a collegue of mine is looking for some new hardware equipment to run in his home (offiice). No difficult setup needed, just internet access, lan, wifi (1 for insiders, 1 for guests). He is looking for:
1.) a router including 8 switch ports (optional: Wifi)
2.) two access points that can be mounted at the ceiling and powered via poe (three ap’s in case router does not provide wifi)
Internet is delivered via cable and a dedicated cable modem with an ethernet jack. No more than 10 simultaneous users will be using the network. My collegue has ethernet cables running through his home, so the devices can be connected by wire.
What would be your take and hardware recommendation on that?
Otherwise, go to the routerboard web page for the available models. (I’m on my cell phone as I write this, so I haven’t done proper reading, so bear with me).
One that jumped to my eyes was the hex poe with four poe ports. That could be the main one and could supply your APs.
As for the APs, I like the hAP ac lite’s. I have a few and they work just fine for me. AND!!! they work in both bands which will be great for your colleague since he’s cabled inside.
If more power is required from the main router, you have a rb2011 model with wifi but you loose three poe ports
RB3011 is really powerful, had all gig ports, but might be too expensive for what it’s intended.
Thanks, that helped a lot. Sorry for not mentioning the budget, my colleague did not name one and he is contrasting MikroTik equipment to Cisco so he will save money anyway. The hardware you mentioned was exactly what I had been looking at. The only question remaining is: Will the hex PoE really have enough power to make 3 hAP ac lite’s work without additional passive PoE injectors?
For APs I would go for wAP AC, they can be powered via PoE and they are good looking.
Router wise, if he needs at least 8 ports I would say RB2011 or RB3011, depending on a budget and Internet speed connection.
They are 2 issues with above routers, RB3011 has got only one PoE out port so you will need PoE injector for the 2nd AP.
The other issue is that those 2 router have 10 ports but they are on 2 different switch chips and the connection between the 2 switch chips is only 1Gbps.
If your colleague has got a cable modem (assuming it can act as a router) would be better to buy a switch instead a router, one of the CRS devices?
Thanks for your advice. I thought of adding a switch to the mix to power supply the APs, the RB260GSP. So the setup would be
Internet ↔ Cable Modem ↔ hex PoE ↔ RB260GSP ↔ 3x hAP ac lite
Subtracting the uplink port on router and switch this gives him 8 ports (combined router + switch). Cabling is Cat5e, so Gigabit ethernet inside his house should not be a problem. Internet connection is 16mbit down / 1mbit up via cable. The hex PoE should take that without further notice. Routing, DHCP, DNS, NTP Server, Firewall and CAPSMAN on the hex PoE.
If you use a separate switch, then I’d recommend using the hEX instead of the hEX PoE because the hEX has a more powerful CPU - so it can handle more traffic / firewall complexity / etc.
I’ve got one on my desk that I haven’t gotten around to stress testing yet - but it’s supposed to be able to handle a gigabit with firewall rules (or so I seem to recall seeing in the forums somewhere)
The hardware you mentioned was exactly what I had been looking at. The only question remaining is: Will the hex PoE really have enough power to make 3 hAP ac lite’s work without additional passive PoE injectors?