How to Configure an Internet Cafe Router: A Complete Guide
As the centerpiece of an internet cafe, the router’s importance is self-evident. Let’s discuss how to configure an internet cafe router.
An internet cafe typically has a broadband fiber optic line supplied by an ISP. This fiber line offers greater bandwidth than a home connection and is much faster. The fiber optic cable connects to the router via an optical transceiver. The router can then connect to multiple switches; a standard switch has 24 ports鈥攐ne uplink port and 23 output ports鈥攕o each switch can support 23 computers. For more than 23 computers, you simply add additional switches. The bandwidth on each switch port is identical, meaning the speed the router delivers is the speed each computer receives.
Each computer connects to the router or a switch. The connection between the router and the optical transceiver uses an IP address provided by the ISP. Each computer’s IP address is either automatically obtained from the router or manually assigned by the network administrator.
In Basic Settings — Network Settings, you can choose to enable or disable the DHCP server. In the LAN settings, you can modify the router IP and subnet mask. As for the DNS cache server, I personally recommend checking the box to enable it. This allows the router to cache recent DNS lookups, so the next time you visit a site, it can be retrieved directly from the local cache, greatly improving access speed! Regarding the DNS aging time, this determines how long you want the DNS cache inside the router to persist. A value that is too large will overload the router, while one that is too small will be ineffective. It’s recommended to use the default value.
Step one: Configure the WAN connection type. You can select from PPPoE dial-up, Static (fixed IP), DHCP, etc. The most common for internet cafe users are PPPoE dial-up and fixed IP. Simply select the corresponding option! Whichever you choose, make sure to fill in the details accurately! Most importantly, don’t forget to fill in the static DNS, which is specified by your local China Telecom or China Unicom office.
Step two: Fine-tune Smart QoS. The uncapped speed effect in an internet cafe is calibrated here, making this extremely important. Go to Smart QoS — Bandwidth Settings — Egress Line Bandwidth, and select the WAN port you want to configure. If you have multiple lines, make sure to configure them separately.
Reference values are available for selection. For example: if you have a 2M broadband line, simply select ADSL 2M from the reference options, and the configuration shown above will be automatically applied. The bandwidth here refers to the actual bandwidth. The downstream bandwidth should be slightly lower than the actual bandwidth. The approximate uplink to downlink ratio for broadband is about 1:3. The smin and xmin bandwidth values below are generally set to 4 and 8. For a 15M fiber optic line, smin is usually 10 and xmin is 15; there are no fixed values for these. Additionally, under Smart QoS — Speed Limit, you can impose speed limits on client machines! By the same logic, you can also guarantee bandwidth for servers.
If configured well in the Smart QoS settings, the results are immediately visible! If you feel that web browsing is still a bit slow, you can modify the values here. Change TCN to 6 and TWT to 6. The default for both is