Small-office networking: the three parts, what to buy and what to budget

Who this is for: an office of five to fifty people that has outgrown the router the ISP supplied and wants Wi-Fi that works in every room, wired desks that do not drop, and a setup someone can support.

The three parts

A router (the ISP’s fibre box or a business router) connects you to the internet. A switch gives you wired ports, one per desk, printer and camera, and with PoE it powers access points and cameras over the same cable. Access points give Wi-Fi; one good ceiling access point covers roughly 100–150 m² of open office, so a typical small office needs two to four rather than one router in the corner.

What to buy

For most small offices the TP-Link Omada or ASUS business ranges are the right fit: managed from one app, expandable, and priced for SMEs. A managed PoE switch with 16–24 ports, two to four Wi-Fi 6 access points, and the ISP router set to hand off to them. Mercusys covers very small budgets; Hikvision’s switches suit sites that also run their cameras.

Cabling is the part people skip

Wi-Fi is for laptops and phones; desktops, printers, the till and every camera should be on a cable. Cat6 cabling to each desk, terminated in a small wall rack, is a one-time job that removes most “the network is slow” calls for a decade.

Security basics that cost nothing extra

Change the default admin passwords, put guest Wi-Fi on its own network so visitors never touch office machines, and keep the firmware updated. A managed setup makes all three a checkbox.

What to budget

A two-access-point, 16-port PoE setup for a small office lands around R8,000–R15,000 in equipment; cabling is quoted per point after a survey. StepEdge designs, cables and installs across Gauteng, and hands the office a network a non-technical manager can see from one app.

See networking, or call +27 11 023 8740.