I’m looking for a good router for SMB use that has Wi-Fi on board. The scope of the issue: I work for a decent size company that offers billing consolidation for POTS, VoIP and Data services. For some reason some ISPs we deal with are giving us a hard time - when we migrate a client over to our billing, these ISPs are sending a tech out and replacing their modem/router combo with a single port modem that then requires the client to find a router because the single port modem is just a modem handing off 1 public IP (not the best CX). Unfortunately, a lot of these clients were using the Wi-Fi from the modem/router combo as well. The company I work for does not want to take on the responsibilities involved if we were to replace the modem ourselves because we would lose that level of troubleshooting/support from the ISP if we do.
The company has sent me a Netgear WNR3500L v2 to test but I’m honestly a little embarrassed to put my name and our companies name on this ‘solution’. Any thoughts for a better option? Personally, I would like to stay away from the usual consumer options because I don’t like the idea of us selling a client something that they could just go and buy from Walmart or Best Buy. Staying under $200 would also be great.
I don’t see any other option than using a similar solution. Not sure there are any options for hardware running pfSense that are less than $200 which would scale. Also, someone will need to set it up so that will be a cost to consider.
Other than pfsense with an access point (a small switch wouldn’t hurt either), I would look at Mikrotik and FS, one of these last two might be my next device for home. A Mikrotik router with 2 wired indoor access points and a wired outdoor access point was what I was thinking about for home. I want a little better coverage at the far end of the house and outside in the yard. Aluminum siding does not go well with wifi.
Most flexible would be pfsense, a small managed switch, and a decent access point that can do multiple vlans, but this might be more than many small businesses will want. And I fully understand that they may want something simple.
The Chateau 5G is pretty spendy at $530 but I’m really digging the Chateau LTE ($229)! Also eying the hAP ac lite for $50 (in case the Chateau price point is too steep).
Thanks for the suggestions this definitely gives me something to fight for.
I just started using T Mobile as an ISP, the 5G connection might just find it’s way into my house to replace their modem, would open up some features that I don’t have through their very consumer oriented modem. Still going to be CGNAT, but at least I can control the wifi parts.
Any reason why the client cant spring for a Unifi WLAN with pfsense running on a NetGate - Heck maybe 1x AP from Unifi you can get from Microcenter and a pfsense that you can install on some old hardware lying around. Cant expect to spend 200 bucks and expect scale and maybe throughput - depending on user count