How to Choose Office WiFi Router

Since most office users use portable devices like laptop, smart phones, tablets, the existence of a highly stable wireless network is more important than a wired network. In such a network, in addition to accessing the Internet, clients also need to communicate with wired network clients and servers. In this post, We’ve proposed 5 recommendations on how to choose office wifi router to fulfill all of your requirements.

Keep in mind that an office router has some differences from a home router. Including the number of LAN ports, security features and link aggregation capability.

1- Router WiFi Standard :

Up to now, 6 technologies have been introduced in WiFi networks. These standards are listed in the following image:

In general, the 802.11n standard is the most widely used technology in WiFi networks. The 802.11ac is the fastest technology in WiFi networks. (The 802.11ax standard has recently been introduced and compatible clients are not available everywhere). The 802.11ac technology has two generations, known as Wave1 and Wave2.

Wave1 with the maximum speed of 1300Mbps and Wave2 with the maximum speed of 3600Mbps. So, it’s better to use an 802.11ac Wave2 standard router.

2- The Number Of Router’s Antenna

Technically, the number of antennas on the wifi router has a tremendous impact on the quality of client’s communication. Enables the router (especially the 802.11ac and 802.11ax routers)  to use its own capabilities such as Beam-forming and MU-MIMO.

• Beamforming  focus the router’s  signal and sending it directly to the client, as a result minimizing the surrounding interferences and increasing the signal strength. Read More : What is Beamforming ?
• MU-MIMO allows multiple WiFi devices to simultaneously receive multiple data streams.

Usually, there are up to 4 antennas available in 802.11n and up to 8 antennas available in 802.11ac technologies.

3- The Number of Router Ports

Generally, most wifi routers are equipped with up to 4 ports to communicate with the wired network and servers, along with one WAN port for the Internet communication. The speed of most router’s LAN ports is 1Gbps.

New routers, equipped with a Multi-Gig LAN/WAN port. The speed of this port is 2.5Gbps. Keep in mind that to benefit from this speed , you should connect this port to a switch or a device that supports Multi-Gig capability. In some other routers, there are ports with 5Gbps and 10Gbps speeds.

Read More :  Routers Equipped with Multi-Gig Ports.

Some routers have two specific ports with the Link Aggregation capability. These two ports are integrated as one logical port and made a 2Gbps LAN port, for serving the high-bandwidth required servers like file servers, storages, data-base servers. All business wifi routers should support this capability.

4- QOS and traffic-Shaping Features :

Advance wifi routers have specific capabilities to manage the services and users bandwidth separately.

• The QoS capability lets you to assign a certain bandwidth of the total Internet traffic into a particular application or service.
  • For example, you can dedicate 20 % of the overall bandwidth to web-surfing and allocate 40 % of the overall bandwidth to Video Streaming services.
• The Traffic-Shaping capabilities you can assign a certain amount of bandwidth to one or a group of users.
  • For example, you can assign 5Mbps bandwidth for each client or 20Mbps bandwidth for a group of clients. You can assign these limitation to clients’ devices based on the their IP or MAC addresses.

5- Adjustable  Output Power

In advanced routers, you are able to set the router’s output power(TX Power) between 17 and 25 dbm ( the wireless output power is measured in dbm) depending on the extent of the workplace and the existing obstacles and walls.

This value should be adjusted carefully so that all users have a RSSI around -65dbm. (RSSI means the received signal level at a certain point. This number can be between -30dbm and -85dbm. You can measure the RSSI at a certain location by WiFi Analyzer free apps) .

Keep in mind that increasing the router’s output power may cause users to lose quality in communication. So, try to choose the right amount for this option and avoid unnecessarily increasing it.