Network Router - Suggestions Needed

[ACETech]

A church is currently using a non-business router with WiFi (non Cisco product). 

I need suggestions for a non-WiFi router for this church environment:

* about 12 staff members, 10 wired, 2 wireless, 4 printers (IP based)

* uses web-based application

* during business week, only staff uses system - no problems

* on Wed and Sunday, can have 50-75 additional wireless attachments

* on Wed and Sunday, can have 5 additional wired attachments

VPN not needed.  I will use the current WiFi router as a access point (AP).  I don't believe it is handling the number of concurrent users.

I was looking at the RV130 and RV320 routers.

Suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Darryl

[Julio E. Moisa]

Hi Darryl,

Your could select a router 4221 or 4321, the routers 4000 series is the recent Cisco model. Also you could consider the 1921 or 1941 routers but the EoL has already announced. 

You also could verify the following links:

http://www.cisco.com/c/dam/assets/prod/routers/cisco-router-selector/index.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/routers/4000-series-integrated-services-routers-isr/models-comparison.html

Hope it is useful

:-)

[ACETech]

Looking at the datasheet, aren't these a over powered for the specs listed above?

Note that the current netgear AC wireless router works great during the week, its only when the church members all log into the wifi at the same time (mostly using wireless devices to look up Bible passages (I can see the number of attached devices rise from 20 to over 60 in less than a minute); however this doesn't seem to be slow.  Only the web-based application has a issue with printing (never prints the name tags for the kids).

Thanks for your input.  I'll keep the 4000 series in mind.

Darryl

[Joseph W. Doherty]

What's difficult to do, with just your brief description, is identify your bottleneck.

You mention you have an AC router, but what standards are you clients connecting as?

Wireless, itself, is easy to bottleneck.  Remember it's a shared medium, and just one down level wireless client can slow everyone else.  For example a low bandwidth B client can impact other high bandwidth G clients. 

You mention a web-based app, but what hosts that?  If everyone is hitting it, it might be the bottleneck.

When you have the high volume of clients, do the wireless clients seem to slow, or have issues, much more so than the wired clients?

[ACETech]

Most wireless devices used are tablets or phones.

The web-based app is hosted by that company (where, I don't know).  Only two sign-in computers (attendee's sign in to print a label for them self and their children; sign-in takes 15 seconds for those that have done it before).  It's not constantly used but, if service starts at 9 then there are 100 people there to sign in 5 minutes before, and by only one person at a time.

The current main router is a netgear wireless router, it's on the high end for home use.  I don't think it has enough memory or engine for these concurrent connections.  So this needs to be replaced anyway.

So, back to my original question: if the router is the bottle neck, would the RV series of Cisco routers work better?

Thanks for your ideas.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

If the app is hosted off-site, then you bottleneck might be the capacity of your "off-site" link.

Difficult to say whether you would benefit from an RV router vs. what you have now.

Possibly the only way to know for sure, is try before you buy, but don't know if you can arrange that.