Hi All,
Firstly congatulations on a first rate site. Im hooked. and rely on this place to get 'reality-based' information.
Im seeking opinions/thoughts from others on a WiFi upgrade we wish to implement.
We are a small, yet growing business.
Current configuration:
Concerns with current system:
To summarize:
We want to have a system that can grow with us, and hence my questions, I dont want to keep fumbling with different equipment, making bad choices.
Apologies if I have aske too much here, but any help is greatly appreciated
Thak-you in advance
Alan
Firstly congatulations on a first rate site. Im hooked. and rely on this place to get 'reality-based' information.
Im seeking opinions/thoughts from others on a WiFi upgrade we wish to implement.
We are a small, yet growing business.
Current configuration:
- - 8Mb DSL in to a USRobotics MaxG W Router upstairs office, with a booster arial.
- - USRobotics Range Extender downstairs
- - USRobotics Wirelss bridge feeding powerline adapters for our printer requirements downstairs.
- - WPA/AES encryption enabled (cannot use WPA2 on router because the range extender doesnt support it, only WPA)
- - Number of associations varies, as people are rarely in offices all at one time, but day by day we can have 10, peaking at up to 20.
Concerns with current system:
- - The range extender occasionaly loses its connection with the upstairs router. Its odd but its often first thing in the morning when we come in to work (I know, it doesnt make sense!) I think a cable from upstairs to downstairs is really the way to go here
- - The firmware is really dated - 2005, and no more updates likely.
- - Router is probably being stretched already, Im sure we can get better performance than this with newer processors, better firmware and hopefully better range.
- - No Gigabit ports available, I have a Buffalo Linkstation Pro Duo, siting in a box, as its no use for my regular full image backups when i do maintenance on laptops (I try to image before I make changes, then image after, deleteing the pre image when im happy that things are working ok after a period of time). We really need a wired Gigabit port for this.
- - Lack of monitoring facilities with this basic setup, Id really like to be able to monitor the router activity, maybe SNMP, but I dont think Ill get that, unless someone kows better. Logging is very basic too.
To summarize:
- If we upgrade to a DIR-655 and run a cable down to a compatible AP, would we see better performance using WPA2 on all connecting devices? I think we would have to dump our exisiting equipment, since the bridges and range extender only have WPA. ie does everything need to be running WPA2
- Does anyone know of a good set of compatible devices to accomodate our requirements?
- Are we asking too much of these routers wo wish to have a max of about 20 people connected at once? What happens when too many people connect?
- Could we even get 2 ADSL lines and a balancer or something to give us more bandwith that fed in to a wireless router?
We want to have a system that can grow with us, and hence my questions, I dont want to keep fumbling with different equipment, making bad choices.
Apologies if I have aske too much here, but any help is greatly appreciated
Thak-you in advance
Alan