Router for small hostel

[zvarder]

Hello.

What kind of router can you recommend to use for a small hostel?
One floor, 5 rooms 10-20 people might be using it at the same time.

We're using a dir-655 at the moment but it does not give us the reach we need(we have thick concrete walls) and sometimes I think it's denying connections because of overload.

The internet we have is 10mbs down and 1mbs up, it's the fastest we can get here.

I would be thankful for any answers.

 

[chadster766]

Hello.

What kind of router can you recommend to use for a small hostel?
One floor, 5 rooms 10-20 people might be using it at the same time.

We're using a dir-655 at the moment but it does not give us the reach we need(we have thick concrete walls) and sometimes I think it's denying connections because of overload.

The internet we have is 10mbs down and 1mbs up, it's the fastest we can get here.

I would be thankful for any answers.

If you have an Android phone you can use Wifi Analyzer to check your signal strengths in different areas. I guessing your main problem is the concrete walls interfering with the wireless.

Consider adding another wireless router\repeater to the weak signal areas or running some Cat5e lines to those locations.

 

[htismaqe]

Your best bet, if it's physically and financially possible would be to run cable to each of the room and put a small AP in each room.

 

[fistv]

You are basically using a home router which is usually stretching it with 10 users at the same time. As a start add some wireless access points, run some ethernet to the areas you want covered, use PoE capable wap's and get an 8 port or so PoE switch, that way you don't have to complicate it with where to get power from, the ethernet cables will carry the power. You can stick the waps on the walls or ceilings, use vinyl surface mount conduit, comes in colors, to hold/cover the wires. Everytime I hear concrete walls and floors a bunker comes to mind or some houses built back in the 50's. We networked one of those for a friend of mine, two floors and basement, the main reason I have a 3/4 inch Milwalkee hammer drill. The bedrooms were wired, the common areas were both wired and wireless. I think you will need to upgrade the dir-655. You could literally lay out the entire setup on the floor and move AP's around, depending on thickness and steel you might need one in each guest room if the room doors are steel and block signal other wise you might get away with running them down the hallway and mounting them on the ceiling.

 

[fistv]

Your best bet, if it's physically and financially possible would be to run cable to each of the room and put a small AP in each room.

Agree. Wired is always a better option.

 

[stevech]

3 and 4 star hotels don't do an AP per room. they often do APs down the inside corridor, or in the plenum (if the WiFi gear is plenum-rated). Or I've seen hotels with small 4 room buildings (like older Marriott Residence Inns) - have one or two APs per building with buried cat5 to each building.

Usually, in professional settings, the installation labor is far more than the cost of the hardware and cable.

That's why getting the right approach (often, not WiFi) is important, and done by someone who knows all the alternatives.

 

[htismaqe]

3 and 4 star hotels don't do an AP per room. they often do APs down the inside corridor, or in the plenum (if the WiFi gear is plenum-rated). Or I've seen hotels with small 4 room buildings (like older Marriott Residence Inns) - have one or two APs per building with buried cat5 to each building.

Usually, in professional settings, the installation labor is far more than the cost of the hardware and cable.

That's why getting the right approach (often, not WiFi) is important, and done by someone who knows all the alternatives.

Most modern or even semi-modern 3* hotels don't have solid concrete walls either. The OP is talking about (I assume) a European-style hostel which has concrete or cinder block walls.

Putting an AP in every room isn't for coverage over multiple rooms, it's for getting past the walls.

 

[sfx2000]

An alternative is put WiFi just in the lobby - hostels are pretty crowded, and most folks just want to crash out... and not be disturbed...

If they get WiFi in the rooms, they're lucky perhaps, but focus on the lobby - in many cultures and countries, the lobby is the main place for social interaction.

 

[L&LD]

sfx, the problem with your suggestion is that WiFi (and cellular) availability promotes the opposite: non-social interaction.

 

[sfx2000]

sfx, the problem with your suggestion is that WiFi (and cellular) availability promotes the opposite: non-social interaction.

I guess you've never done the hostel thing... it's not like staying in a 3/4/5 star hotel...

