As the name implies, the user capacity of an Internet cafe router refers to the number of computers the router can handle. Most manufacturers specify in their performance sheets that their routers can support 200 or 300 PCs, but in practice, real-world performance often differs significantly from these claims.
This is because a router’s actual user capacity is directly affected by the network load in its operating environment. Different network environments result in vastly different user capacities. For example, in an Internet cafe, nearly everyone is online chatting, gaming, or streaming videos simultaneously. All this data passes through the WAN port, placing a heavy load on the router.
In contrast, on an enterprise network, only a small portion of users are typically online at the same time, so the router load is much lighter. Therefore, a router that can support 200 PCs in an enterprise network might struggle to handle even 50 PCs in an Internet cafe. It is also impossible to accurately estimate the average data traffic per PC on a network.
In a 200-PC enterprise network where the router performs adequately, the same router placed in an Internet cafe might not even handle 50 PCs. Estimating the average data traffic per PC on a network is simply not precise.
Therefore, a more objective description should specify the type of network the user capacity is intended for and present it as a range estimated from typical scenarios, such as “Internet cafe router user capacity: 150~250 PCs (typical value).”
Additionally, some routers mention a “maximum allowed user count.” This does not refer to the router’s performance at all, but rather the maximum number of IP addresses the DHCP server can assign, which is 253 (254 minus the one used by the router itself). This figure is meaningless to users.
Furthermore, another claim you may hear is: this router is dual-WAN, so its performance is twice that of a single-WAN router. “A single-WAN port handles 100 PCs, so a dual-WAN port handles 200 PCs.” This statement does not hold true. There are many multi-WAN routers from different brands on the market today, but their performance varies greatly.
Building a multi-WAN router must first be based on the premise that the router’s own processing power is strong enough, with capacity to spare relative to the egress bandwidth. If its processing capability is