Routers

[The Masked Unit]

That's right, the most exciting of all hardware.

Basically I run a business with five employees, with capacity for two or three more in our current location. We're with BT for our broadband (long story) and have been using their supplied Business Hub router for the last 18 months or so.

The problem is that our BB goes down for a minute or so probably about 2-4 times a week and at other times is just painfully slow, and I put this down to the router not being up to the job (2 of us are hard-wired to it, the rest connect wirelessly).

Question one, would you agree that the router is the likely cause of our problems and question two: if so can anyone recommend a decent one which will meet our needs? I suppose about £150 is what I have in my mind as a reasonable price to pay, but that's just plucked out of thin air really.

Thanks.

[Uncle TechTip]

I'm going to get a bit sniffy. You run a business and you're asking for IT advice on here? There are good people like Wilbur all over the country who do this for a living. Dip into your business' revenue and pay for a solution. Keep the economy going and give those IT consultants the work they desperately need at this time. It's one thing to ask for advice about your home computer. But it's quite another thing to run your business on that basis.

[Obel]

As an IT guy I have to agree with the above. Besides buying a router and configuring it yourself might not be the best solution if you're not familiar with network hardware. Generally those routers with the "easy config" option tend to be the cheap ones that bum out and need reboots regularly. Just dip in the company purse and ask an IT guy, he'll likely recommend good hardware and charge you an hour to configure it. It won't break the bank.

Though that said, if IT guy recommends a Thompson router tell him to eat a dick.

[Wilbur]

I'm going to get a bit sniffy. You run a business and you're asking for IT advice on here? There are good people like Wilbur all over the country who do this for a living. Dip into your business' revenue and pay for a solution. Keep the economy going and give those IT consultants the work they desperately need at this time. It's one thing to ask for advice about your home computer. But it's quite another thing to run your business on that basis.

Well a genuine thank you for that. I was speaking to a BT engineer from a customer site last week and his own words were "Well whatever they've got it cant be as bad as our HomeHub kit" so I think you can take from that what you like :)  Paying a local spod like me for advice would be a good thing to do though and if the advice is rubbish you can go back and ask them to explain themselves !!