CISCO AIR-AP1142N-A-K9 Wireless Access Point

Pros: Reliable
solid construction
attractive when mounted
Gigabit PoE

Cons: complicated configuration
no firmware updates without Cisco SmartNet maintenance subscription

Other Thoughts: Best access point I've ever tried, in terms of reliability and concurrent connections.

I figured if they have a GUI then certainly I can figure them out. I was wrong. I struggled with it for many hours and never got the wireless functional with WPA security. Also spent time trying to figure out if there were firmware updates available. I had other work to do, so life moved on.

Came back to it a few months later, and this time I figured it out in a couple hours. Express Security page is a joke unless you want insecure WEP or you have Radius servers. If you want WPA/WPA2 with a pre-shared key (like everyone has), then you have to go around your a5$ to get to your elbow.

1) Go to Security, then Encryption Manager
2) choose your Cipher (I chose AES CCMP), hit apply
3) now go back to SSID Manager and define your networks
4) you will now be able to choose WPA and give it a Pre-Shared Key
5) once your SSID's are defined, then the wireless Radios can be enabled (or they may automatically enable)
6) also, if you want the SSID visible you have to go to the bottom of the SSID Manager page and flag it for Guest mode.

I wish they would have a "standalone" mode to make these easier to configure. The beauty is, once you do learn how to get it working, you're just done.

Pros: These access points have really good signal quality and length compared to regular home routers' wireless capabilities. Also, there are a lot of settings you can configure on this.

Cons: The web interface is extremely slow and buggy.