Klueless
Very Senior Member
I’m a total novice so take anything I say with a grain of salt … or an aspirin. I’m a part time entrance level employee at my brother-in-law’s car lots where I made a lot of mistakes in a short time. The purpose of this much … too … long post is to help other novices avoid the pain we went through!
Ben has a small car lot with a service center behind it. Five miles down the road is his larger car lot which he expanded a few years ago by buying the house and property next door. The sales office was getting crowded so he moved part of the staff to the house next door. Our Wi-Fi signal actually reaches but the computers were slow and kept losing connection.
One of my bosses tells me to go buy a new router. I puzzle, “Who bought and set up what we have?”
“I don’t know, a friend of a friend.”
So I go to the corner computer store and the clerk goes, “Here, you’ll like this router.”
I read the “quick install”, unplug the old one, plug in the new and poof … I’m now a “network engineer”! I briefly consider setting security but I’m not allowed to touch the computers unless they break so I have to leave the network “open”.
Everything works (no harm, no foul) but the PCs in the house next door are still slow and intermittent so it’s back to the corner computer shop. I learn all I had done was upgrade a B/G router to a B/G/N router over 2.4Ghz. $50 later I walk out a B/G range extender. I install it by the window in the house next door and presto, all the PCs in the house are working great.
Suddenly I’m the “network guy”. (But with a caveat, I’m not allowed to touch anything unless it’s broke.)
It wasn’t long before my luck ran out. Internet was running crappy and I had no clue. Nothing had changed so I called the cable company. “Nothing wrong here, how many computers do you have?”
“Uh, eight.” (We are up to twelve now plus printers, servers, iPADs and smart phones.)
“You need to buy more bandwidth.”
“How much?”
“$100 a month?”
“Total?”
“No, an additional $100 a month.” (Side note, when you’re a business around here you get to pay more than the home user and you get less bandwidth than the home user but … you get 24 hour access to a help desk … that tells you, “buy more”.)
“Uh, have you any statistics?”
“Yes, your peak day was 6 GigaBytes. You need more bandwidth.”
I do the math, “But that sounds like I’m only using, what, about 10% of my network?”
“You need more bandwidth, call us when you’re ready to place your order. Goodbye.”
More bandwidth? What I need is a real network engineer. An hour on Google and several phone calls later I’m beginning understand why they used a friend of a friend for the original installs.
I call the phone company, I luck out, they’ll double my bandwidth and total cost is less than we’re paying now. Install is set for a few weeks out.
While I’m waiting the problem just disappears and I’m thinking, “Damn, it was the cable company!”)
A year later I fight my way through a crisis at the other lot and a year later I’m in crisis mode at the main store again. One of my bosses is in the closet hollering and yanking on wires. I’m thinking to myself, “We're driving blind, we need data; this is no way to run a network!”
Then a break, a four hour area black out. Power comes back up but my router doesn’t. It is fried.
Back to the computer store but this time I’ve got a plan and … a wish list. I found a router (I chose an Asus RT-N66U) that met many of my requirements:
Other Sundries;
Ben has a small car lot with a service center behind it. Five miles down the road is his larger car lot which he expanded a few years ago by buying the house and property next door. The sales office was getting crowded so he moved part of the staff to the house next door. Our Wi-Fi signal actually reaches but the computers were slow and kept losing connection.
One of my bosses tells me to go buy a new router. I puzzle, “Who bought and set up what we have?”
“I don’t know, a friend of a friend.”
So I go to the corner computer store and the clerk goes, “Here, you’ll like this router.”
I read the “quick install”, unplug the old one, plug in the new and poof … I’m now a “network engineer”! I briefly consider setting security but I’m not allowed to touch the computers unless they break so I have to leave the network “open”.
Everything works (no harm, no foul) but the PCs in the house next door are still slow and intermittent so it’s back to the corner computer shop. I learn all I had done was upgrade a B/G router to a B/G/N router over 2.4Ghz. $50 later I walk out a B/G range extender. I install it by the window in the house next door and presto, all the PCs in the house are working great.
Suddenly I’m the “network guy”. (But with a caveat, I’m not allowed to touch anything unless it’s broke.)
It wasn’t long before my luck ran out. Internet was running crappy and I had no clue. Nothing had changed so I called the cable company. “Nothing wrong here, how many computers do you have?”
“Uh, eight.” (We are up to twelve now plus printers, servers, iPADs and smart phones.)
“You need to buy more bandwidth.”
“How much?”
“$100 a month?”
“Total?”
“No, an additional $100 a month.” (Side note, when you’re a business around here you get to pay more than the home user and you get less bandwidth than the home user but … you get 24 hour access to a help desk … that tells you, “buy more”.)
“Uh, have you any statistics?”
“Yes, your peak day was 6 GigaBytes. You need more bandwidth.”
I do the math, “But that sounds like I’m only using, what, about 10% of my network?”
“You need more bandwidth, call us when you’re ready to place your order. Goodbye.”
More bandwidth? What I need is a real network engineer. An hour on Google and several phone calls later I’m beginning understand why they used a friend of a friend for the original installs.
I call the phone company, I luck out, they’ll double my bandwidth and total cost is less than we’re paying now. Install is set for a few weeks out.
While I’m waiting the problem just disappears and I’m thinking, “Damn, it was the cable company!”)
A year later I fight my way through a crisis at the other lot and a year later I’m in crisis mode at the main store again. One of my bosses is in the closet hollering and yanking on wires. I’m thinking to myself, “We're driving blind, we need data; this is no way to run a network!”
Then a break, a four hour area black out. Power comes back up but my router doesn’t. It is fried.
Back to the computer store but this time I’ve got a plan and … a wish list. I found a router (I chose an Asus RT-N66U) that met many of my requirements:
· Usable User Interface
· Traffic Monitor
· Displays of what’s on the network
· Quality of Service (QoS) settings with bandwidth limiters
· Two radios, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz
· Lots of SSIDs
· Ethernet ports
· Traffic Monitor
· Displays of what’s on the network
· Quality of Service (QoS) settings with bandwidth limiters
· Two radios, 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz
· Lots of SSIDs
· Ethernet ports
Other Sundries;
· A second monitor for my PC (yes, of course I found a free one : )
· WiFi Analyzer for Android
· WiFi Analyzer for Android
o Shows WiFi signal strength
· Internet Speed Test (Myself, I usually use my vendor's speed test as I assume it's optimized for their cloud of stuff.)§ Gives rough ideas for where to place devices and/or how well things might work
o Shows what radio channels are already being used§ Aids in selecting clearest channel
o Verify I’m getting what I’m paying for from my carrier
o Create stress for testing
o Confirm bad (or good) performance
· NetStresso Create stress for testing
o Confirm bad (or good) performance
o Shows actual transfer rates between our devices
o Tests performance of just our network (rather than the Internet)
o I can actually walk around with a laptop verifying what WiFi Analyzer suggested with real data transfers
o Demonstrates that you made good (or bad) choices for placement of devices
· Ping Plottero Tests performance of just our network (rather than the Internet)
o I can actually walk around with a laptop verifying what WiFi Analyzer suggested with real data transfers
o Demonstrates that you made good (or bad) choices for placement of devices
o Automated Tracert and Ping package
o Graphs route from you to end point
o Graphs latencies and lost packets
o Very useful for suggesting where problems are and whether they’re local or somewhere in the Internet (it clears up the cloud)
o Graphs route from you to end point
o Graphs latencies and lost packets
o Very useful for suggesting where problems are and whether they’re local or somewhere in the Internet (it clears up the cloud)
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