Fixing a Small Business Network

[coxhaus]

If you buy all the same PCs it sure is easier to support. They tend to behave all the same. You don't end up trouble shooting individual problems for each different PC.

 

[sfx2000]

I agree. Home PCs don't belong in a business. Too many bells and whistles to break. Dell has plenty of PCs designed for businesses. I will be happy when I can replace these last 2 home PCs at my daughter's business. The whole shop was full of these things. I think the PO went around buying home PCs on sale for his business.

True true - false economy in the longer run...

Same with Win7/10 Home Edition - Pro isn't that much more expensive, and for a small systems admin, there's real benefit to have Pro vs. Home...

 

[sfx2000]

If you buy all the same PCs it sure is easier to support. They tend to behave all the same. You don't end up trouble shooting individual problems for each different PC.

Also allows one to standardize on a common software image, which has huge benefits and saves time.

@coxhaus - how many seats is her business at these days?

 

[coxhaus]

Image is a good thing in a work environment. My daughter's is small and I can install Windows 10 from a usb stick in about 15 minutes. So I am not going to try to maintain an image for her.

 

[coxhaus]

We have run into a problem with T-Mobile. My daughter has 3 T-Mobile real estate agents which get poor service. They have contacted T-Mobile and were given extender boxes which do not work and T-Mobile seems not to be able to fix their boxes. My guess is the boxes are some how cancelling out each other but the agents have to go outside to use their T-Mobile phones. AT&T works fine.

So now I am planning a wireless upgrade to my daughter's wired only network to support cell phones. I am going to isolate the wireless from the wired network for both security and speed. I plan to install a Cisco layer 3 switch. I will build a router VLAN which will be my high speed core for the network as she does not have any servers. Traffic will be routed to the core based on speed. Slower wireless can be routed at it's slower pace. Nothing will slow the core. There will not be any broadcast from Windows workstations or anything else. The high speed core is a point to point from the switch to the internet Cisco router.

I will have to wait and see the total over all bandwidth impact from the cell phones. Hopefully we don't have to jump to the next higher internet service. Voice should not be that big of impact but once you get 15 agents on wireless who knows.

 

[sfx2000]

We have run into a problem with T-Mobile. My daughter has 3 T-Mobile real estate agents which get poor service. They have contacted T-Mobile and were given extender boxes which do not work and T-Mobile seems not to be able to fix their boxes. My guess is the boxes are some how cancelling out each other but the agents have to go outside to use their T-Mobile phones. AT&T works fine.

Are those the Cell-Fi boxes that T-Mobile has been offering?

Are all three agents in the same location - if so, just use one, not three.

The Big Box is an array of very high gain 3G/4G mobile network antennas, and this should go close to a window - it's backhauled over to the little box (if I recall using WiFi on a point to point link), and the 3G/4G signal is rebroadcast inside the building.

Positioning of the little box is equally important, as it's pretty low power when it's generating the repeated signal.

Much like WiFi - location is everything...

So now I am planning a wireless upgrade to my daughter's wired only network to support cell phones. I am going to isolate the wireless from the wired network for both security and speed. I plan to install a Cisco layer 3 switch. I will build a router VLAN which will be my high speed core for the network as she does not have any servers. Traffic will be routed to the core based on speed. Slower wireless can be routed at it's slower pace. Nothing will slow the core. There will not be any broadcast from Windows workstations or anything else. The high speed core is a point to point from the switch to the internet Cisco router.

Might not need the L3 switch - create a VLAN on the RV, and hang an AP off the assigned port - 2.4GHz is more than enough for WiFi Calling (VoWIFI) the AMR codec is 12Kbit/Sec - and it's SIP/RTP at its foundation, so VOIP QoS profile should give good performance there.

I will have to wait and see the total over all bandwidth impact from the cell phones. Hopefully we don't have to jump to the next higher internet service. Voice should not be that big of impact but once you get 15 agents on wireless who knows.

See above... the main challenge I think for you is that once WiFi is in house, it's there - and folks are going to want to use it for everything...

 

[coxhaus]

No the T-Mobile boxes are the old not supported ones and you need 1 box per phone with a receiver station. They are sending 1 of the new ones. But we might go with wireless.

 

[sfx2000]

No the T-Mobile boxes are the old not supported ones and you need 1 box per phone with a receiver station. They are sending 1 of the new ones. But we might go with wireless.

give the Cel-Fi box a chance - you might be surprised...

I've got friends and former colleagues that work at Nextivity at the RF engineering level, and they're pretty sharp at what they do.

(FWIW - seems like a keyword is blocking posts here for moderation - I think it might be the carrier name and how it relates to a certain OEM and a Router that was developed for the carrier that folks would try to hack to run factory and third party firmware... @thiggins - can you check on this?)

 

[coxhaus]

The Cel-Fi boxes don't work. I assume because there is not enough signal at the window. The new box talks across the internet and works for many cell phones. It will take 5 days for delivery.

