Ubiquiti had quite the month for releasing new products, but these two may have gone under the radar.
An outdoor utility box: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-accessory-tech/products/uacc-junction-utility
And an interesting one, a Wave MLO: https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-wireless/products/wave-mlo5
Author: Eric Weber
Thanks to the latest Early Access updates, UniFi WiFi 7 AP’s can now support MLO functionality. Here’s a test with a Galaxy s24 Ultra.
Author: David Grillo
On this Veteran’s Day 2024 I wanted to give all our Vets a shout out and say thank you for your service. I served in the Army for 17 years and got to retire early at the age of 37. I served as an Infantry Officer and when people ask me what I did, my standard answer is; “mostly I just waited in line.” But that’s more to get a reaction than anything else. Here’s what I did in the Army.
I joined in 1977 and the Army was in pretty bad shape back then. There were a lot of people that had served in Viet Nam that had left the military but couldn’t find jobs and so they came back in Army because they couldn’t find anything better. In general, they were terrible soldiers, they hated the country because they felt like they had been treated badly, and they didn’t like the Army much better. There was a lot of talk about fragging the LT and skipping out and going to Canada when the Soviets invaded, which they all felt was eminent. My first duty station was at Ft Carson, CO and it was a lot of Guard Duty and hanging out at the Motor Pool.
Then in 1980 two things happened that significantly changed my life. First, Ronald Regan was elected president and the mood in the Army seemed to change almost overnight. With the release of the Iranian hostages, we seemed to gain confidence and training exercises became opportunities to learn how to defeat the enemy, rather than run from him. At Ft Carson we went from dopers to patriots in a matter of months, and the tattoo shops went from selling Weed tats to selling American Flags (GI’s love their tats). Things changed and best of all we got a 13% pay raise. Almost as good is that we changed chow too. Instead of eating C rations, we now were eating MRE’s. That was a huge morale booster for the infantry!
The other thing that happened is that I got stationed in Germany. This was a turning point for me. In Germany, I felt like I had an important job to do and I did. My unit took turns guarding the border between East and West Germany in an area called the Fulda Gap. It was an area where the border of West Germany extended far to the east creating a sort of peninsula that was surrounded by East Germany. Tom Clancy, the famous author, wrote a book called Red Storm Rising where he talked about how the Soviets would over-run Europe and that they would start by rolling through the Fulda Gap. During the time that I was there we all knew that was the plan, and our plan was to survive the first wave and then fight a counter-offensive from behind the lines. It sounded like desperate means, but all we talked about is how we could survive those Soviet Tanks and then fight our way back. It was so much different than the attitude of desertion that was so prevalent just three years prior.
The Army was good to me in many ways and after my tour in Germany I was selected to go to Officer Candidate School in Ft Benning, GA. It was like boot camp on steroids, but I came out of there as a 2nd Lieutenant and they sent me off to Korea to guard the other border. There aren’t too many people that can say they served on Freedom’s Frontier in both Germany and Korea, so maybe I did more than just stand in line.
In my time in the Army I got to serve as a Squad Leader, a Platoon Leader, and a Company Commander. I like to think that I helped men prepare for the battles in life along with contributing to the defense of this great nation.
Now, our great nation has given me back so much more than I deserve. I’m recognized and thanked at church, and concerts, and even at Home Depot and Lowes where they give veterans a 10% discount. I got a paid for a college degree through the Army too. But most of all, I got to grow up shaped by strong men who served this country out of duty and honor. I have to admit that I didn’t come into the Army with those values, I was one that didn’t have a lot of options, but I was surrounded by great men that were driven to do their best to defend the land they loved. For that, I will be forever grateful for the time I served in the United States Army.
Author: Eric Weber
Recently, we got a chance to attend a Church IT Network Conference as vendors. This was our first real conference, and we had a great time at the conference. Ryan and I thought it might be worthwhile to attend this conference as one of Ryan’s students recommended it after Ryan had told some stories related to some of the churches he supports. So we set up a table and brought a bunch of Ubiquiti equipment and let people touch stuff.
We weren’t very well prepared for running a both. As you can see we didn’t have any banners showing who we are. I had ordered the banners and thought we were in good shape but they got held up due to hurricane Helene and so they got to the office after I left for the conference.
Oh well, we will be ready for the next show.
Ryan held a talk he entitled “Holy Wi-Fi”. There were 50 people that attended, and he captivated them with stories about Ubiquiti installs and the capabilities of the UniFi devices.
We got lots of good feedback from the talk and then about 20 people followed us back to our “unmarked” booth where we continued the conversation.
So yes, WiFi-U has broken into the Church IT support market. We love churches and we want them to be responsible with their parishioners money. That makes Ubiquiti a great solution and we want to make sure they take advantage of all the new technology available to them!
Oh, and if you get a chance and want to attend the CITN next year you can access them here: https://churchitnetwork.com/national
And if you know of a great IT conference that you would recommend, we attend please let us know. We’ll be sure to bring are banners next time!
