wireless network for a dormitory

Dear Forum Members!

I would like to set up a wireless network for a small dormitory (50 people) to share the internet (browsing, voip and streaming mostly), and maybe in the future share a NAS. At peak time approximately 30-40 notebooks are online, plus 50 smartphones and some tablets, so the network should be able to handle 100 simultenaous connections with ease, but more would be desirable in order to make the system future proof. We already have the router, I am looking for suitable APs.

My initial idea was using two access points at the opposite ends of the building (not too large, but the walls are quite thick). I thought of building the routers based on the RB433GL board, and fitting both of them with an R2SHPn and an R5SHPn wireless card to enable simultenaous 2,4/5 Ghz operation, thus minimizing the interference, which would be caused by using too many routers in a small building.

One of my concerns is that these two cards won’t fit into the board because of the heatsinks. I would be grateful if somebody could give me information on this.

Also, any help and suggestion is greatly appreciated (even critics ofc :slight_smile:), I am inexperienced in designing wireless networks, this is my first bigger task (I mean bigger than chosing routers and APs for home :slight_smile:).

Thank you in advance!

Have you thought about using the Mikrotik as a controller, and combining it with something like the UniFI PRO (2.4/5G) dual band? It also supports fast roaming across APS, which is good for VOIP.

Until Mikrotik give us some more news on their WLAN Controller, its hard to justifiy Mikrotik radios for installs such as these. Also look at the Ruckus Dual band APS - they even do HD versions

I thought about using Unifi, but I didn’t know that I can use Mikrotik products as a controller. Could you pleas give me some information regarding this? How can I do this?

Thank you!

You cant … unifi requires its own controler running on windows/mac machine …

JF