License charge for access point reaching EOL

[MBW1]

Licenses for my access points need to be renewed in November but the access points will reach end of life next July. Will I still need to pay for a full year license?

[Karsten Iwen]

The AP licenses are independent of the AP model. You can use your license with the model you have (even after EOS) or just replace the current AP with a newer model. The license won't change.

[GreenMan]

Bear in mind that End of Life doesn't mean it will stop working. After that point though, the level of support you'll get on such a device will be fairly significantly decreased; it wouldn't be replaced under warranty, if it failed, Meraki Support would max. provide best efforts assistance with it, and there's no guarantee of any fixes in firmware - e.g. for bugs and/or security issues. As Karsten pointed out though, AP licences are not model specific, so most customers simply take the old one off the wall and buy a newer model in its place and nothing is else needed, until that license itself needs renewing.

[Philip D'Ath]

Personally, I would get new APs with your new licences.

APs have evolved so much. I'm guessing you must still be using WiFi5. You are missing out on a lot.

[Karsten Iwen]

Although I am eagerly waiting for the upcoming Wi-Fi 7 APs, I really think that roughly 90% of companies could still run Wi-Fi 4 and they would be ok with that ... 😎 Yes, not the Wi-Fi first companies, but many others.

[Philip D'Ath]

I can't even deploy WiFi 6E into general production because of compatibility issues, especially with IoT devices.

I'm not feeling very hopefully for WiFi 7 ...

[Karsten Iwen]

All my (and customers') IoT stuff is kept on a 2.4/5 GHz only SSID. 6GHz is only for the Corp WLAN and, depending on the customer, these WLANs already have around 40 to 70% of all corporate clients on 6 GHz (typical Office Environments). And with the iPhone16 having Wi-Fi7, I see an upcoming demand for these APs. But likely most will stay with CW916x as I expect that the early Wi-Fi 7 APs will be more high-end devices and be really expensive.

[Philip D'Ath]

I would really prefer to have to just have one system ...

[joey.debra]

What do you mean with one system exactly?

The thing that bugs me the most is the ETSI regulator and European countries putting ridiculous restrictions about not allowing outdoor AP's or external antennas on 6 GHz. This is the reason why the CW916x line is so limited. So you can have an SSID that is perfectly running on the indoor AP's on 6 GHz, but when you have an outdoor AP like the CW9163E, it will not enable 6 GHz because of the restrictions.