Help me to choose budget friendly router/switch/ap for a small mountain resort
Help me to choose budget friendly router/switch/ap for a small mountain resort
Hey guys,
We own a small resort and we already got UniFi installed in here. (UDMP + PoE Switch + Unifi 6 Lite/LR)
And another resort, that's really close to us, asked me to make them an internet. Meaning purchase + install.
I mostly work with UniFi, but now I'm looking for TP-LINK as budget friendly option. They gonna have 100mb/s for now, planning to have higher speed in future.
They have 3 separate cottage with 10 people max capacity each and a buidling (hotel)
Hotel have 3 floors and guests lives only on floor #2 and #3. Each floor has 10 rooms with around 30 capacity on each floor.
I'm looking for a router with 1Gb/s WAN and 1Gb/s LAN and a switch with at least 2 ports with Gb/s.
We're planning to connect each switch uing Cat 5E outdoor, they're not far away from each other.
Each bulding gonna have it's own switch. Something like:
Cottage #1 = 1 PoE switch + 1 AP
Cottage #2 = 1 PoE switch + 1 AP
Cottage #3 = 1 PoE switch + 1 AP
Hotel = 1 PoE switch + 6 AP
Owner told me, they just need a Wi-FI for guests (no camera, no PC, nothing else).
I want something with controller, so I can manage them remotely if possible.
Even if not remotely managable, something that can be managed from PC (controller). I don't want to setup each AP separately (standalone)
Just want to create a Wi-Fi with a good roaming experince.
What's your suggestions ?
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@Boriy yes, thats best, wait for the owners reply and like you say, with 2 eap610-outdoor you can see how they perform in mesh, from that point you can know if you need to connect houses with cable (which should be something that the owner should want).
To the question about router is there is a simple answer yes.
In short, I do recommend er605 because I do not believe you need vpn (as you did not say you need it, at least business does not need it) and for those few times admin connects to it, 40mbit is more than enough, you also do not mention devices which you need to reach but on which you can not set static ip's (like tapo cams), those would be known issues with omada routers.
If you go for more expensive device, then the hardware isnt worth it unless your ISP's upload speed is over 40Mbit, for price difference you could buy additional eap6xx device or higher standard cables or .... .
There are 2 omada routers currently, where er605 v2 was just released (not shipped I guess). Here you can have full overview of omada supported devices, click on router to see routers: https://www.tp-link.com/omada_compatibility_list/
- ER7206 V1
- ER605 V1
I like omada and I love tp-link products and I those routers are very good for multi wan, but here are few serious reasons why you do not want everything to run on omada router:
- no local dns, this means, if you use er605 as a router and dhcp server which you probably want as the reason for omada usage is primarly centralized management, tp-link falls totaly on this point, dhcp server is not working properly, it has some issues which you do not from routers. Normaly dhcp and dns come in one pack and you do want to have local lan domain, where you do want dhcp assigned ip's to be reachable over their hostname. This is very, very basic function which omada routers lack, badly lack.
Currently, your network will be much more stable if you use dhcp/dns on some other device, but it also means less info in omada about devices and in general less centralized network (as dhcp and dns have to be configured directly on server and as example dhcp reservations have no effect).
If you have any old as example hardware similar to er605 in point of cpu performance, then it would be archer c7 or similar products, then installing openwrt and multiwan provides few more options, like to manage which device when should use which wan as well as many other things which you can do with openwrt. In general, openwrt is bomb stable, but that can not be said about drivers, openwrt is not best choice for at least eap products.
All in all, I love tp-link, I have er605 and I use it, I can fix all my issues by myself, like if dhcp simply gives another address just because device got out of reach of wlan for few seconds, promting to get new ip. Those things in business environment are scary to know if they are known.
For the purpose which you need, you might ignore the issue with dhcp and dns, you already said there are no cams and probably no other device which have to use wireless connection, but in case there are, you still have few options before dropping tp-link:
How to resolve issue with dhcp assigning ip address which is different to one set in dhcp-reservations:
Option 1: Make sure to set static ip on device. This solution does not work on devices where you can not set static ip.
Option 2: Set as secondary dns your own dns.
Option 3: You could use also services like NextDNS where you can add own entries and use them.
So far, I would encourage you to actually get er605 to play a little bit around with it to see how it works, there is also option to set dhcp using only ip addresses defined by another dhcp server, this would be option 4 but as I did not try it, I did not list it.
I have and use er605 for several scenarios but mainly as multiwan router:
- where I need as many as possible ip addresses
- where I can have second/xth back/loadbalancing line
- combination of both above.
For most households in EU and US er605 is sufficient for vpn with its max 40Mbit, as most households do not have faster upload than 40Mbit. For faster upload, none of those routers is good if your wan speed is less than 40Mbit, even not the new er605 v2 (less than 200), if you want to have decent and fast vpn, buy cheapest version of rpi4 and run it as vpn server for a test for comparisson (just dont use rpi's in business environment), for really fast vpn connection with 1Gb or faster you will need different hardware and fast cpu's (prefferable supporting accelaration), but in your case I do assume that er605 is very good deal and if you have issues with it, its not really issue to run dns/dhcp on any/some another device in the network.
