Hey there,

My name is Akshay and I'm from India. I run a backpackers hostel in the beautiful city of Jaipur and I would love to know if we could use Mikrotek products to enhance wireless connectivity at our hostel. We are a 30 bed hostel spread over 2 floors each of 1500 sq. ft each. On 1st Floor , 13 guests stay while on the 2nd floor, 17 guests stay. We also have a common area on 2nd floor where guests usually chill.

At the moment, we are using a 16mbps Airtel internet connection which is located on the first floor. We are also using a MI repeater which we have placed on the second floor to enhance the wireless connectivity. However, if any of the guests starts video streaming/netflix, it creates a problem for the rest of the guests.

A lot of times, the Wifi modem becomes unresponsive and nobody is able to connect to the modem.

The main modem is 'Beetel 777VR1' while the repeater is 'Mi Router 3C'. (We cannot use any other modem other than Beetel 777VR1 as it is bundled together with Airtel connection)

So I've the following questions, which I'd be glad if the community could help me in.

1. Would Mikrotek would be the best option for solving the issue so that the browsing speed doesn’t get affected if someone downloads (streaming speed should be reduced to minimum so that a user can stream at most 360p )

2. Would 1 router be enough so that each room/dorm gets good signals/connectivity?

3. Can the internet speed be limited per user by creating individual username and password for login? Would it be an efficient method

Lastly, I’m attaching the floor plan for the property while highlighting the current position of the router. ( It's on First Floor )

Thank you in advance.



Regards,
Akshay

When you say MI Repeater I understand it's a wireless repeater? If so, that's your first problem.

I'd:

- Put the Airtel router in bridge mode if possible
- Deploy a internet router to manage users, speeds, QoS and CAPsMAN. Hex could be a budget candidate that fits the job nicely.
- Deploy at least two routeboards to act as dedicated APs, wAP acs would be perfect. You'll need to place them stratellicaly for optimal coverage on the two stories; both will be wired to Hex.

Alternatively instead of the Hex + 2 APs, you could go with hAP ac as router and AP for the bottom story, and a wAP ac for the upper one (wired).

One of the APs could be near the actual router spot; the upper story AP could go in the Hall area, you'll need to deploy and survey to find the sweet spot.

Both APs are dual band.

To begin with, I second what pukkita wrote above.

One bottleneck in your setup is the 16 Mbps uplink. A streaming guest can saturate it. (Unfortunately there is little we can do about it. I am aware of the costs of high speed data in most countries.) Assigning usernames and passwords to guests would require a lot of administration. I wouldn't go there. I guess you could create mangle rules and queues for traffic shaping by MAC addresses, but that is quite advanced.

The walls in the floor plan look thick. Are they brick, stone or concrete? Heavy walls attenuate the signal and weak signal means slow data transfer. That's also why one guest can hog the WiFi. Placing the only access point in the lobby corner makes this even worse, because the signal has to traverse multiple walls.

Like pukkita wrote, I'd put at least one access point on each floor and try to place them as centrally as possible. I presume you are on a tight budget, so I'll try to minimise the equipment. Put the Beetel in bridge mode as pukkita suggested. Run a cable to the center of the floor and put a hAP ac Lite there (non-lite is better, but costs more) and from the PoE port daisy chain another hAP ac Lite (or wAP ac) to the first floor.

To minimize budget you could go 2,4GHz only. There is little benefit from 5GHz or 802.11ac with a 16Mbps uplink. 2,4GHz penetrates walls better as well. Then you could build this with a hAP and a cAP Lite for less than USD100.

Thank you for such a detailed reply pukkita.

Few more questions :-

How difficult is it to configure the QoS and CAPsMAN for an amateur along with configuring wAP's. (Is it DIY or need to be done by a professional)?

What should be the ideal browsing speed that should be allotted to each user in order for a 16mbps uplink to work properly? (~considering there are no more than 40 devices)

CAPsMAN requires certain knowledge, QoS definitely, you would be better hiring someone knowledgeable.

I wouldn't limit per user (simple queue), but program a QoS (queue tree) that categorizes traffic, dynamically distributes available bandwidth depending on traffic category priority, then use PCQ queues on certain ones (HTTP, HTTPs) to ensure fairness to all users.

For non professionals I highly recommend ubiquiti networks, perhaps unifi.

Mikrotik really is more for the network engineer.