Virgin Business Routers

Not sure if this is the correct forum so if not let me know and I'll move it elsewhere.

Anyone know a way round the limit of 10 guest connections on a Virgin Media router?

The situation is as follows:

I work for a charity and we've just been given a Virgin Media connection for less than we were paying before (so we're not going to refuse) - we are having issues with the connection but I've logged that elsewhere in this forum.

We run a Warm Space (for people to come and have a brew and a chat and get warm. We also run courses (Digital Devices, Genealogy and the like) where people need to bring their devices and connect to our WiFi.
Obviously we don't want them on our internal network with their devices we've no control nor knowledge of what's on them but on some courses we have in excess of 10 people (and some want to connect up their phones as well because they don't all have mobile data enabled).

The 10 guest connections seems ridiculously low but I guess most businesses have their own way of doing this with their own kit, we're trying to keep costs to a minimum.

We do have another router we can use, put the Virgin one in modem mode and use the old router (it's a half decent Netgear one).

The other question I have is about how best to extend the wifi connectivity in the building - it's an old building with thick walls and very few power points in useful places - to the point where to bridge from where to the router is to another part of the building the only feasible was is to use ethernet over power adapters - which work decently with reliable connection strength.
The only downside to this is that none of the routers we have allow setting one of the ethernet ports as restricted guest wifi.
Currently it's set up on different VLANs to seperate out the networks but I know this isn't ideal - some of which comes from the fact that the DHCP IP addresses are coming from the router so, even though the networks are segmented any guest devices get their IP addresses from the same pool as the PCs (Normally on an internal network I'd have a lease time of around a week but I've had to change this to allow for getting different people/devices in every day of the week and still having scope for more so it's currently set to 4 hours).

I could get a VLAN capable switch that also acts as a router (presumably such things exist?) so I could have a different network for my wifi network but still would rather use something more fit for purpose (with it's own firewall rules etc) than a simple VLAN setup (and, if I'm being honest, the VLAN approach makes it a bit harder to understand the network diagram).

Are there any decent priced routers out there that would allow me to use an ethernet port (I only need one for the PC network) as a guest network (I'm sure that back in the day, even with Virgin routers you got the option to enable/disable and assign individual LAN ports to do different things).

Anyway, thanks for all who have got this far through this post and thanks in advance for any advice you may be able to offer.

Mikrotik routers and access points will do most of what you want, but it is quite the learning curve. These are very reasonably priced, but definitely not in the same league as consumer routers. The wireless access points are themselves routers and all share the same interface for configuration. They are also incredibly flexible in that you can configure them as routers or switches. At the moment, I have a 5 port router acting as an access point, not in router mode and I have configured one of the ethernet ports to be part of my guest network. Mainly just because I can

The routers are essentially ethernet WAN in general, so you'll probably need to cut the VM router functionality down to being an interface between DOCSIS or whatever and ethernet.

For your Wireless requirements, you can configure guest and house networks to run from access points over the same cables, using IP address segregation and some rules on the firewall to keep guests from accessing house resources other than the internet. Moreover, you can set up several DHCP servers with different pools altogether, such that your house users can access IP addresses from the house pool and your guest users access IP addresses from the guest pool via a DHCP relay.

I also run MikroTik gear of various types but I think the learning curve may be a bit steep just for this usage scenario, and the added feature/functions etc not really required.

I would suggest Ubiquiti instead. Far gentler learning curve. Will do everything you need VLAN and guest network access. Very easy to setup and great performance, especially with their WiFi access points.

That would be my recommendation here.

A cheap option could be buying mesh wifi. Tp-link's mesh wifi, Deco X10 is advertised for up to 120 clients and costs around £140 for a 3-pack. Although the guest network sits on the same address range as its home network, traffic is isolated - guests can only access the internet. Each of the 3 devices also has two ethernet ports, one would be used for your WAN and the rest used for your home network.

Thanks, I'd not come across Mikrotik routers before (previously used Cisco, Checkpoint, then pfSense in last job - but we didn't have VPNs, just people using RDP over SSH).

I've had a look at their site and am really interested in their devices and ecosystem - a lot of the devices are very reasonably priced (assuming the dollar price equates to a very similar GBP price - it always used to, even when there were around 2 Dollars to the Pound).
I imagine it will as they're a European country so shipping should be pretty easy.

I might not end up using their devices for this issue but I'm pretty sure I'll get one or more of their devices, maybe for use at home or on other projects - the learning curve sounds quite exciting - I've previously dabbled with OpenWRT so would expect the concept to be in a similar vein.

Thanks, I'll look into this - we've already got a TP Link RE200 which I think operates in their mesh system.

With the mesh system, is it possible to use powerline adapters to get network to the wireless access points?

The building is 2 rooms ground floor and 2 first first floor, with a stairwell between them but the stairwell is effectively like a faraday cage not allowing many signals to pass between, at least not a decent signal strength (also hampered by other businesses either side and over the road whose wifi is picked up easily due to it being able to come nicely through the windows). There are no mains sockets in the vicinity of the stairwell to be able to use repeaters.

The powerline adapters work ok, getting in excess of 150Mbps through them and this seems pretty reliable.

In reply to a post by Daveytee:

With the mesh system, is it possible to use powerline adapters to get network to the wireless access points?

If the powerline system is ethernet in, ethernet out, then it will look like ethernet from the ends

In reply to a post by Daveytee:

Thanks, I'd not come across Mikrotik routers before (previously used Cisco, Checkpoint, then pfSense in last job - but we didn't have VPNs, just people using RDP over SSH).

I've had a look at their site and am really interested in their devices and ecosystem - a lot of the devices are very reasonably priced (assuming the dollar price equates to a very similar GBP price - it always used to, even when there were around 2 Dollars to the Pound).
I imagine it will as they're a European country so shipping should be pretty easy.

I might not end up using their devices for this issue but I'm pretty sure I'll get one or more of their devices, maybe for use at home or on other projects - the learning curve sounds quite exciting - I've previously dabbled with OpenWRT so would expect the concept to be in a similar vein.

If the learning curve is something you want, then Mikrotik would be a good choice. I inherited my first one when I moved into the present property and had no choice but a wireless ISP. I got a more suitable ethernet only Mikrotik fairly early on in the wireless ISP contract and set it up with the login credentials for the wireless ISP, keeping the official router in reserve for any issues with the ISP.

When FTTP arrived and we left the wireless ISP, they told me to put their Mikrotik router to land fill. It was locked, but I reset it to factory settings and I have been using it as a wireless access point and learning ever since. I have recently bought a Mikrotik WAP and have blagged a neighbour's old router from wireless ISP days. So that gives me the first 2 for the production network and 2 more to play with. And for what they are, they are professionally capable kit for consumer prices.

As for getting your own, eBay seems to carry quite a choice good enough to play with at least and they are available in the UK from LinITX and probably other suppliers, so no need to order direct from our Baltic pals in Latvia. [Just buy their products and appreciate what they give to us all when they are not under Russian control].

I have written a set of notes solely for my own benefit, which are not complete ie a work in progress, but cover some of the gaps and contain useful links to relevant topics. You would be very welcome to PM me your email address [if that is allowed] and I can email you a copy and will do the same for anyone active on this thread.

My legacy system used powerline adapters to connect wifi access points in the two buildings that form my home. With the Deco mesh wifi I do not need the powerline. Perhaps a Deco close to the top and bottom of your stairwell may be enough to get far higher throughput than using powerline adapters. If not then the 2 NICs on each Deco would allow you to use powerline adapters.