Also, maybe you should keep in mind that dns can be easily added to omada controller and on a router as well on omada sdk, I would think that tp-link will resolve those basic issues with their routers.
@Fae I guess it is not worth mentioning once again how basic the need for local dns is, especially taken in mind that you list it for home use too and all your home products like p1xx, cxxx and other have no feature to set static ip and rely 100% on dhcp server, dynamic ip would not be a problem if one could reach the device over hostname, then one would not need to assign dhcp reservation at all, as one would access is always same domain which is main point of having domain, despite the fact that without local dns you create administration nightmare in requirement to set dhcp reservation for a ton of devices which normally would not need it, there is also security aspect gone in which one has to rely on static ip instead of devices ip being dynamical for security reasons. Please, thats really a basic feature a router must have, one wonders why tp-link failed on that so much that you are in quite high versions of your software and still no local dns, I mean, at least for a controller software, then those running software controller could at least enjoy local dns and dhcp server.
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@btx
Can you clarify, what you mean ,when said 40mb/s ? I believe you mentioned IPsec VPN Throughput ?
I mean, if we just get 1 er605 and a few omada switches and a few AP, we do not need anything else right, including advanced configs.
As I mentioned before, they just need a wi-fi and that's it. They said, they're not planning to put anything else here, so only wi-fi.
I believe I just need to isolate guests from seeing each other and change some Wi-Fi settings (channel, width....)
I don't think, I might be need of VPN or other settings.
You said, ER605 have some problems with DHCP ? o_O
I thought, that would be their N1 priority. They don't have anything else besides of smartphones and maybe some laptops. Can they still get in some trouble from DHCP bugs ?
What if, I use any other router let's say Archer C60, would it be better ?
I don't need any stats or infos from Omada system. Just Wi-Fi and that's it.
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@Boriy for the 40mb/s, yes I meant ipsec/openvpn, but I did not mention IPsec VPN Throughput, it is mentioned in er605's datasheet.
For the purpose you describe er605 would be just fine, you do not add your guests mac addresses to reserved list, beside the fact that most new mobiles randomize mac on each connect triggering to get different ip address on each reconnect.
With er605 you can isolate them, but be aware that er605 is very restricted in that point, you should consider to buy managed switch where you can add/set separate isolated networks/wlan for each room, all of that can be done.
Main issue which controlled router does not affect you:
1. no local dns: if it is just for guests wireless, you do not need local dns for your use case
2. dhcp leasing different address than one defined in dhcp-reservation: this does not affect you too as long as you set static ip for your router, controller and eap's.
Archer C60 is much more powerfull than you need for dhcp/dns, yes it would work, but as you anyway need/would like to have multiwan, better go for er605 and keep it as dhcp server, this can be quickly fixed, meaning that one of next updates would include a fix for, I think you will be very satisfied with er605 as multiwan gateway and loadbalancer.
You could create much more powerfull multiwan than er605, but it costs you money which can be invested in most important goal (providing your users stable and fast ineternet access).
Hope that helps
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I will repeat my proposal (with 1 change )
your basic setup could be
ER605 V2 => the V2 is almost as powerfull as the E7206 V1 for the stuff you need , easy router integration it can manage your omda system nicely; (it can do DHCP : Vlan / routering etc... ) all in one solution
OC200 => Hardware controler is setup and forget , why have this hotel guy have a software controller ( most of the time those guys are not tech savy) , the HC is the all in 1 solution they need
2210MP ( for POE ) a switch which has POE and can later be reused in the hotel or as backbone for a 1GB network core
EAP V3 Ap's => Cheap ap's which can start out live as AP's and will be more then enough for Ap's in the cottages (and they come with a POE injector ) if the POE of the switch isn't good enough over the distance)
if you are happy you can switch to EAP6XX for the more busy parts
and pull wires to everything because wires are 10 better then Mesh
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Hey guys,
I've talked with the owner and he said, for now he just needs a Wi-Fi in the lobby area. It's very small lobby area that usually can fit less then 10 people.
From our ISP switch to their building around 150meters (492feet). Run optic from ISP switch to their lobby and use normal home Wi-Fi like Archer C60 or similar. Since he said, he only needs Wi-Fi in lobby at this time.
ISP Switch = SNR-S2982G-8T. We can only use gigabyte ports, SFP used only for uplink to another ISP switch. Still each port limited to 100mb/s by ISP.
So it should look like:
ISP switch ---(optic cable)---Archer C60
On both sides of optic cable gonna be used SFP to RJ45 Fiber Media Converter.
What you think about it ? In future when they have money, we can replace this router with high end solution.
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