Need help with vlan

[themuseman]

Greetings!

I am meeting with a group of users that meets in a large room. All of the users connect via the wireless. The system consists of a Time Warner Ubee gateway (combo box). We are dropping connections and I don't think time Warner is giving us many connections. I can't confirm the limit on our connections. Time Warner has us locked out of some of the functionality of the Ubee gateway. The Ubee is also physically located too low in the room. My intention is to to do away with the Ubee combo box, use a Time Warner modem, and install my own router and wireless access point. I'm going to use a Linksys LAP N300 access point. It appears it will have good range and will mount on the ceiling. I think this will solve our problems and give us control of the system.

Here's my question: I want to take advantage of the vlan and QoS functionality in the Linksys access point. I need a small router but I don't know what to choose because I don't know what special functionality the router might need to support the vlan function of the access point. Help in picking a router and vlan pointers is appreciated.

themuseman

 

[htismaqe]

If you want to do inter-VLAN routing, then really all you'll need is a router that supports VLANs. Any router loaded with DD-WRT will support them. As will the Linksys WRT1900AC.

 

[themuseman]

After I install the new router and access point, what I want to do is to give some users priority in having a connection. The instructors need to be sure they will have a connection and not get kicked off if we have too many users on some occasion. Is vlan and qos the way to go or should I be looking at something else to help make sure certain users keep their connection?

 

[htismaqe]

QoS gives applications/protocols priority, not users.

If you're reaching an access limit (e.g. 30 users can be connected, the 31st user gets kicked off) QoS and VLANs won't help with that.

If you're reaching a traffic threshold (e.g. 30 users saturate the device with traffic, the 31st user creates congestion that interferes with all users) QoS and VLANs will help with that.

 

[themuseman]

Would an additional access point provide more user connections?

 

[Cloud200]

depending on how large the room is, installing multiple access points may be the way to go.

For the instructors try and get a dedicated AP on a different channel or if possible a different frequency.

eg.
3 access points
AP 1: channel 1
AP 2: channel 6
AP 3: channel 11

on AP 3 broadcast a different password protected SSID for just the instructors.

 

[htismaqe]

If bandwidth contention is your issue (and not some kind of hard user limit like I mentioned before) adding additional access points would be a perfect solution.

Just configure it like Cloud said and you should be golden.

 

[themuseman]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I think I'm out of the woods now.

themuseman