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Question

Creating a LAN on a WAN

Mar 10, 2020 1:11PM PDT

My office is in a large office building with many businesses. All the offices connect to the same network in the building. In our office we have about 7 laptops and a wi-fi printer. A couple people have problems printing - it seems to intermittently drop for them and takes a while or a reboot before they can connect again. Also, if they send more than one print job at once it usually only prints the first job, the rest have to be deleted from the spooler and sent again one at a time.

We suspect the issue is network related and how our print jobs have to go thru the WAN to get to the printer. We'd like to set up a LAN in our office where all our devices connect to that network and the WAN is just for getting out to the internet.

We're a small medical company w/out a dedicated IT person, but we're somewhat savvy. Any advice/suggestions on a type of router to get? Will we need something like Active Directory for logins? Any pitfalls to watch out for? Any feedback will be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
So what else have you tried?
Mar 10, 2020 1:20PM PDT

I've called on such and frankly you should already have a LAN so the number one cause of what you wrote is usually an old WiFi router or WAP. It seems odd to look into creating yet another LAN when we haven't heard what you tried so far.

Again, no service I know provides a WAN (as in the Internet) without a router. And that router would give you a LAN.

Also, without a device count and site survey no one can guess what a new network router and setup would look like.

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No router in our office
Mar 10, 2020 1:30PM PDT

There is no router in or for our specific office. We connect to the network for the entire building (over 40 other businesses).
As stated, we have about 7 laptops and a wi-fi printer.

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Then there is a router somewhere.
Mar 10, 2020 2:05PM PDT

At 7 laptops and a printer just about any SOHO router would do fine. I suggest you stay away from cheap routers and buy on Amazon so you can return it if it doesn't work for you.

So HOW TO DO IT?

You need an Ethernet connection to the building network which goes to the WAN (Internet) port of the new WiFi router. That's it. After that you set it up as you wish.

Some want me to pick out a router which with constant changes in the market I can't keep up.

1. I did just install a rather nice router from Netgear. Their Nighthawk AX. It's WiFi 6 and a lot more. Very nice, has yet to drop or lock up. I'm impressed.
2. Others from CNET https://www.cnet.com/news/best-wi-fi-routers-in-2020/

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Thanks!
Mar 10, 2020 2:49PM PDT

We'll give it a go Happy