Wifi lifespan

Now, admittedly I am very new to the IT field so I don't have much experience from which to draw wisdom. In trying to plan for the future, I was wondering what the life span was for your typical wireless AP? I'm not looking for a vendor-specific answer, just whatever you guys have run into or experienced. Any advice is appreciated.

We are in the process of replacing our 12 year old Cisco hardware. The APs have worked fine, but the issue you will run into is the technology of wireless is changing. The existing APs do their work. However, the generation they come from puts them in the supporting 30 concurrent users and I have replaced 8 over the 12 years out of about 60 deployed APs. However, we are now no the brink or live with So, you will find rapidly expanding technology is the decision in when APs need to be replaced vs if the AP will "last.

I have a 6-year expected life on the hardware, again, due to the advancement of technology. However, if we did not do expect to jump the next wireless tech level, I would easily give a year life span. It sounds like the year is more likely for you in the low user, but critical infrastructure situation. I agree with rolwil We have Cisco APs that have been in place for 8 years. It is one of the last ones here to be replaced, and the only reason we're replacing it is because it doesn't have I have traffic visibility down to the node now, and implementation was a breeze.

If something is doing it's job and getting updates I'll use it for ten years, but right now you're dealing with APs that haven't had an update since , so who knows what vulnerabilities they might have that haven't been addressed. I would look into upgrading in the next year or two and get something WIFI6 capable, that'll last you a few years for sure. Basically If you re-boot a Cisco AP after the 10 year mark they are pre-programmed to stop working, there's a writeup about that, with a whole chart of how to read the serial numbers and convert into a date.

I would try Cisco AP's again in the future if the timer junk gets removed. Basically if I bought a car and the next time I went to start it past the 10 year mark it would not start only because someone programmed it to be like that, even thou it was perfectly mint car.

I have just replaced my Wi-Fi across the factory and offices. It has been in situ for 15 years and was causing us no real issues. The reason for the upgrade was forced upon us because we are upgrading our ERP system and I will jump from around 10 laptops and 30 mobile devices to 35 laptops, 40 tablets, 25 Wi-Fi scanners plus a load of other kit I haven't even seen yet.

As our business moved to a mobile device only environment the demand on our Wifi increased significantly. I now have a stack of MR18's collecting dust which is a bit of a shame as they've been bulletproof for years.

That said, I would highly recommend the Meraki MR We pump some serious data through those and they suck it up all day long.

If there are features that would make the network better and you can use that newer technology , replace them. I had some APs that were going EOL so they were replaced, otherwise I wouldn't have replaced them as they are working perfectly well.

Your budgeting is wayyyy off. Replace every AP with a Ubiquiti, add 10 more, and you are only approaching 5k. Not everyone is comfortable with Ubiquiti in a corporate environment. They ARE driving prices down, however. His price estimate is probably looking at Aruba, Meraki, or another 'big' vendor.

I expect an 8 to 12 year deployment cycle for wired network infrastructure, but the faster changes in WiFi technology and shifts in business operations may result in requirement changes much sooner.

I plan for a year deployment cycle with a location based priority, high-density areas get the new AP, with the old model going to an area with lower demands.. If you are doing a new site or budgeted for a full replacement, you can go with a new manufacturer, but I tend to keep a single provider and upgrade AP by AP when dealing with a single site.

I have had no issues with Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus and Unify solutions, so I have no reason to replace them completely. Traditional Cisco system can be very solid but require an experianced tech for the configuration, assessment, and any changes.

Always be careful in any changes if you have VoIP or propietary systems operating over the WiFi, you can get some weird variations between models. Keep track of site changes, more staff in an area, new systems, or warehouse layout shifts may create issues.. Tell them they can can do that video for the mere price of replacing all of your equipment. Get answers from your peers along with millions of IT pros who visit Spiceworks.

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Gorfmaster1 This person is a verified professional. Verify your account to enable IT peers to see that you are a professional. Pure Capsaicin. Robert Jul 28, at UTC. Given the environment these are in, I think a year life would be the minimum I'd expect.

Wireless expert. AdmiralKirk This person is a verified professional. The legacy equipment is still functional so we were going to run it another year or two, but circumstances changed for us: We have a lot more dependence on wireless with multiple laptop users actively streaming content in meeting rooms The controller is Flash-based and can no longer be reliably managed Because of the increased usage we were able to find holes in the coverage that we previously did not know about How does this relate to your question?

Pretty much the same idea already presented: the old equipment was fine as long as it still worked reliably and was manageable. When that criteria was no longer satisfied then it was time to start looking. I agree with the others. Run until they're a security problem or don't meet your needs. Troy Jollimore This person is a verified professional.

Jim Steinbacher This person is a verified professional. I was waiting for it to die so I could justify replacing it with a wireless N router. I soon realized that it might be another 5 years or more before it died, so I replaced it anyway and put it out to pasture where it can peacefully live out the rest of its life in a box in my closet. Older ones seem to last longer. The current maybe previous? What's the expected lifespan of a wireless router?

It is about what you should expect from any other electronic device. You just never know. The last poster nailed it. It's a crap shoot.