Cisco Meraki MG cellular gateways are a cloud managed WAN solution designed to seamlessly transpose a wireless cellular signal to wired Ethernet, providing primary or failover connectivity.
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Fortinet FortiExtender
Score 7.1 out of 10
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FortiExtender is the wireless WAN offering from Fortinet.
We utilize it for those job site trailers, so it is perfect for a small job site where you want to provide that internet coverage to those users of those job sites, especially if they're in a remote location. We've actually even used this as the secondary internet to supplement in case the primary fiber line went down. And in my experience, we've had a site go down and use this as the backup internet and most of our users didn't even know. So as far as cons, I don't really, cost depending on the job site and your budget. That would be, I guess the only thing I would say would just justify not using it, but I don't have any reason to not use it.
Fortinet itself is a well know name in managing the firewall and security. With FortiExtender they gave an excellent solution for increasing the connectivity within the organization and helps to manage it with the cloud-based system. The implementation helped to achieve lower latency and higher efficiency for the users in the organization.
A DHCP configuration would be fine, but a fixed IP configuration seems to require a twist in the configuration.
If possible, it's just a subscription. With no initials and just a subscription, I think it's a "feature product" that may convince the superior even if the price is a bit high.
I am happy with wireless and all in one, but I feel that the management screen is old, so I think it is better to renew it a bit more.
When there is a problem, the errors provided in the GUI are unhelpful. In order to have a chance of solving most issues I've come across, you need to be comfortable with the CLI.
Most products in the FortiGate product line do not offer POE power support. The Extender requires POE and has no internal battery. This requires a switch or injector between the extender and the firewall. In the event of a power outage, you lose the extender if you don't have it plugged into an adequate battery. As it's installation can be in a different location then the Fortigate, this can be a hassle.
The only other cellular provider that we've evaluated was, I think it was called Sky Link, and it was a little USB module that plugged into the Meraki MXs and we had nothing but problems with it, which is why we ended up switching to the MG 20 ones.
Both the Fortinet FortiExtender and the Fortinet FortiGate products are great because they provide the agency with secure technology and allow for good network speed and security. Fortinet FortiExtender and Fortinet FortiGate are both costly and a better lower cost solution would be better suited if the budget restrictions of your agency are very important for you.
In terms of scalability, The MG Meraki is unvanquished! As it works on cellular signals, as long as you have the required signal strength, you are connected. Removes the dependency on cables to connect to our ISP. So geographical locations do not affect the scalability of MG. Which is the whole point of having a Cellular to Wired Ethernet Device. And it can also be managed with the web centrally.
The ROI is excellent, over time we have been able to avoid outages even though our WAN provider may have had issues, the switch to LTE via Cisco Meraki MGwas smooth
in locations where traditional lan links were not feasible, like mobile locations, this has been a saver
they can be placed where mobile phone reception is best without LAN
