Upgrading my network with Unifi

So I recently discovered how the price of entry into enterprise grade networking equipment had come down. It used to be to get into enterprise gear you either spent lots of money or settled for last generation equipment. Since I am lucky enough to have gigabit fiber internet run to my house, I really needed a full gigabit system to not be wasting money.

Prior to getting the gigabit fiber, I ran a series of DD-WRT powered routers. Initially Linksys, upgrading every few years for better wifi. Most recently, just before getting the fiber Internet, I bought a TP-Link Archer C9. The wifi coverage of the C9 was pretty good. With DD-WRT it was a great router for the Comcast cable Internet I was running.

The fiber service, through Centurylink utilizes PPPoE and VLAN tagging. I bought the Zyxel router that Centurylink recommended to avoid monthly fees, and it was only $100. However, I immediately wanted to get ride of the Zyxel and use my trusty C9.

The problem with the C9, and one I'd never even considered to look at before, was that it cannot route a full gigabit connection. After running a new Cat6E line from the fiber's entry to my router I found that the C9 can only route about 500Mbps. So the performance, after the headaches of getting the C9 to natively connect to Centurylink, was subpar for my new system.

So I settled in to using the C9 as an access point only, with the Zyxel as the Internet router and DHCP server.

Fast forward a few years, and in my eBay searching and rampant worshipping at the alter of the Almighty Google, I discover the options of enterprise-grade wifi access points (APs). I was drawn to the Unqiuiti Unifi line for cost, features, and appearance.

I started by getting an older generation Unquity AP. It supports up to WiFi N speeds. Ubiquiti just requires you to run their provisioning software on a computer on the network. You really only need the Unifi software for setup, but you are encouraged (by Ubiquiti and me) to keep it running for monitoring purposes. The software is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Since I run Linux, the availability of native Linux compatibility is a must for me.

The physical installation of the access point is literally plug and play. It uses 24v passive power over ethernet, which means you run a single Cat5 cable to the AP and the power supply for the AP sits between your network switch and the AP. Newer versions, and the ones I ended up installing, are full PoE compliant, so no PoE injector needed if you run it off a PoE switch.

The software is relatively simple to set up. I found it to be far easier to use than DD-WRT and had just as many features, with a lot more polish.

The great thing about the Unifi system is it allows some nice monitoring features and adding an AP is dead simple. It's the latter that comes really nice. Find a dead spot in your house? Plug in a second (or third, it'll scale to hundreds of APs if not thousands) AP and provision it. The software does all the rest for you. You can fine tune what channel you're running if you want, and there are many tweaking options, but it really is simple. When I finally got my current generation UAP-AC-PRO APs, I was up and running in minutes. Running the wires and screwing the mounts to the ceiling took ages longer than the software configuration.

The early encouraging experience with their APs led me to look at finally for once replacing that Zyxel ISP router. The Zyxel was good speed-wise and had many nice features that simple consumer routers usually don't. I just like to have control of my network.

With the need to have a Internet router that can handle true gigabit speeds, my options were narrowed. I'd been planning on running a Linux or *BSD based router using an older computer. I even had a small form factor machine and purchased a couple of low profile Intel NICs to put in it. I tried a couple of them out, and they provide an endless amount of power and options, but for me the configuration tweaking was a bit much. I wanted simple but powerful.

I eventually settled on the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter line. Since I was planning on running some PoE APs, I put a bid on a very well priced EdgeRouter POE and won it.

Installing the EdgeRouter was dead simple. Setting up the PPPoE and the VLAN tagging was so simple that I didn't expect it to actually work when I plugged it into the fiber ONT. It did though. Soon it had pulled an IP and was happily chugging away. Setting up the DHCP server, DHCP reservations, and port forwarding were simple as well.

My only complaint with using Ubiquiti's software and hardware is that they don't yet have a unified system. They cater to several markets. The Unifi line of APs and routers (called security gateways, which appear to be firewalls as well) are for the SOHO market, while the EdgeOS (of which the EdgeRouter is a part) are in a different tier. They go all the way up to what they call AirFiber, which is carrier-scale and grade equipment for networking separate buildings or carrier back ends.

It would be nice to have a unified software system that could work with all of their products. As it is, they are so set and forget that you really only need to log into them to touch base every once and a while, look for firmware updates, and make sure there are no errors flagged.

So in conclusion, I full heartedly recommend Ubiquiti networking equipment. I bought all mine second hand off eBay and have been very pleased with it. Even at full retail, the equipment is well worth the cost. The UAP-AC-PRO retails for around $130, which is just a bit more than I paid for that Archer C9 router a few years ago. The configuration, options, and expandability are worth the slightly higher price of admission.