, from the melting pot of several successful tech community web sites. Through the years, it has evolved into an internet company whose focus lies on technology solutions, gaming, music and online advertising. In the beginning, TechConnect was about the passion for technology, and the drive to making dreams come true.

TechConnect’s strength lies in the unique blend of skills and knowledge brought about by the varied and international nature of its employees. Hailing from across Europe, and from all walks of life, TechConnect employees are the lifeblood and heartbeat of the company, with their ideas, varied life experience and professional training. TechConnect helps small and medium sized companies in the Netherlands and Belgium with IT solutions and web services.

Michiel Beenen is the Founder and Managing Director of TechConnect. Internet entrepreneur and online gaming enthusiast, Michiel started the online community (GameConnect) through a combination of his passion for bringing friends together. Michiel has worked on many projects on the cutting edge of online and offline technology, and each has allowed him to build an unparalleled amount of personal connections at all levels of the advertising and gaming worlds, and he loves nothing more than creating new opportunities and projects driven by passion and technical aptitude.

Thank you to Michiel for taking the time out to pen this up for us. Make it a great rest of the week.

Marc