WiFi is the last thing I want in a shared room with 3 other people when I'm trying to sleep... If people want to stay up and chat away on twitter/facebook/IM/whatever, let them do it in the lobby.

My suggestion - Put WiFi in the lobby with a WPA1 password chalked on the board - folks might need directions with their smartphones, etc...

sfx

 

[stevech]

Hollow core masonry blocks are not that attenuating at 2.4GHz.
http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build97/art123.html

 

[zvarder]

Your best bet, if it's physically and financially possible would be to run cable to each of the room and put a small AP in each room.

Thank you for all responses, I'm real glad you all want to help!

We never got a request for a cable system from our guests, I don't think there are many who would need it.
Our guests are using the wi-fi on their smart phones and pads, we need a router who can handle a lot of connections (from the guests) and who can penetrate thick walls.

Right now we have one router dir-655 that does not even cover all of the common areas and some times during the evening people can't connect, probably due to overload?

It's a really old building and the we have the fastest connection we can get, 8mbit/1mbit.
We can afford a router up to the price range 270USD but I'm not sure it's necessary?

The ones I've been looking into is the following routers:
Asus RT-N66U
Asus RT-AC66U
Netgear R7000 and
Linksys WRT54GL

I'm guessing that it's better to have one strong router than several weaker ones?

I'm really glad for all of your answers and I hope to get some more!

 

[htismaqe]

I'm guessing that it's better to have one strong router than several weaker ones?

In general, the short answer would be "no".

 

[zvarder]

In general, the short answer would be "no".

Okay, so do you have any recomendations for any routers that would be able to handle alot of devices at the same time?

 

[htismaqe]

Something like the Netgear R7000 running DD-WRT will give you maximum range and performance per user.

However, even then, breaking your users up and connecting them to smaller, less-powerful access points will still give you better coverage and user experience IMO.

 

[stevech]

Okay, so do you have any recomendations for any routers that would be able to handle alot of devices at the same time?

Use a SOHO (non-consumer brand) Access point and router to get higher than 20 or so simultaneously active clients per device. Often, at those numbers of users, your WAN speed/capacity is max'd out if users are truly associated and active and streaming. Just casual web surfing is a relatively low bit rate per user.

Non-consumer SOHO/SMB access points usually state how many client associations will be accepted. Some products bump the oldest/least active association to take a new request. That usually works fine.

If you don't know how to research the proper SOHO/SMB Access Points, and avoid use of a combo Access Point/Router (consumers call this a WiFi router), then maybe you need the consulting advice of a pro.

 

[fistv]

From experience the Linksys wrt54G loaded with DD-WRT will work with up to about ~20 devices, then it will stop giving out ip's and need a reboot to clear the cache out. I set mine to auto boot every 2hours. Cannot comment about the others. The best solution is a professional grade router and multiple access points. The router does not even have to be a wireless one, just good router that will do dhcp and either enough ports to handle the access points or a switch, prefer PoE, to power and handle the access points. Some of the access points I see around this forum look like good options with good recommendations and are well below the $500 a pop Aeronets I normally use. My second wireless network here was a shade over $3000 and change for a Cisco 891W security router with PoE, 3 aeronet 1600E saps and 9 antennas. My first one was a wrt54G with about 10 users when we were moving in to our new building, that's still running, the president uses it for his sonos.

 

[Scooterit]

Look into a Cisco RV180 + Netgear 5 port Gigabit Smart Switch.
Run Cat 5e/6 down the hallway and install multiple Unifi AP's in locations that will over multiple rooms per AP.

In the lobby you might want to install a Unifi Pro / AC to have more capacity for your own devices and multiple guest that might be accessing simultaneously.

While it might make more "sense" to install a Ubiquity Edgerouter POE. But I am hesitant because of how hard it is to manage the darn thing.

Cisco and Netgear because they are common to most technicians..

 

[stevech]

If you don't know how to research the proper SOHO/SMB Access Points, and avoid use of a combo Access Point/Router (consumers call this a WiFi router), then maybe you need the consulting advice of a pro.