Business Router vs Home Router

[Shazinc]

My business has been using a T-1 line and a home router (linksys) for a while now, but in the last year we grew from 6 users to 20. I've noticed that our internet connection gets very slow and even quits on us during the day sometimes, but our users aren't downloading anything large. They are just viewing regular web pages and sending/receiving emails.

I could be wrong, but I don't think the T1 line is actually being saturated. I think the problem may be that our little linksys router can't handle the number of requests being thrown at it.

Am I justified in thinking that?

Would upgrading to a business-class router help? Where can I get these and how much do they normally cost?

 

[spidey07]

could very well be the case. But without more information I'd be guessing.

How is the T1 delivered to you. Does the provider have a router on your site that the T1 is plugged into?

T1s can sometimes get "dirty" and start taking a bunch of errors. It will show itself as poor performance and "not working" for brief periods from 1 minute to 30 minutes.

I'd call the ISP and have them check and test the T1.

 

[nweaver]

I would try (easy test) installing a quick linux "router" distro, such as smoothwall and test is with that (assuming your T1 is delivered as a 10baseT).

 

[qaa541]

You can always try a Cisco 800 series router. I've had that same problem and it turned out the T-1 line was bad and it wasnt the router.