Wi-fi experts compare different brands

American technology website Tom’s Hardware has performed an in-depth analysis of competing wi-fi hardware in an office environment, testing units from manufacturers including Cisco, HP and Ruckus.

The analysis included over 300 tests across a variety of environments, alternating factors such as interference, client numbers, and distance.

"If you want performance under fire from ambient interference, Cisco and especially Ruckus are the two clear choices from our group,” the report reads.

"The same statement applies to airtime fairness and making sure that all clients get an approximately equal amount of bandwidth at any given time.”

Conversely, in optimal conditions with little interference and only one client, the unit from Meraki performed the best.

The units from HP and Aruba were described as ‘neither stunningly bad nor particularly impressive’.

Understanding the difference in usage is the key to achieving good wi-fi performance, the report says.

"People don’t understand the qualitative difference between wireless approaches. Instead they see Mb/s and access times, and that ends the discussion.”

Ruckus is hosting a webinar at 1pm this Wednesday to explain the findings. Go here to register, or here to read the full report.