Alcatel Unleashed

I was recently asked to investigate Wi-Fi range extenders for our WLAN, in an attempt to cover "dead-spots" in residence halls on campus.
Is it the "best" (read "most economical") solution to purchase similar models of a deployed AP-type and then use the mesh scenario?
It was proposed to me to look at a "consumer-model" range extender as the additional device to be deployed.
I would assume that adding a meshed-solution would require additional licensing.

Did you have an Alcatel/Aruba controller? than you can't use consumer-models. Mesh-solution is better than repeater...
licenses depend from your type of controller - actual products didn't need any special mesh license. You only needs for all of your AP (summary campus and mesh and remote APs) an AP-license (and if there are other licenses like PEFNG/WIP you also need to update this one). for meshing it's better to use dual radio AP (like AP105): 5Ghz for mesh-link and client access at both radios.
regards
Silvio

if you have the ability for a wire to the ap it's always better (performance). If you can't provide a ethernet cable mehing is a solution, but frankly a 20€ TP-Link extender is always cheaper that a meshed ap.. (but i had only bad experiences with cheep extenders )