Re: Wifi access point/router for business

x-posted to wireless -

""Simen S. Øya"" <"simen at mac dot com"> wrote in message
news:498c2f36$0$30025$8404b019@news.wineasy.se...
> Hello. At work we have alot of consumer wifi AP and routers (acting as
> AP's) and they work rather poor. I have finally got through with my
> statement that consumer wifi solutions are made for families with 5
> members and such and not 100+ students and 20 teachers/other employees.
>
> So now we are looking at replacing or supplementing our wifi ap's. We
> mostly have Linksys WAP54G, WRT54G and a couple of WRT300N.
>
> The network, well. That's a sad story. Mostly made of cheap switches from
> a local hardware (like in hardware for cars, painting, computers, etc.)
> store, and cat5 wires outdoors made for indoor use, so it's far from
> professional. We do have one HP ProCurve 2510-48 Switch (J9020A) as a main
> switch, but that's the peak of the network's professionality :)
>
> Well, onto the case. You have any suggestions for a wifi AP/router (acting
> as a AP) that can handle alot of users? It must have WPA 2 radius support
> (for the future) and the "new" N standard (300Mbit). It would also be good
> if it had good range, and it has to be compatible with the existing wifi
> AP's.
>
> Any help would be appreciated.
>
> --
> Simen S. Øya
> Fixed width is evil!

"ps56k" <pschuman_no_spam_me@interserv.com> wrote in message
news:t%Wml.10898$hc1.2590@flpi150.ffdc.sbc.com...
> x-posted to wireless -
>
> ""Simen S. Øya"" <"simen at mac dot com"> wrote in message
> news:498c2f36$0$30025$8404b019@news.wineasy.se...
>> Hello. At work we have alot of consumer wifi AP and routers (acting as
>> AP's) and they work rather poor. I have finally got through with my
>> statement that consumer wifi solutions are made for families with 5
>> members and such and not 100+ students and 20 teachers/other employees.

what do you mean - they work rather poorly ?
is the wifi experience bad because.....
slow speed, coverage, disconnects, roaming, what ?

>> So now we are looking at replacing or supplementing our wifi ap's. We
>> mostly have Linksys WAP54G, WRT54G and a couple of WRT300N.

again - what is the perceived problem ?
which may not have anything to do with the AP hardware

>> The network, well. That's a sad story. Mostly made of cheap switches from
>> a local hardware (like in hardware for cars, painting, computers, etc.)
>> store, and cat5 wires outdoors made for indoor use, so it's far from
>> professional. We do have one HP ProCurve 2510-48 Switch (J9020A) as a
>> main switch, but that's the peak of the network's professionality :)

ok - again - what are the problems ? errors, transfer rate, speeds, etc ?
Does the Procurve show any Ethernet errors when viewing the admin screen ?

>> Well, onto the case. You have any suggestions for a wifi AP/router
>> (acting as a AP) that can handle alot of users? It must have WPA 2 radius
>> support (for the future) and the "new" N standard (300Mbit). It would
>> also be good if it had good range, and it has to be compatible with the
>> existing wifi AP's.

well - you'll probably get lots of wifi feedback from this group,
but without specific targets of what you have as current "problems",
it's hard to address what needs to be fixed..

What is the general overview of your situation - what does everyone access
? -
Internet vs local school servers vs off campus servers ?
Types of traffic - basic web, email, etc - vs video streams, classroom
learning, or VoIP ?
WAN connections ? and inter-building connections ?
Speed of local Ethernet hardware ?

>> Any help would be appreciated.
>>
>> --
>> Simen S. Øya
>> Fixed width is evil!
>
>

>> Well, onto the case. You have any suggestions for a wifi AP/router
>> (acting as a AP) that can handle alot of users? It must have WPA 2 radius
>> support (for the future) and the "new" N standard (300Mbit). It would
>> also be good if it had good range, and it has to be compatible with the
>> existing wifi AP's.

Check out www.proxim.com - they've been making enterprise grade wireless
gear for years. I've used their AP4000's (a/b/g) with good results. IIRC,
those are spec'ed to handle 63 simultaneous users, unencrypted. Though if
you want to throw WPA on top of that, the number of users per AP drops quite
a bit. Looks like they've got some new "N" gear on their website.

-- Paul

"Paul" <paule@nospam-mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:D8adnVVDB_-GxgHUnZ2dnUVZ_s7inZ2d@supernews.com...
>>> Well, onto the case. You have any suggestions for a wifi AP/router
>>> (acting as a AP) that can handle alot of users? It must have WPA 2
>>> radius support (for the future) and the "new" N standard (300Mbit). It
>>> would also be good if it had good range, and it has to be compatible
>>> with the existing wifi AP's.
>
> Check out www.proxim.com - they've been making enterprise grade wireless
> gear for years. I've used their AP4000's (a/b/g) with good results.
> IIRC, those are spec'ed to handle 63 simultaneous users, unencrypted.
> Though if you want to throw WPA on top of that, the number of users per AP
> drops quite a bit. Looks like they've got some new "N" gear on their
> website.
>
> -- Paul
>
>

I have WRT54GL on a roof top, supporting 50+ users no issues at all &
running WPA2. With QoS On, MAC filtering, SPI on.

These Linksys boxes are very good bits of hardware, put on some decent
firmware, eg DD-WRT or Tomato and you have an excellent bit of kit.