Lowest priced business router supporting maximum connections
Lowest priced business router supporting maximum connections
Hi. Im looking for a router for my sports club. We have very limited with money and after doing some recearch it has been hard to find a router that would be best for us. What I'm looking for: - NAT support (I want to set it up to a bridged modem) - Guest network (preferably with banwith limitation options) - 100+ simultaneous client connections (with MU-MIMO) I have for now found 2 routers that somewhat has these features: - Asus BRT-AC828 - Synology RT2600ac Both of these says they support over 100 users. Sorry If my knowledge is not up to par on this. Problem is the price. Anyone know of a better solution? Just listing other models would be nice, because I might find the equipement used for a good price. Im not sure if there is a standard I can search for regarding max client connections. Please edjucate me if I'm missing some information on the subject.
I own this router. It works well. I’m not sure about restricting bandwidth on the guest network since I don’t have a specific configuration. From what I’ve seen, you can either ensure a fixed bandwidth level for a device or cap its speed. Setting it up is straightforward and the interface is user-friendly. Most home devices would likely struggle with this. I’m uncertain if the RT2600AC can handle it. I probably have around a dozen wireless gadgets and four wired ones connected, and everything seems fine. However, it’s nowhere near 100%.
What size space are we talking about? With that number of users, I’ll need several access points. The Unifi setup works well as a cost-effective solution. How much data capacity should we expect? Are you planning additional features such as IPS? Likely you’ll end up with an edge router plus a few access points.
Customers typically avoid this kind of consumer equipment. Running the router alongside existing VMWare ESX and adding dedicated Access Points is quite standard. At home, I’m using Untangle on a Hyper-V host with multiple Unifi APs—works well. In the office, I deploy a Palo Alto VM-100 firewall on ESX. At home, I run an RTX 2400G "Server" for Untangle; performance remains satisfactory even with SSL inspection active (MS Activation Serves not included).
Thank you for your interest in this subject. The sports area spans approximately 600-700 m2 (in metric units), but the required coverage is only about 100 m2. With a standard consumer router, coverage issues are rare, which is why I don’t need multiple access points. Adding access points would raise costs since you’d have to purchase both the access point and the router. You likely require more technical expertise for installation as well. For usage, the setup should support roughly 100 connected users. Most of these won’t be active at once—typically around 20-30 people—but it should still handle light traffic from passive connections. I don’t need any advanced features beyond a guest network with bandwidth controls.
consumer, prosumer, and enterprise users will face wireless challenges beyond 50 devices. Signal range is constrained by physical laws, making performance issues inevitable regardless of the device type. MU-MIMO and beamforming techniques don't fully address this problem. Performance remains acceptable up to 20-30 devices with consumer-grade hardware like Mikrotik and Unify. I suggest the Mikrotik hAP AC2 (or 2 with CapsMan). It offers solid wireless capabilities alongside enterprise features.