Author: Eric Weber
Recently all the wifi-U instructors went out to Salt Lake City for the Ubiquiti Train the Trainer Event. It was an intense 3 days of going through all the slides and labs for four classes that we will be teaching for Ubiquiti. Of special interest was the Routing Switching Cybersecurity Administrator class. It’s their new class and it has a lot of great labs and heavy instruction on routing protocols. It’s a tough class and I don’t recommend it for beginners. If you’re looking to get started in Networking take our Network Routing and Switching class before taking on that class.
We all felt like we were in an intense pressure cooker for three days, but we learned a lot, and a lot from each other. I must admit I passed the test for the URSCA but not with a high enough score to teach it, so you may see me in the back of one of your classes, trying to prep for the test!
This month I made it up to Augusta, Maine. It’s the one state I hadn’t traveled to and it’s a bit of an ordeal to get to Augusta. I had to fly from Boston on this 7-passenger plane.
Once I got there, I met the team from Aroostook Technologies https://aroostooktechnologies.com . They operate a WISP that goes all the way to the Canadian border and they have a specific set of challenges. There are lot lot of small communities they are trying to support but they have to be careful not to cross the Canadian border with their Wi-Fi signals because it’s against Canadian regulations to be operating in their space.
We had fun looking at the outdoor equipment and how to best deploy it using the UISP design tool during the UBWA course. This course is still very popular as Ubiquiti continues to deliver good products at a very reasonable price especially compared to running fiber in a rural area.
I also had a great Full Stack and UWA class in Richmond Virginia. So three capitals in one trip… Augusta, Richmond, and Boston.
Author: Eric Weber
Recently, I got to take a trip to beautiful Scotland. I was travelling with family, and we took some amazing hikes to see the countryside. One day we went way out to the Isle of Skye. It’s an amazing place and we happened to get fairly good weather. We made it out to see the epic Old Man of Storr
We hiked up and around it and when we got back to the Ranger Station, low and behold, we found some Ubiquiti Access Points!
The kids wanted to know why in the world I was taking pictures of the side of a building J
But you know!
It’s always fun to see how Ubiquiti is being deployed out in the wild.
Author: Eric Weber
The iconic Ubiquiti circular access point, now known as the Flagship access point, now graces the ceilings of multiple homes, small businesses and churches. Ubiquiti has been slowly expanding into increasingly bigger and bigger markets, and its no longer uncommon to see their WiFi, cameras and even phones out in the wild. But critics will tell you that while Ubiquiti is nice for these small applications, the company’s products are simply not ready for a truly enterprise environment.
Someone should tell that to the Lakeland School District in LaGrange, Indiana. The network administrator there, along with his small staff of IT and database professionals, now maintains 5 schools in the county completely on Ubiquiti products. Over the past five years, they have slowly replaced the network switches, Wi-Fi, security cameras and door access systems at each school with Ubiquiti hardware. This has significantly reduced their year over year costs by eliminating the expensive hardware licensing fees, known as “Hardware as a Service,” that other companies charge for the privilege of using their hardware that was already purchased. Lakeland IT personnel jokingly refer to this as “Hostage as a Service,” noting that if you stop paying the expensive fees (in the thousands of dollars per year), your fancy hardware turns into a nice looking brick.
The setup at Lakeland is impressive. The schools are connected either via fiber or through UISP wireless links, including the Wave and AirFiber systems. Lakeland uses Unifi Identity Enterprise so that employees can access different buildings using the same credentials. Most schools have WiFi-7 access points or are scheduled for a refresh in the near future. The Protect cameras can now view multiple buildings in a consolidated fashion using the new Vantage Point system.
Lakeland is now partnering with wifi-U to try and host a Ubiquiti training class at least once a year, if not more, to ensure it keeps its employees fully trained on the latest technology that Ubiquiti offers. wifi-U sent its most handsome and dashing instructor, Ryan Haag, out recently to provide full stack training on both Unifi Wireless and Ubiquiti Broadband equipment lines.
If a large school district, spanning multiple buildings and hundreds of employees, can use Ubiquiti for all its needs, why can’t you?
If you’re interested in replacing your existing hardware an no longer being a hostage to greedy equipment manufacturers that charge you licensing fees every year, but need help getting started, give us a call here at wifi-U!
Author: Ryan Haag
When you travel, Unifi Mobile Router is the best gift you can give yourself. Small but mighty covers you, no matter if you are by the beach, on the road or in the mountains of Alaska, (if AT&T covers the area). 
Thanks to my new UMR I can say goodbye to slow Wi-Fi in hotel rooms, connection drop in the middle of a project, and enjoy a movie after I’m done working.
But that’s not all, you can use it in your car and enjoy good quality Wi-Fi for your laptop, tablet, etc. As long as you are not the driver! 
Unexpectedly easy to install, UMR is the perfect addition to my “must have” for travel around America.
Author: Cora Martin
