We have a Linksys WRT54G WiFi router in our office which was working great when we had 5-6 folks.
Now on peak days we have 10-15 people, each with a computer, smartphone, etc, and an ooma VOIP device. On average 1-2 times a day I need to go hard reboot the router, and sometimes the border router (Cox-supplied device).
I assume this is just because the router cant handle this many concurrent users.
So my question is can these consumer routers handle this kind of load? If not, would adding more devices solve the problem, and how close proximity can I put 2 routers without having interference problems (our office area is not that big physically)?
Best Answer
The problem with "consumer"/"home" routers is that they seem to go out of their way to make it hard to troubleshoot things, and the manufacturers seem to have no concept of the fact that "Oh just unplug it for a minute and plug it back in" is really NOT an acceptable solution to problems.
That said, there's really no physical reason why a WRT54G series router couldn't handle your average small office environment from a purely hardware standpoint -- your problems are likely tied up in the all-in-one software that ships on these devices.
Adding more routers (probably) won't help: Unless your routers can't physically manage coverage and you have signal dead zones adding more units will just add to the WiFi noise and slow things down.
Trying alternative firmware is also an option, but you won't get any support from your vendors if you do that, which is a consequence you'll need to weigh carefully (along with your budget).
My usual recommendation for someone in your situation is to get away from the all-in-one consumer hardware and invest in a properly separated infrastructure:
This costs a lot more than a cable modem and Linksys all-in-one unit (which often drives people to the alternative firmware route) but it gives you a much more flexible configuration, the ability to replace single components when they break, and most importantly vendor support if things don't work right.
Often you also have much better debugging capabilities: Pretty much every decent edge router, firewall, switch and WAP will have serial console capability, and you'll be able to plug in and look at error messages on the console (with the vendor) when things aren't working the way you expect.