 

[coxhaus]

I managed to hose up my Cisco SG500x-24 layer 3 switch. I typed in the wrong network for the router VLAN. I broke it so bad that even a reset did not fix it. I tried different firmware versions no luck. The IP section of the switch would not work with any IP assignments. I thought I had all the switch info in my head and I was wrong. I really should have put the config on a white board. I finally got it working after a couple of days of testing. I changed the default VLAN network and plugged it into my home network to get a DHCP IP address. Now I just need to modify the DHCP IP address to a static IP and delete the default route which points to my layer 3 switch at home. I guess the firmware has gotten more sophisticated with these later firmware's. I even fixed up a Windows 7 machine to see if it was a browser issue.

 

[coxhaus]

I have the Cisco SG500x-24 switch working in layer 3. I just did not post a while back.

My latest issue is T-Mobile. I fixed the T-Mobile cell problem or lack of reception for 3 users. I built a separate network VLAN for the T-Mobile cell spot so it would be isolated from the work PCs. It took over night for the cell spot to go all green on the lights and start working. But all is good now. The T-Mobile users have 5 bars on their phones now.

 

[coxhaus]

I am still thinking of putting a Cisco wireless AP in to support Wi-Fi calling across the board. I don't know what the impact of 15 users doing Wi-Fi calling would have on the internet bandwidth. Seems like voice calls should be a small amount of data packets.

 

[sfx2000]

I am still thinking of putting a Cisco wireless AP in to support Wi-Fi calling across the board. I don't know what the impact of 15 users doing Wi-Fi calling would have on the internet bandwidth. Seems like voice calls should be a small amount of data packets.

WiFi calling for 15 users isn't a big bandwidth hit - you'll want to apply QoS on that VLAN at the switch and AP to get the best performance there.

Cisco has some good guidance on router/switch/ap for their VOIP wifi handsets, and this applies as well to VoWIFI.

20MHz channels (even on 5GHz) is more than enough.

 

[coxhaus]

The cell spot I am using seems to maintain a VPN to their network so Wi-Fi calling may be a better solution even though I am going from 3 users to 15.

 

[sfx2000]

The cell spot I am using seems to maintain a VPN to their network so Wi-Fi calling may be a better solution even though I am going from 3 users to 15.

Yep - VoWIFI can use LT2P-IPSec or DLTS, but generally you'll see the LT2P side from the client

That's why I mentioned the Cisco guidance there...

 

[coxhaus]

I worked on my daughter's network some today. Us old timers can't work a full day any more. I upgraded the last of the Windows 10 machines to 1903 with patches. I installed a Cisco wireless AP, WAP371. I strung power and a cable. I need to configure it next week. I ran out of time. I wanted to miss rush hour traffic so I left early.

I think I will use the separate VLAN I created for the cell spot for the Cisco wireless AP also.

 

[sfx2000]

I think I will use the separate VLAN I created for the cell spot for the Cisco wireless AP also.

Should be fine there - keeps it simple as the VLAN is already set up - see earlier comment on QoS treatment for that VLAN to keep things good for the VoWIFI.

 

[coxhaus]

I setup the Cisco WAP371 wireless AP yesterday. I set it up with 1 SSID on VLAN2 so the wireless is not on the same network as the Desktops. Wi-Fi calling is working with 5 or 6 people with no internet impact that I could see. I think we are good.

Now for the T-Mobile test. I have both the cell spot working and Wi-Fi calling working. The T-Mobile users can toggle between both either LTE or Wi-Fi. Hopefully they will like Wi-Fi calling better and we can turn off the cell spot.

I am now down 1 Cisco wireless WAP371 AP in my home. I may have to upgrade my home to newer Cisco APs.

 

[coxhaus]

I got a call this morning at 8:30 am that the internet was down and Wi-Fi calling was down. They were blaming me since I worked on the wireless yesterday and maybe we had lost power with the router or switch which did not get saved to flash. I immediately went through my mind on what I changed that could impact the internet. Nothing came to mind but I decided to drive in and check it out. I have not worked in over 12 years so this caught me off guard driving into work so early.

I arrived there and got on the router and Spectrum was down. What timing. We called it in and Spectrum said they could not get there until 2:00 in the afternoon. Not good. In the mean time I went back over everything and there was no power outage and everything was saved to flash. My daughter dropped a hint maybe they could afford a battery backup.

For some reason I decided to walk out back to check things out and I found the Spectrum cables from the pole laying in the back alley on the ground. Crap, this is why we have no internet. It was a long day the Spectrum guy showed up after 2:00. He said it was probably the trash truck which ripped the lines down.

Well tonight I looked at UPSs. I came up with the APC BR1500MS UPS. Newegg had a good price with free shipping and no tax. My daughter is going to order it tonight.

Another day in taking care of a small business.

 

[MichaelCG]

Back when my parents owned a small business, I wrote up a quick and dirty checklist they could go through before they called me. It included instructions on how to check the WiFi, how to reboot the routers/APs, and how to get to the ATT modem to check the line status. Having written instructions helped greatly so they could cover some basics without calling me, but mostly they knew the details of what to provide me when they did call. Giving them instructions on how to check their modem status was probably the most important part so they knew how to tell if it was their equipment or the ISP equipment.