Looking for a high end router for a medium size business

[Jay85]

Long story short, our BT Hub is rubbish and is constantly disconnecting /dropping connection. We've had BT out on numerous occasions changing cables from the premises all the way out to the box on the street. We've even swapped out the BT hub numerous times and its still doing it. We've been advised that the BT hub simply can't handle so many devices connected to it (around 78 in total at the moment on a quite day but upto 100 when all the staff are in and connected to it). Will also need to handle a medium size server and a large patch tower which provides connection throughout the building, theres well over 50 ethernet ports throughout.

We're looking at anything that can handle this work load, Mesh, high end routers or anything else that you can think of.

Any recommendations would be highly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[ChrisD.]

Wireless devices? Or wired?

 

[Caged]

What's the actual symptoms? If you have FTTC and that is dropping sync then it's very unlikely a new router will fix it.

 

[Jay85]

Wireless devices? Or wired?

A mix of both, we currently have more wireless than wired though.

 

[pepp77]

What is the actual connection, on that many devices/users surely you should be using a leased line of some description, they are pretty cheap these days. In which case you should be putting a proper firewall in place.

 

[Jay85]

What's the actual symptoms? If you have FTTC and that is dropping sync then it's very unlikely a new router will fix it.

Monday to Friday when most people are in, the connection will drop around 4-5 times a day. Though the connection does come back eventually it takes awhile and sometimes will require a hard reset via the router.

I believe it is, its connected via a telephone line via PSTN. We've been told BT are running out of ideas, they've even traced/scanned for interference but to no avail.

It's a proper headache...

 

[Jay85]

What is the actual connection, on that many devices/users surely you should be using a leased line of some description, they are pretty cheap these days. In which case you should be putting a proper firewall in place.

From what i've gathered they've opted for a BT business package which came with a BT hub which is connected via a PSTN line over a telephone cable for the connection.

 

[Caged]

What's dropping though? Is the FTTC sync dropping out or is the router just crashing?

You'll need to either look at the lights on the router or access the web page during a problem to get a clearer picture of what is happening.

 

[Jay85]

The weird thing is, it only drops on Weekdays when most people are in and the officers are busy. However on weekends when most of the office staff are off, it doesn't drop at all.

 

[Jay85]

What's dropping though? Is the FTTC sync dropping out or is the router just crashing?

You'll need to either look at the lights on the router or access the web page during a problem to get a clearer picture of what is happening.

I've had a look at the logs myself when the BT guy was here and all it says is the router has lost connection and attempting to reconnect. Theres nothing else in there...

Edit: as for lights, it goes orange then back to blue again. This is our 3rd router from BT

 

[Caged]

Orange would suggest it's losing VDSL sync, so buying a new router isn't guaranteed to fix things if the line fault isn't cleared.

 

[Jay85]

Orange would suggest it's losing VDSL sync, so buying a new router isn't guaranteed to fix things if the line fault isn't cleared.

Hmmm how would i put this across to BT, they've assured us they've done all they can with the line and even put us on a different line at the box down the road to eliminate any possibility of interference or defect with the original lines.

 

[Jay85]

If it drops again i will drop the event log in here.

 

[Caged]

Hmmm how would i put this across to BT, they've assured us they've done all they can with the line and even put us on a different line at the box down the road to eliminate any possibility of interference or defect with the original lines.

If you're in an industrial area then you could be getting bursts of interference that are affecting VDSL sync and you will never fix the problem - worst case scenario is BT can't do anything about it, agree to end your contract and then the address is just considered one that can't be serviced.

Depending on your requirements and budget it might be time to move to a leased line as mentioned above.

 

[Jay85]

If you're in an industrial area then you could be getting bursts of interference that are affecting VDSL sync and you will never fix the problem - worst case scenario is BT can't do anything about it, agree to end your contract and then the address is just considered one that can't be serviced.

Depending on your requirements and budget it might be time to move to a leased line as mentioned above.

We're in city centre around a lot of student accommodation, there was a lot of building works going on previously but that has now been completed.

I will take a look at a leased line, tbh i've never looked into these before. Whats the advantages over regular business broadband/fibre?

 

[Glanza]

What's the rest of the network setup on site look like, what's after the router?

 

[RandomMonkeH]

That isn't really big enough for medium, but its certainly not a small.

I would suggest you really need to design a suitable solution - i.e. a decent firewall/web filter appliance and gateway. Smoothwall, Sonicwall etc - I would also be seriously considering a circuit like a 100 or 200 over a gig.
If budgets are tight you can put something together using old hardware and a open source linux distro like pfsense or smoothwall and just use the current router for PPPoE.

Then rollout a wifi solution for your wireless clients.

Trying to use what is essentially a domestic router for your router and wifi is going to give you exactly the result you are experiencing.

 

[visibleman]

Hmmm how would I put this across to BT...

Have BT/Openreach been there and witnessed the hub losing sync (ie - orange lights)?

Possibly the BT hub is falling-over and it's showing as sync loss (can't say I've seen it but then my experience with BT Hubs is minimal) but, as mentioned above, it usually alludes to a line fault.

Considering all of the line work BT/Openreach have carried out, I would be having a fairly frank conversation with them and perhaps suggesting to see if they're able to lend other hardware (for short-term testing) to establish whether it is a fault with the BT Hub or a line issue, possible caused by external factors that can't (easily) be solved.
If it's the former, then it should be fairly trivial to solve; the latter will most likely require different connectivity to the building.

But without knowing that, you could just end up burning budget on hardware and still end up in the same position.

However, if you do decide to replace hardware then I would strongly recommend opting (for production use) for something with warranty/support rather than going down the "beige box" route, as it'll save on the headaches further down the line.

And if I was in your shoes, and it was mostly likely the BT Hub at fault, then I'd go for a (vanilla; no wifi) Draytek 2862 and then dot a few AP's around for wireless devices.
But there are, of course, plenty of other manufacturers offering off-the-shelf hardware that'll perfectly suit your needs.

 

[VaderDSL]

No one using a really old TV or old electrical equipment during the work week?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54239180

 

[Sp00n]

I would probably start by offloading the wifi responsibilities on to a separate device(s) before going the route of changing the router or getting a new line, new Unifi AP is less than £100 for example, low effort to set up and see if it makes any improvement, if it doesn't then at least you have ruled that out and you have a start of your new infrastructure.