Router for wifi at a Restaurant

[dark2099]

So my dad owns his own small diner, and he wants to set up wifi there. I'll talk to him today to see if he knows the over all size in, but the total seating capacity is about 75 at tables with 25 more bar stools in 2 rooms. The building is a bit older, so my guess the wall are more concrete/brink that what ever they would be now, so a stronger signal would be helpful to go with higher connections allowed. Budget wise, I'd say is probably about $100-120.. Thanks!

 

[CJCerny]

Is the public wifi going to be sharing the Internet connection with the business (i.e. the PCs and POS systems that the diner has)?

 

[brandonwh64]

So my dad owns his own small diner, and he wants to set up wifi there. I'll talk to him today to see if he knows the over all size in, but the total seating capacity is about 75 at tables with 25 more bar stools in 2 rooms. The building is a bit older, so my guess the wall are more concrete/brink that what ever they would be now, so a stronger signal would be helpful to go with higher connections allowed. Budget wise, I'd say is probably about $100-120.. Thanks!

Is this like an open restaurant or are there rooms? One router in the middle with higher gain antennas would work.

 

[Jetster]

Netgear WNDR3700. It has guest network also

 

[dark2099]

Is the public wifi going to be sharing the Internet connection with the business (i.e. the PCs and POS systems that the diner has)?

He would probably start bringing his laptop more, but no POS system.

Is this like an open restaurant or are there rooms? One router in the middle with higher gain antennas would work.

There are 2 rooms, used to be separate business, we expanded in the early 90s.

 

[brandonwh64]

He would probably start bringing his laptop more, but no POS system.



There are 2 rooms, used to be separate business, we expanded in the early 90s.

Maybe you can use a dual antenna router with extended cable and antennas for those areas.

 

[CJCerny]

I would spend the money to get a decent router that can securely segment your father's laptop connection from the public wifi and get a WAP for each. Sonicwall makes a good product like this. At some point, the diner will have some gear that uses an Internet connection and you'll be mighty glad that gear can't be accessed by anyone using the public wifi.

 

[lemonadesoda]

What is the average turnover of the restaurant per day? At 75 at tables + 25 bar stools, I'm guessing $2000-$5000 per day, $500,000 to $1 million per year. I think limiting your budget to a consumer $100-$150 shows a lack of respect for offering good service to your customers. If you are going to do something, do it well, or don't bother. Are you hoping offering internet will bring in more customers or stop customers from leaving? This is a key business strategy, and $100 is a laughable investment in your future.

 

[remixedcat]

lemonade... you got to factor in the expenses... they are HUMONGOUS for restaurants... lots of expensive red tape as well as ingredients, paying all the staff, etc... that million shrinks real quick.

Most routers have guest networks to seperate the customers devices from the company devices, including my Amped Wireless R20000G. It's got excellent range as well. it even has VLANs as well as access scheduling, QoS as well.

 

[lemonadesoda]

OK, perhaps I was a bit rough. But I also run a business. And as much as it hurts... you've gotta invest. If that investment is FOR PROVIDING SERVICE and you see it as part of your customer retention or customer acquisition strategy... then you are stealing from your future (and your staff's future, and your kids future!) if you refuse to invest.

Just do the math... this internet thing... just how many customers is it supposed to attract or to keep?

 

[freaksavior]

Assuming you already have internet access and a router of some sort then id recommend this: ASUS EA-N66 Dual-Band Wireless-N900, 3 in 1 Access...

reviews don't like it because they are trying to use it as something it wasn't intended for. It's a access point and nothing more, set it up like an access point and you should be fine.

Another suggestion would be to get a router that supports guest access essentially putting them on a separate lan. You really don't want to let guests access the same network your business environment is on, this is just bad security.

So Access point with a seperate network address range and a seperate vlan (guest network) is the only option I see.

 

[remixedcat]

On The AP side of things if you wanna know the performance...

My AP20000G access point review:
http://remixedcat.blogspot.com/2012/11/amped-wireless-ap20000g-full-review.html

 

[lemonadesoda]

As suggested, get a decent AP. The AP really should have bandwidth control designed for public AP. Otherwise you will get someone stealing, hogging or leaching the bandwidth, and giving everyone else an irregular service. You need to cap it so that it is *just* good enough for web browsing or downloading emails but not enough to be worth using as a download or video site. This may cost a little bit more than a regular consumer AP, but it is worth it. Take a look at the ubiquiti stuff. I've been impressed with their kit and the firmware suite that is constantly improved across all their products.

 

[Geofrancis]

As suggested, get a decent AP. The AP really should have bandwidth control designed for public AP. Otherwise you will get someone stealing, hogging or leaching the bandwidth, and giving everyone else an irregular service. You need to cap it so that it is *just* good enough for web browsing or downloading emails but not enough to be worth using as a download or video site. This may cost a little bit more than a regular consumer AP, but it is worth it. Take a look at the ubiquiti stuff. I've been impressed with their kit and the firmware suite that is constantly improved across all their products.

The ubiquity stuff looks good on paper but I have had lots of issues with the hardware and support is non existent. All you need is a good wired router with good port based vlan to separate the networks and an access point to let customers connect. And run it via the norton DNS that filters the porn out. You won't want to hear that playing in the middle of the place lol then put time restricted access onto it so the radio is only on when your open that will stop the leaches.

 

[remixedcat]

Geofrancis is correct. Also if you expect a lot of businesses to use your restaurant as a meeting place you may not want to cut your B/W. Some of those may need to have clients watch a video demonstration or stream a conference. I've seen lots of people do this at coffee shops or diners like Bob Evans or Denny's.

The AP20000G I indicated above does have access scheduling to shut off the AP after business hours.

 

[Geofrancis]

you also want to make sure wireless client isolation is on to make sure people are not trying to hack each other.

 

[Rhyseh]

As stated make sure you isolate your guest network. I cannot emphasise this enough!

I would strongly recommend looking at commercial products for this implementation.

 

[Aquinus]

I would strongly recommend looking at commercial products for this implementation.

He doesn't have the budget. Plus he can do it with most modern routers, even more so if it supports DD-WRT or Tomato.

 

[Geofrancis]

You could spend $100 on 3 Netgear WNDR3300 range max routers from ebay it would be perfect for you for the access points. It has all the features you need radio on and off time, ap isolation, and most important dual radios so you can use the 54g radio for clients and the 5ghz radio as a backbone.
So you put one on the net and set its ip to 10.0.0.1

Turn on only the 5ghz radio and set up your security. This is your main gateway

Then connect to the second router with your laptop and set its ip to 192.168.1.1
Set the 5ghz radio to client mode and put in the details for the first router. this will set it up as the wan port and use dhcp
Turn on the 2.4ghz radio and set up security. This is the business router.

Do the same with the third router as you did with the second but leave the security off the 54g radio so your customers can connect and set up the access time restrictions and filtered dns system like open dns or nortons.

I know double NAT is not perfect but it would provide the security he's looking for
the cheap Netgear routers have amazing range on the 54g radio so there shouldn't be any blackspots.

You could do the same with any dd wrt router I suppose but it would be very slow without the dual radios

 

[remixedcat]

Double NAT would present problems for some customers looking to use corporate apps on the wifi network. Please note that. Often times those customers would spend more at your eatery.