Hardware recommendation for AP?

RouterOS Wireless Networking
1

Hi,

since I have not much experience with Mikrotik WiFi in non-SoHo environments, am looking for a hardware recommendation for the following:

-indoor AP with Gigabit uplink
-2,4GHz
-max. 50 clients transferring data at one time
-low distance (10-20m)
-queues shall be used to equalize all clients

Can someone recommend a good setup (routerboard+PCIe card OR integrated solution) ? I also was thinking about using sector AP (SXT models…? ) for this, since only small area needs to be covvered, is this the right way to go?

Also I’d be glad about any hints on best configuration of WiFi and Queues ( but will search Wiki and forum as well for this when I have the hardware).

2

Most importantly it is going to depend on your budget, expected radio pattern (is it going to be sitting in the middle of the area and broadcasting outwards with an omni-directional antenna or sitting in a corner and broadcasting in a cone), and aesthetics.

There are many options for boards of varying processing power to cover your specific different settings (encryption on the WAN, how tricky your queues get, etc) and how much bandwidth you are looking to provide to all users concurrently. I personally don’t see 50 users over 802.11n being too taxing processing-wise.

Generically however, I would suggest the the RB951G-2HnD as it is a smaller/more aesthetically pleasing to the passerby with lower gain antennas, fewer ports, and is priced quite nicely.

Recently I have been using the RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN which has plenty of ports and slightly higher gain antennas.

3

Thank you for your input on the topic, will have a look at the models you suggested.

Aesthetics are absolutely not important here, and probably it will be sitting in a corner overlooking a narrow coverage area.

And money definately only comes after functionality, so I’m not looking at the budget, but rather for the best/stable (Mikrotik based) solution.

More opinions are still welcome.

4

I would consider ceiling mounting as it optimizes signal.

http://www.rfelements.com/en/products/enclosures/stationbox-inspot/

5

i planning to buy the BR912 and enclose it with the StationBox InSpot for the indoor APs and with the StationBox S for outdoor. will order test equipment next week and can report how it is soon

6

How did it go?

7

So far so good. Good signal in that area i want to cover. At my last test i had a n-client connected to the AP showing up with around 200mbit/s in the registration table but the real tcp-speed ( doing http download from an internal server ) was not more than 80-90mbit/s i still have do check it