Going in a slightly different direction, if you have not been to the Ubiquiti website, you should. And I did for the first time. As a nerd, and nerd manager, I really liked the products from an aesthetic and cost point of view. The component look very good, but of course I can’t comment on the quality not having used them. They seem to have an excellent catalog of devices that cover many needs of communications. When people think of WiFi, they may tend to think of their simple home system for accessing the internet, but maybe they are not thinking of WiFi at the enterprise. UBNT can allow you to completely outfit your sports stadium, hotels and hospitals (room-by-room), etc.
First check out this page, https://unifi-sdn.ubnt.com/ which shows how their systems are used in a basketball stadium. The important thing to notice here is not the ability to just get great coverage, but to manage that. This little “video” shows the varoius software management tools they have that seem to provide excellent dashbouds, detailed status, alerts and ability to control the devices. I did not ascertain whether these were free via the internet, paid via the internet and/or had yearly support fees. If there is a yearly support fee (typical), it would be a nice stream of income we could count on as shareholders.
And it is not just “WiFi”, they have all the networking gear (switches, routers) to support the infrastructure, they have WiFi security cameras, airFiber and even VoIP (voice over IP) phones.
The prices do seem amazing. An 8 port switch was $109, while I believe we pay up to $600 for a similar Cisco switch. Again, I can’t tell you teh value difference based on the quality different, but with Cisco you are paying for a lot of sales people. With Cisco, you need to have all your devices on expensive yearly maint support in order to get security updates, but I don’t know how Ubiquiti works (they better produce secruity fixes somehow).
I am intrigued by the airFiber, a way to transport large amount of data over WiFi. This the kind of thing that can be important in the city where it is expensive to run new fiber. Their top of the line airFiber device is $3000, which seems very cheap. Here is a descripition:
Revolutionary Wireless Technology
Introducing airFiber®, a truly revolutionary Point-to-Point wireless platform from Ubiquiti Networks™. Housed in a compact, highly efficient form factor, airFiber delivers amazing wireless gigabit+ performance, low latency, and long range. airFiber ushers in a new era in price-disruptive wireless technology ideal for carrier backhaul, building-to-building enterprise use, or public safety applications.
Supports 24 GHz frequencies.
I did notice that some items are sold out, which is not what you want to see. Sure, it could mean the product is hot, or it could mean they don’t have a good understand of inventory and consumer demand, or maybe the supply chain.
I had a starter position before the short story, then my next segment was acquired with a previously established buy order at a decent price on the “crash day”, then I added more on the second day after the article. Will continue to watch and probably add.