Router suitable for about 30 users

[freelancer42]

Hi,

I work as an IT consultant, and one of my clients is a small school. They have about 30 computers (15 desktop, 15 laptops), and up until now they've used a consumer-level router (maybe $60). Occasionally it hangs (presumably because of capacity problems), so now they want a better router. Because their budget is very limited I've looked at the Cisco 851 and 871 routers, however the Cisco pages state that the recommended maximum number of users is 10 and 20. Should I blindly trust those numbers, or would those routers work for 30 users? Or maybe there's some other alternative I haven't found? The 871 pretty much hits the limit on their budget, so they can't buy anything more expensive than that.

Thanks

[Giuseppe Larosa]

Hello Kim,

we use 871 on some temporary remote sites with some times 10 PCs and 6-8 IP Phones with IPSec encryption for VPN access to the intranet and with QoS over a single ADSL link.

I think it can support 30 PCs in a school environment if it just does NAT.

Hope to help

Giuseppe