cheapest / best router for a small business

jimbob_3

Hey,

I own a small restaurant, and my partner signed up with unicom to provide the phone and broadband service.

We want to let our customers have free access when they are in the restaurant, but the service didnt come with a router.

Can anybody suggest which would be the best and cheapest router to get in this situation?

Thanks

J

diable

Is this via cable or telephone line? I find the Netgear or Linksys range pretty ok.

-TangleFoot-

jimbob wrote: »

We want to let our customers have free access when they are in the restaurant

Assuming you live on the premises, you may want to keep your own computers segregated from those of your customers. Something like this would be ideal.

jimbob_3

Thanks for these.

Neither of us lives on the premises - but we would be using one of our personal laptops - if that makes a difference?

J

timbim_2

I would be tempted to go with this Linksys, or a similar one. You can flash it with superior firmware, either DD-WRT or tomato to give you more control over all aspects of connection.

timbim_2

The Linksys I linked to will do that with QoS and the like. One thought though, do you already have a modem with an ethernet connection?

jimbob_3

Thanks again

Nope - dont have a modem.

We probably wont be using the net much when customers are there - which hopefully wont be that often

so do we basically just plug in the router and away we go - like a home connection?

Moneymaker

Make sure you enter a WEP password so your wireless connection isn't used by every laptop owner within 50 metres!

Bowling_4_Gold

Moneymaker wrote: »

Make sure you enter a WEP password so your wireless connection isn't used by every laptop owner within 50 metres!

Maybe that will be more trouble than it's worth... The owner would have to faff about with advertising the passkey or even telling it to customers, which of course would take up time. Anyway, someone could quite easily walk in, read the passkey, then go 50 metres away and use it to their heart's extent... Just a thought.

-TangleFoot-

jimbob wrote: »

Neither of us lives on the premises - but we would be using one of our personal laptops - if that makes a difference?

Provided the laptop has got a reasonably good software firewall installed on it, no, not really. If the router's sole function is to provide Internet access to the clientèle you'd probably do just as well with one that was intended for the home market.

To avoid having data traffic going to and from your own machine being intercepted, you could hook it up to the router with a bit of network cable, or alternatively add a wireless access point configured to allow only encrypted connections. It's best to use WPA or WPA2 for this, as WEP can be cracked relatively easily.