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Bryson
Rocket Surgeon
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: The Canadark
 
2013-01-22, 21:15

Does anyone here have any experience of greater-than-domestic-grade wireless routers?

I work at an events venue. We have a pretty great internet connection provided for free by our local cable company (75mbps up and down most days) but we have a cobbled-together patch of various domestic grade wireless routers (WRT54Gs or Airport Expresses) that cover the building. They work OK, for most events but we're finding that the master station will only issue about 200 IP addresses before giving up, and when we do events for 400-500 people, each with an iPhone in pocket, that doesn't go over so well.

I've tried looking online for a more serious solution but I'm not sure I'm understanding what I'm looking at or what kind of "level" of kit I need really. Can anyone poke me in the right direction?

In short: Need to setup a wireless network for up to 500 simultaneous users, spread over a 2-storey, 50,000sqft building. Any pointers?
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FFL
Fishhead Family Reunited
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Slightly Off Center
 
2013-01-22, 22:33

At that level, you are going to want a commercial-grade router, combined with at least a couple commercial-grade wireless access points.

I've never spec'ed a router for that many users. But for APs, look at Cisco Aeronet.
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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2013-01-22, 22:57

Exactly what FFL said. The Cisco AP is the direction I was going to point you in too. There give the ability to buy a single controller that can manage all of them. You can VLAN it so your guests have an isolated network while your staff is on another over the same equipment.

You don't really have to have a commercial router yet though, you just need one that can move you up to the 172.16 ranges. This will give you ample IPs for guests without making it too difficult to manage. This can be done with a RV series from Cisco. I'm pretty sure you can even do it with most home routers. I know the AirPort can do this since it runs on 10.0.0.0 by default. The big thing is move away from 192.168.x.x as your IP scheme. This will really open it up for you and your guests. Of course, you could just go with the 10.x.x.x and lock the DHCP range to what ever limit you want. This would allow growth as needed without major network changes in the future.

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