SNB reviews Linksys AP clustering solution
If you have a large house, and want to build a seemless Wi-Fi network. Using AP clustering is a great way to accomplish this goal. While it’s possible to make things work with a few consumer Wi-Fi routers, there’s little substitute for specialized hardware. Generally, that will run some serious dosh, but the Linksys AC1200/AC1700 business APs are very reasonably priced at $142/$170. A steal considering the price of a single high-end router. There are some feature deltas though, most notably the lack of seamless roaming, but it’s still a quite tempting proposition.
Linksys sent three LAPAC1200s for our review, which were installed in various areas of a two story building. This AC1200 class AP has internal antennas and is housed in a white hexagonally shaped plastic case measuring approximately 9.5″ across by 1.7″ high. The size seems a bit larger than similar APs I’ve tested from other vendors, yet is still manageable. The LAPAC1200 includes mounting hardware, AC power adapter, installation disk and an Ethernet cable.
Here’s a quick summary of the AP’s features
- 802.11a/b/g/n/ac
- 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radios
- 2×2 MIMO
- Internal antennas
- WEP, WPA, WPA2, 802.1x with RADIUS
- MAC based access control
- 802.3af/802.3at PoE
- 10/100/1000 Ethernet port
- 16 SSIDs (8 per radio)
- 17 VLANs
- IPv6
- Captive Portal
- Workgroup and WDS Bridge Modes
- Rogue AP Detection
- Channel Isolation
- WMM
- Rate Limiting
- Scheduling
- Band Steering
- Event Notification