New router for small office that uses voip.

[Calumus]

Hi all, I have a client that's out grown the set up we put in when they first opened. They've gone from 4 people in the office running Autocad and using Vonage phones to 14. They're starting to get choppy calls, and are having intermittent issues with slow internal transfers. I've ruled out any sort of malware, and my next step before getting a second internet connection just for the phones is to upgrade the "good enough for now" Asus router that we started out with.

There's only room in the office for 3 more people tops, so they're pretty close to as big as they're going to get. I've been looking at Ubiquiti gear; but am unsure as to which one to get. The reason I mentioned a second connection is that they're on Comcast with a 120/20 connection. It's an extra $250 a month to get another 5mbps upstream, when a separate 75/15 line is $65 a month and would probably be enough to support the phones on their own.

So any suggestions on a decent router that will handle this sized office would be appreciated. I'm fine with adding a separate wireless access point as well. Thanks.

 

[razel]

I would look into improving the internal network itself. That the intranet lanes connected to the Internet modem on the LAN side is fine and up to standard.

There was a small lawyer firm office that my friend works for that has issues with Internet and file sharing. Probably 6 office rooms, less than 50 Internet devices max. The contractor they hired told them that they are gigabit, but something was wrong with their firewall/switch cause when I tested it, it was a solid 95MB/s or 11MB/s limit, across different ports. 11MB is terrible for file sharing. The laptops I used reported gigabit link, but those speeds are typical limits for 10/100MB/s switches.

I suspect their firewall was artificially capping it, perhaps even for a good reason. Regardless, lawyers do what lawyers do and complained rightfully and eventually I assumed it was fixed since I haven't heard since. I suspect it was just over zealous firewall configuration, again, perhaps for good reason since they be lawyers.

TL:NR - Try to see if there's anything that can be done/improved with the internal network configuration/equipment.

 

[RScottyL]

The internet speeds have nothing to do with internal file sharing.

You can have computers connected to each other via a switch and they could share files between them without even being connected to the internet at all!

As mentioned above, i would make sure they have a gigabit backbone, which would include gigabit router and gigabit network adapters in their computers. You would also want to make sure the cabling is at least Cat 5e on the internal network. The only limiting factor on that would be the hard drive data transfer rate!

If you want to go with Ubiquiti, that would be a great choice!

You will need a switch for at least how ever many ports for computers + extra ports for expansion.

If these Vonage phones are standard VOIP phones, those will usually require a POE switch, OR you could get a standard switch (cheaper), but you would need POE injectors for each of the phones! I just searched on Google and the average price for the POE injectors are $10 - $15 each, so you may look into a standard POE switch to save you some money depending on how many phones you have.

If they are not standard VOIP phones and they do not use POE, then you can just get a standard switch. On average, I would go with 24 port or 48 port, depending on how many ports you need for expansion as well.

Standard VOIP phones will usually have two ports on them. One for incoming network connection, which would be from the switch, and an outgoing network connection, that would go to the computer. With that, you would just need one active internet connection per desk, instead of two, which would mean less switch ports per desk. On most routers/firewalls, you can set what can have priority (Quality of Service(QOS), which you would want to make sure the phones have priority of the internet connection.

Do you have need wireless access points in the office? If so, you will need to add some ports for that!

You would want to see how much bandwidth you need for VOIP for how many phones you have using it here:

How Much Bandwidth Do I Need for VOIP?

As far as Ubiquity switches, they make them in 8, 16, 24 and 48 ports!

You can also get them with and without POE (power over Ethernet). POE is good for things like VOIP phones, Wireless access points, Security cameras, etc!

The also have their "UniFi" equipment such as switches, access points, etc, that make it easy to setup/configure/manage remotely!