Best WiFi Adapter

We primarily sell the entire Polycom VVX line VoIP phones to our customers. We may have run into an issue with cabling a network for 2000+ phones. We may only get approved for around 1200 runs. But I could still built a solid WiFi network with a ton of AP One Mini AC’s. I don’t want to put in all cordless phones for all of the patient rooms because people are going to accidentally take them home and break them left and right. I want to build a WiFi network on every floor and Mount Polycom VVX 300 phones in every patient room with a Netgear WNCE2001 WiFi Adapter on each phone and that would connect to all of the AP One Mini AC’s. These are very low usage phones btw, no heavy use, not very important.

What I really want to know is, is this the best WiFi adapter that I can use or does anyone know of something better or more reliable?

Also, the Netgear WNCE2001 WiFi Adapter says that the device it connects to must also be “WPS” compatible. Which I don’t see in the AP One Mini AC or the AP One 300M. I’m assuming I have an issue here. Im going to be connecting all the AP’s to a Balance 2500 SFP. I really don’t want to have to use a different brand of AP’s because I want to control them through the Balance 2500.

Hi,

WPS is not a secure wireless standard. Please find here for more details. Please consider to use WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK if Netgear WNCE2001 is needed.

We do compatible with most of the wireless adapters including Netgear WNCE2001.

Ok thanks, everything I needed to know.

I have the Netgear WNCE2001 and have hooked it up accordingly to a Polycom VVX 400. I am trying to link it to a Pepwave AP One Mini AC that has WPA-PSK/WPA2-PSK. I hit the WPS button on the Netgear device and all it does is go back and forth from amber to green. It’s supposed to go solid green when the connection is established. I am well within distance of the AC (about 10 feet). The AC is connected to a Balance One Running 6.2.0 build 1847.

*Radio Selection on AC - 2.4 GHz
*Data Rate and Multicast Rate - MCS12/MCS4/24M
*Security - WPA/WPA2 - Personal

Any Thoughts?

WPS is not secure and we do not support it on any of our products. You will have to manually enter the SSID on the Netgear device.

If you guys made a wireless adapter that had a GUI that could be accessed to type in a wireless password to connect to your Pepwave devices, you guys would make a lot of money. The Netgear WNCE2001 only works with another netgear AP that has the WPS button as well I just figured out. We were saving a hospital around $500.00 a cat5e run for all of their patient rooms, which comes out to about 800-900. We were going to build a solid wifi network with a bunch of AP One Mini AC’s and connect with all these adapters to each patient room to a Polycom VVX300. I guess were going to have to use netgear AP’s instead. You guys should think about it being that many large companies sometimes can’t afford to run cable to every location. But if we could spend $50-60 bucks on an adapter as opposed to $500.00 per phone then that is a game changer. These aren’t heavy use phones but basically if I can’t make this work then we would loose a $40,000 per/month account and you guys would loose out on 2 Balance 2500 SFP’s, 2 Balance 580’s, 2 Balance Ones, and roughly 100-150 AP One Mini AC’s. Not saying thats a lot to you guys but it is a game changer when it comes to getting a deal sometimes for us. Just something to think about.

I take back everything I just said.

Hi TJ, have you checked out our SURF OTG:

This is our version of a Wi-Fi client device that can operate in bridge mode with a low price point of only $99.

Hey I actually spoke to fast, I found the GUI for the Netgear and was able to configure my password coming from our AP One Mini AC. It works flawlessly and the quality is great! I am more than thrilled that I can use Pepwave devices managed by Balance routers. I will absolutely check out the OTG though. Thanks a lot. The netgears adapter is good because I can stick it on the back or the side of the VVX and its barely noticeable.

Sounds good, glad you got it working. :up:

Hi Tim, I am considering the purchase of a router from your Balance line. One of the WAN inputs I will use is wifi only. Can the SURF OTG be used to feed the wifi WAN into the Balance? If so, I take it that I would need another SURF OTG or access point to distribute the bonded connection(s) via wifi to clients, correct?

Can a USB wifi adapter (or even an Ethernet-to-USB adapter?) be used in Balance 30’s USB ports, or do those ports only support 3G/4G modems?

Hi mimasso, yes you can certainly use the SOTG as the Wi-Fi WAN and then feed the Ethernet connection into the Balance router - this will work fine. You are correct that you will need another SOTG or AP to feed your own Wi-Fi to client devices.

The USB port only works with cellular modems.