Spec me a medium capacity wireless router

Aloreth · 15 Jan 2009 at 10:29

Hey guys n girls,

About 25 of us are working out of the office at the moment and we are looking to purchase a wireless router to use on a client network. Anything up to about £100 would be fine....was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

Also we have a Lexmark T632 in the room which if possible we would like to tie into the wireless network....must admit im not 100% sure how this would be done, any decent tutorials around?

Thanks

Mike

Aloreth · 15 Jan 2009 at 15:33

Anyone got suggestion? (Not a bump honest)

Aloreth · 19 Jan 2009 at 14:23

One last mercy bump...

custard · 19 Jan 2009 at 15:01

You could try looking at Draytek as they have a few models around that price.

It's a bit more but I have used the Draytek 2820n succesfully on a site about triple the size of the one you are proposing. The site also has a Draytek 2600 which also works flawlessly.

Cheers

smids · 21 Jan 2009 at 00:19

Depends on the type of network. I'm assuming this is not ADSL/SDSL and so you need a cable router?

I'm going budget on you for this but trust me, this is all you should need. 25 clients really shouldn't tax the router too much...

Buffalo WHR 125G. Good wireless range. Then flashed with third party firmware (based on a slightly better chipset than the Linksys WRT54GL - better wireless BCM5352 and BCM5354 IIRC). This should have all the facilities you will need all for £35. Adding the printer to the network is simple... if it has a network port on it. If not, then you need to share it from a designated computer which will obviously need to be on for it to work across the network.

Without more information on the expected traffic volumes and/or the type of information coming to and from the client network though and the purpose of the network, it is hard to make a decent suggestion i.e. internet, sharing files across the network etc. The good thing about the router above is that you then have £65 left if you need to buy a switch for any hardwired computers to share files which may be large and consume a fair chunk of the traffic.

Draft N routers may be more appropriate if you expect high volume net traffic as obviously a g network is limited to about 20-30Mbps throughput giving each 1Mbps if all clients are hammering the connection at the same time (of course, then dependent on whether the client connection can provide 20Mbps to the internet)...

Also must not forget that if the laptops aren't N, there is no point getting an N router...