Best AP & wired router combo for small motel?

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minc3d

Gawd
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Nov 27, 2004
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We've been called in to setup wifi for a small motel in our area. The motel is shaped in a flattened horseshoe style layout, with about 8 units surrounding a central office area on each side (16 units total - avg of 10-15 users to be online at any given time). All units are ground level, and I have a common attic that runs the entire length of the property.

I'm almost certain I'm going to go with 3 Unifi Long Range APs for the wireless side of things, judging what others have said on here about the boxes. Do people still like Unifi the best?

I'm going to get a simple POE switch to handle powering the devices centrally.

In terms of a wired router, what would people recommend? I've gotten recommendations for both of the following devices:

Zyxel VFG6005 (http://www.zyxel.com/us/en/products_services/vfg6005.shtml)
Netgear FVS318G (http://netgear.com/business/products/security/wired-VPN-firewalls/FVS318G.aspx)

What does everyone think? Is there a different simple wired router I should be looking at?

Any insight from those who have done motel wifi would be appreciated!

The motel has a budget of about $1450 to cover the hardware and our labor.
 
The unifis aren't standard Poe. Ubuquiti does sell a tough switch rhat works with their Aps though. As for a router I have used mikrotik for a lot of public wireless scenarios. Ubiquity also has an edge router coming out soon too that looks decent.

300-350 for the APs.
100 for a decent Mikrotik or Ubiquiti router.
100-200 for cable and ends and whatnot.
I'd say estimate about 6 hours of labour. 2 to run cable, 2 to setup the APs and another 2 to configure the router. For me I could do it in 4 hours easily so it's overestimating but yeah.

You should be easily under budget.

I would use guest controls on the APs and limit communications between clients. Also on the Mikrotiks I have setup queues to limit bandwidth per user and I block all outgoing ports but 80 and 443 and only allow established and related connections coming in. You won't have issues with torrent usage that way.
 
Zyxel USG50 for Router
Unifi AP
CyberPower 850va for network equipment.
Cyberpower Surge plugged into battery side for UBNT Poe injectors

May not need switch since router has 4 ports.
 
I'm not certain I would ever use the ubiquity Unifi LR models. Unless I was using them at 10% power and using the LR feature to flatten out the signal so it would not interfear with another floor at a multi-floor hotel. The problem isn't that the user can not get a signal from the LR. It's that the client's radio/antenna is not powerful enough to talk back to the AP.

Zyxel VFG6005 is a home router. (I wouldn't use it for a business)

Zyxel USG 50 is a business class router. (Licenses are only required to use the UTM features and honestly it's a better VPN router than it is a UTM router)

Last I heard the Ubiquiti Edgerouter wasn't going to be available for purchase until next year. (Its being marketed as a higher quality alternative to Mikrotik's product line)

Mikrotik routers are capable but the longevity of some of the models is questionable.
 
If the motel is completely flat, and I have about 110ft laterally to cover about 7-8 units for each wing of the motel, would you say this is doable with standard Unifi APs?

I just have never used the units so I don't know what kind of range to expect.
 
And due to price point, is there any reason why I couldn't use the USG20 from Zyxel? It's about $50-70 less and would fit better into our budget.

If there are any concrete reasons why it wouldn't work, please post.
 
The USG20 supports less than 1/2 the concurrent connections compared to the USG 50. It will also be bottlenecked on a 20Mbps internet connection.

The USG 50 will start to bottleneck around 50Mbps, but the total number of concurrent connections allowed might be more limiting depending on your clientèle.



They are very capable devices, the problem is as you turn on and start using more of the features the performance drops.

I would very hesitant to recommend a USG 20 for anything more then an office of 6-10 active internet users MAX. The USG20 is more along the line of business class build quality, features and consumer class CPU inside.

The USG 50 has twice as much ram and CPU, making it start to pull away from the normal consumer class workloads.
 
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3 Unifis (to start) for $180
Zyxel USG 50 for $240
APC UPS $116 (get something else if you'd like, I prefer APC)
Netgear GS108E $64 after rebate (the e series is significantly more reliable than the non e suffix models and has some minor QOS abilities.
$200 in misc cable and ends

http://www.balticnetworks.com/ubiqu...tore=default&gclid=CMKXrtSv4LMCFUfNOgodQUkAHA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16842101381

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833122397


Here's how I would approach this:

Get a pack of Unifi's, test and site survey an AP at the motel. See how much signal you actually have in each room on location at the customer's site.

Let the customer know exactly what the outcome is and give them the option of adding more AP's at a preset cost (Now) verses a renegotiated cost later.
 
Thank you for the suggestion - I will add a clause that sets a price for adding another few APs if needed.

As for the POE aspect... what is so special about how they do POE? I didn't know there were different POE standards out there.

Any insight as to the POE needs of the Unifis would be great.
 
minc3d said:
Thank you for the suggestion - I will add a clause that sets a price for adding another few APs if needed.

As for the POE aspect... what is so special about how they do POE? I didn't know there were different POE standards out there.

Any insight as to the POE needs of the Unifis would be great.
Click to expand...

From what I've read, they just don't follow the 802.3af standard exactly. Some of their equipment wants different voltages, so they pack their own injector with their equipment to supply whatever the device wants. It is still PoE...but it's unique to them.
 
They are just injectors.

Brick plugs into wall.
Cat5 from router or switch goes into IN on injector
Cat5 from Out on Injector to Unifi

Unifi have been great for me. Are you mounting to Hall Way or in Attic Space?

Only reason you will need switch if you have more than 4 units. 3 wifi and Office PC = just router.

USG20 I use in small home setups, very stable.

USG50 is nice.
 
I see what everyone means about the non standard POE on the Unifis. Darn shame! Only one that follows the standard is their Pro box which is $200 a pop... ouch.

I'm looking into their ToughSwitch (http://www.ubnt.com/unifi#toughswitch) which has these goody voltage standards in place.
 
But you mentioned 3 units, so why bother? If client is on budget injectors are fine
 
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