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dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

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[Equipment] Ruckus MediaFlex / MetroFlex -- EOL'ed.. alternative

The Ruckus MetroFlex and MediaFlex indoor "CPE" products, which work quite well in hotels and MDUs, have been EOLed.

I liked these because:
1) They provide an indoor repeater for wireless use
2) They provide the user the option of using an ethernet port
3) They are strong and deal well with interference

Is there anything else that's similar out there?

treich
join:2006-12-12

1 edit

treich

Member

Re: [Equipment] Ruckus MediaFlex / MetroFlex -- EOL'ed.. alterna

There is Ubnt Unifi Pro and Outdoor/Airrouter HP.

viperm
Carpe Diem
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Winchester, CA

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to dr mongolia
They may be EOL but there will be replacements..

EDIT-- Sorry I was thinking the zone flex units" they are not EOL and current..
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

They seemed to do pretty well with the MetroFlex and MediaFlex products as well so I'm very surprised to see that there's no current replacement for those.. very strange.

viperm
Carpe Diem
Premium Member
join:2002-07-09
Winchester, CA

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Are you a dealer? I am a dealer and can ask tomorrow if you like?

We do mostly the Zoneflex stuff..
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

I'm not a dealer. Yeah, if your rep is able to give you any info I'd really appreciate it. There must be something I'm missing, maybe there is another product in the works that will be announced soon.
petecarlson
join:2004-11-06
Baltimore, MD

petecarlson

Member

I'm assuming your talking about the 2211NG. Where did you hear they were EOL? Don't make me bitch slap Ruckus...
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

Yep, as I recall this is the same issue that me and you had with them discontinuing the previous version of 2211's. However in that instance at least they started to produce the NG's to fill the void.

»support.ruckuswireless.c ··· uncement

viperm
Carpe Diem
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join:2002-07-09
Winchester, CA

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Well not good news according to my rep who stated "yea there are no replacements for the Mediaflex line at this time if he hears something change he will let me know"

Bummer... That was a good line of producuts and worked well..
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

Thanks for the update.

I guess vendors will probably have them in inventory for around a year.. I suppose I'll keep ordering them for now while looking for a replacement in the meantime. This is a very disappointing move by ruckus.

John Galt6
Forward, March
Premium Member
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp

John Galt6

Premium Member

said by dr mongolia:

This is a very disappointing move by ruckus.

Beancounters are involved...
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

said by John Galt6:

Beancounters are involved...

Yeah I figure it's got to be a margin issue or whatever, since obviously they make more money on the APs / ZoneDirectors / etc. But, you'd think they'd at least sell the rights of the MediaFlex and MetroFlex lines to another manufacturer, as they were quite popular and I'd assume someone would buy them.

dongato17
join:2000-07-28
Atlanta, GA

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Hey guys,

We (at ARC) are happy to make some compatible products for Ruckus APs. What did you like/not like about the MediaFlex?

-Hal
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

said by dongato17:

Hey guys,

We (at ARC) are happy to make some compatible products for Ruckus APs. What did you like/not like about the MediaFlex?

-Hal

Hal,

The MetroFlex MM2211NG is the primary unit that I (and Pete as well, I believe) use extensively. It's great for MDU applications due to it's excellent ability to sift through noise and act as an indoor CPE, while at the same time providing a "wireless repeater" option.

So, the features that I like / use:
1) Great receive sensitivity in noisy environments
2) Provides option for client to connect via ethernet port or via repeated wireless LAN
3) Easy remote management via web interface etc
4) Easy for a tenant to power up-- adapter power instead of PoE power which they will not understand

As far as what I didn't like, the older version (MM2211DZ I believe) had some random things but I didn't really have any complaints with the NG version (MM2211NG).

dongato17
join:2000-07-28
Atlanta, GA

dongato17

Member

Great feedback. Would you prefer a 2-radio product? We could do one radio fixed as 802.11b/g/n and one as 802.11a/b/g/n maybe?

