Korean Job Discussion Forums

[chotaerang]

I'm opening a cafe and want to offer wireless internet access. Is this just a matter of contacting KT and getting their wireless service or is it more comlex considering multiple users? Thanks in advance.

[Wrench]

No you have to purchase a router with wireless capabilities or an access point. If you do offer this as a service I recommand that you secure your wireless.

[chiaa]

Don't foget that you have to tape off the area with the special yellow internet zone tape.

[BigBlackEquus]

And have some extra outlets near the window seats (or wherever you want them to sit using notebooks).

It's often comical to see the people jockying for position near the closest power outlet, and the scramble to pick up the notebook, coat, and coffee in a rush to claim the seat when someone near one leaves. Batteries just don't last a long time.

Unless they have the guts to run a cord along the floor that anyone can trip on.

I keep wondering when the busy Starbucks near home will start asking some of the laptop users to either buy another coffee or leave, so someone else can have the seat.

Or better yet, have an employee walk around with a pitcher of hot coffee, offering refills for 2000 won. If they say no, bother the person about 3 more times in the next 10 minutes, and they'll either buy or leave.

Be careful you don't turn into a free PC Bang that sells coffee on the side.

[BigBlackEquus]

I just finished a 2 day experiment with wireless in my home, and I took the thing back.

After dinking around with the thing, and reading A LOT online, I have come to the conclusion that wireless just ain't there YET unless you're willing to bypass the home units and spend some more serious money on a professional unit, and have someone who really knows what they're doing. And even then, it seems, it's a pain in the neck. They go down often. Some people had problems daily. Others weekly. Resetting them is more than just unplugging them or pushing a button. They can be quite complicated for the novice. You have to take time to get them back up and running again. The range just isn't all that great (unless you invest more money in repeaters, and that is another learning curve). They just don't seem powerful enough at the consumer level (not in Korea, at least, where they might have regulated the power output).

Something easy you could do is get a router and hard-wire five ports by the window. Purchase self-winding cords for each outlet, so they can just pull them out and plug them into their laptops. Then they can actually surf at full power, and you'd keep the laptop users from taking up two seats at once.

At 54mps, I found surfing to be more painful than fun, and the wireless networks seem to pause a lot while loading pages, which drives me batty. And that was about a meter from the unit. Much farther from that, it went down to 48mps. Then it went further down as I got further away. It had to be line-of-sight to do much of anything, and the unit had to be lower than the computer (or stuck to the ceiling pointing down) to avoid antenna dead-spots. This could vary, of course, depending on your unit.

Either way, if you decide to go wireless for sure, stay away from cheapee brands. Go to a computer store where they have some experience and understanding of what units are powerful enough. Oh, and read online about placement of the things, and styles of antennas. Very important.

[chotaerang]

Thanks very much BBE, I may end up following that advice exactly.

[BigBlackEquus]

Double Post.

Never seen a site with so many Timeouts, Cannot Connect to the Database, etc....

[BigBlackEquus]

Double post.

[BigBlackEquus]

Ok, I still like the idea of having some full-speed outlets running off of a router, but I may have been a little TOO negative on wireless, given that I had a really crappy unit from a cheap company (I-Link) that I bought at Hi-Mart.

After seeing that power that Chiaa's NETGEAR unit has, and reading up online some more, I would recommend NETGEAR. It sounds like the NETGEAR WPN824 RangeMax is the model I would be going with. It has the newer "SuperG" technology, for those who have the cards for it. It will max out a 108mps, or jump down to 54 or below for the rest of us. And it sounds a whole lot more stable and easier to operate/set up. Cost is about 130,000 for one of these units, but sounds well worth it, because they are more powerful than most things out there, and set up easy.

That's my recommendation. I am tempted to pick one up just to play with it.

Second choice would be Linksys (cheaper at closer to 70,000 won, but not as powerful).

NETGEAR got a rating of 3rd from CNET, but when you read through the whole thing, they admit that it did much better than they rated it, because they penalized it for "not playing friendly" with other brands in the area and stomping on their signal!!!

One thing is for sure, the folks from the opposing companies are working overtime to bash NETGEAR, as they try to fill CNET with some obvious trolls to drop the rating.

If I buy this until, I'll let you know how it goes.

[Bulsajo]

I have a D-link Super G router. It's awesome.

[BigBlackEquus]

How does the D-Link do with disconnections? The I-Link (cheap Taiwan unit sold at Hi-mart) probably was meant to sound like a D-Link. It would cut out a lot and have to be reset often.

How about yours? How often do you have to reset it? Do you have to go into the web software to reset it? I did with mine, but I know some don't have to do that. How is yours?

[Bulsajo]

It's great. All my problems stem from my cable modem and ISP; The router functions like a champ. I think I've had to reset it once. As for "software" I think it's industry standard (though I could be wrong) that you go to the router's IP address with your web browser to access the firmware. anyway that's what i do and it sounds like that's what you're talking about too. Quite happy with D-link's router firmware. Knock-offs are going to give you knock-off quality, I guess. and with the respected 'name brand' companies' routers so cheap, why get a cheapie?

[BigBlackEquus]

My unit was 100,000 won!!! I thought it was a reputable company, since it was the only brand the "well-known/expensive/reputable" Hi-Mart company offered. I wasn't trying to GO cheap, it just turned out to be cheap.

Hi-Mart now has a used unit they will have to return to the company, or take the hit for and sell at a discount. Serves them right selling that piece of trash.

[Bulsajo]

Holy crap! I paid $99 Cdn for a D-Link Air ExtremeG Di-624 router + DWL-G650 wireless pcmcia card bundle.

[BigBlackEquus]

Exactly.

Lots of high-quality units for a lot cheaper than 100,000 won!

I am still thinking of springing for the expensive top-of-the-line home unit by Netgear, though.