Meraki Beats Cisco Wireless Performance in Independent Evaluation

Meraki MR24 delivers up to 42% increased throughput in real world tests, bests Cisco’s top of the line AP in all measurements

SAN FRANCISCO, California, Feb. 23, 2011 – Meraki, the Cloud Networking Company, today announced the results of an in-depth, third-party lab test benchmarking the performance of the Meraki MR24 Cloud-Managed Access Point and Cisco Aironet 3052 Access Point (AP).  The tests found that the Meraki MR24 delivered up to 42% higher throughput than the Cisco Aironet 3502. The Meraki MR24 proved faster at all 20 distances and configurations measured, including tests with and without WPA2 encryption. A comparative test of signal coverage showed the Meraki MR24 also provided better overall signal coverage than the Cisco Aironet 3502, demonstrating a superior user experience for clients at most distances from the access point.

The Meraki MR24’s triple-stream 802.11n and dual-concurrent radio design deliver the throughput and coverage necessary for high-performance and high-density wireless network environments. The Meraki MR24 achieved a 242 Mbps client-side throughput, making it possible to deploy wireless networks that match the performance of a wired Ethernet connection even in demanding network environments.

Conducted by The Tolly Group, a premier third-party IT test lab, the test focused on the throughput and signal coverage of each access point as measured at a variety of locations in an office environment.

“The Meraki MR24 clearly and consistently outperformed the Cisco Aironet 3502, delivering higher throughput in all test scenarios and better coverage in most locations in the office environment we tested,” said Kevin Tolly, founder of the Tolly Group. ”While the Cisco topped out at 191 Mbps, the MR24 achieved an astonishing 242 Mbps, opening new doors for high performance wireless deployments.”

“With the proliferation of iPads, laptops, and HD video, demand for wireless capacity is surging,” said Kiren Sekar, Director of Marketing at Meraki.  “The Meraki MR24, the first AP available with three-stream, 3×3 MIMO technology, provides a valuable new tool to IT managers who are looking for the highest performance wireless networks.”

The Tolly Group concluded that:

• The Meraki MR24 cloud controlled access point consistently outperforms the Cisco Aironet 3502 access point at both short and long ranges and delivers higher throughput in nearly all modes of operation.
• The Meraki MR24, the only generally available enterprise class AP with three-stream 3×3 802.11n MIMO radios, delivers unprecedented throughput, sustaining over 200 Mbps at short-medium range.
• High throughput is still possible with large coverage areas and long-range connections with the Meraki MR24. At the 100ft distance, the Meraki MR24 still shows impressively high throughput of well over 150 Mbps – over 50% higher than Fast Ethernet.
• Enabling WPA2 encryption, often a security requirement in enterprise environments, had only a slight impact in throughput results. The Meraki MR24 achieved over 200 Mbps at most distances, and in every case was faster than the Cisco Aironet 3502.
• At $1199, the Meraki MR24 represents a tremendous value in ultra-high performance wireless. Compared to the more costly Cisco 3502 ($1495), the MR24 achieves up to a 60% superior price-performance ratio.

Rich Enterprise Features, Centrally Managed from the Cloud

In addition to class-leading performance, the MR24 supports Meraki’s complete feature set and award winning cloud-based management. The MR24 provides:

• Advanced wireless security with an integrated policy firewall, NAC, Teleworker VPN, and guest access
• Layer 7 application traffic shaping and analysis
• AutoRF cloud-based optimization with spectrum analysis
• Built-in client location services
• High-performance, self-optimizing mesh networking
• Automatic provisioning, management, and monitoring from the cloud

To learn more about Meraki’s enterprise WLAN solutions, please visit: https://meraki.com/products_services/enterprise

To view the complete results of the Tolly Group’s test report, please visit:https://meraki.com/library/collateral/analyst/tolly_mr24.php

About Tolly:

The Tolly Group companies have been delivering world-class IT services for

more than 20 years. Tolly is a leading global provider of third-party validation services for vendors of IT products, components and services. You can reach the company by email at sales@tolly.com, or by telephone at +1 561.391.5610. Visit Tolly at: https://www.tolly.com

About Meraki:

Meraki’s networking systems bring enterprise-class networking to organizations of all sizes. Meraki’s unique cloud-hosted controller architecture provides centralized management and security through an intuitive web interface, eliminating the high costs and complexity associated with traditional networking systems. Every day, over 17,000 organizations in 140+ countries around the world rely on Meraki for their networks. Visit Meraki at: https://www.meraki.com/