Also, 1 ethernet is ok (vs. the typical 5 ports)?

Thanks!
-Hal
dr mongolia
join:2008-07-03
United State

dr mongolia

Member

said by dongato17:

Great feedback. Would you prefer a 2-radio product? We could do one radio fixed as 802.11b/g/n and one as 802.11a/b/g/n maybe?

Also, 1 ethernet is ok (vs. the typical 5 ports)?

Personally the ability for the radio to "hear" through noise is the most important part for me regardless of if it's a single or dual radio unit. Having two radios would be a nice addition, as then obviously we could separate the WAN and LAN traffic to reduce some congestion on the channel, but I would think that it may be more difficult to fit the product into the CPE price range like that.

For me the number of ports doesn't matter. We can always use a cheap switch if necessary, but from what I've seen almost all of the tenants want just a single ethernet port.
petecarlson
join:2004-11-06
Baltimore, MD

petecarlson to dongato17

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to dongato17
Odd as it seems, I'm inclined towards a single radio CPE but it has to be done as well or better then the 2211NG. I haven't seen anyone else create an AP on a radio in station mode that works. Not saying it isn't possible. If a dual radio system is used, the AP radio needs to dynamically move its channel to avoid the channel that the station radio is on.

Things I am looking for.

1) Durable, clean, desktop form factor.

2) Router mode.
A) Connect to WAN via B/G/N
B) Local SSID on LAN
C) Local Ethernet on LAN (one port is OK)

3) Beamforming or other method of interference rejection is critical. I've tested TONS of CPE and the 2211DZ and NG are the only ones that work well in this environment. the 7200 series (»www.ruckuswireless.com/p ··· 0-series) which is not EOL BTW, is much cheaper but doesn't cut it. The antenna elements in the 2211s are clearly driven by engineering while the antenna elements in the 7200 series seem to have been designed by bean counters.

4) 802.1x (EAP-TTLS using MSCHAPv2) is an absolute requirement on the WAN.

5) The ability to compile our own firmware would be a huge plus. In wired buildings, I use the UBNT Airrouter with a custom firmware which gets assigned to a configuration vlan when the customer plugs it in. The device then connects to a configuration server and gets its configuration, reconnects and authenticates on the switch port using 802.1x. All we have to do is flash all the CPE when they come in, scan them into inventory, and then assign a particular CPE to a customer before shipping it out via bike messenger or UPS.
I have been working on a wireless version of this using the Airrouter as a testbed but the local AP just doesn't work as well (see #1) and it doesn't hack it in a high interference environment (see #3). The concept works though. Deploy a configuration VLAN with 802.1x auth. When a client connects, it authenticates with a configuration user/pass, connects to the config server, gets it's new config, and then reconnects to the correct SSID with it's new settings. Not the most secure system in the world as the default config user/pass is stored on all the CPE and at this point, all you need to know is this and the expected callingstationid to get a users config. I digress.

6) The ability to set a preferred BSSID is nice.

7) The ability to select only B, G, N, or a combination is nice.

I'd love to know your thoughts on this Hal, didn't know you were working for ARC. I've also got another project in the works that might need a dual 2.4GHz board but the formfactor in the freestation isn't right for me. Not sure if we could do enough volume to make it worthwhile for you but I'd love to talk about it sometime soon.

Best,

Carl

dongato17
join:2000-07-28
Atlanta, GA

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Member

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Thanks for all the feedback. It has been very helpful for us. As a first step, we have added preliminary support for Ruckus APs and some of the proprietary features (such as WDS compatibility, etc.). This will allow our current CPEs to connect to Ruckus APs with WDS so please send me a note if you need this beta firmware to try it out.

Carl - all great ideas. We need to make things as easy as possible for sure and sounds like you have a lot of that figured out. I'll send you a PM so we can talk more offline.

Thanks!
-Hal