Obviously the most important factor in every internet café is, well, as far as the name already

provides, the internet connection. The very backbone of what has become a very lucrative
business of opening and maintaining internet and cyber cafés is in how it is able to offer to
customers functional and efficient internet speeds without them having to commit to the
admittedly large monthly service fees local ISPs offer, so that they may be able to go about their
business, nowadays mostly in online gaming, from MMORPGs to MOBAs such as Dota 2 and
LoL, both of which heavily rely on the internet for its matchmaking protocols. And don’t even get
me started on the Filipino’s obsession with various social media such as Facebook, Twitter, hell
even Youtube.

Most, if not all, of these services necessitate good internet speed, otherwise your patrons
experience lag, long buffering teams, and the like – all of which lead to bad customer
experience. The difficulty with internet setups in internet cafés, however, is that because
multiple computers are connected to the same lines that the café uses, the bandwidth is divided
among the customers.

[img source: http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3pz4o2]

It’s simple fractions, really: the more customers that share a line (denominator), the slower the
line (numerator) is, as its bandwidth is divided among peers. The solution to this major hurdle,
however, is far from simple. One cannot just reduce the denominator in an attempt to increase
the overall value of the fraction, as less customers obviously means bad for business. On the
other hand, the numerator cannot just be increased endlessly, as the hurdles of price and ISP
capabilities both stand in the way.

It becomes the task of the owner to find the most efficient way possible to provide good internet
speed to its customers without diminishing the number of operating stations, or spending
enormous amounts of cash for redundant internet lines. How does one do this? By touching
neither the numerator or the denominator, but the fraction bar itself: making the process of
dividing the bandwidth as efficient as possible.

There are multiple ways to go about fixing the fraction bar, all of which can be divided into two
main categories: hardware and software solutions.

Hardware solutions involve the use of advanced routers that offer solutions beyond the regular
RnR (restart n’ reset) method. High level routers such as the Mikrotik RouterBOARD not only
divide the bandwidth as its redirected to the computers, but it also, in simple terms, cleans the
dividing process so that nothing is wasted, and everything is usable in the frontend. Routers like
this also often are able to divide the bandwidth not through the principle of equity, but of
efficiency: not all users demand the same download and/or upload speed, depending on what
they’re doing. Good routers are able to detect the demand and are able to provide properly,
without lack or excess.

[img source: https://www.roc-noc.com/Mikrotik/RouterBoard/RB1200.html]

If hardware solutions are top-down solutions, we can consider software solutions as their
bottom-up counterparts. Software such as the Kerio Firewall offers the similar principles of
cleaner and efficient dividing, but applies it from the other end, from the individual computers
themselves.
 [img source: http://pager.asia/topics/kerio-personal-firewall/]

There are multiple ways to address the bandwidth question, either through hardware and/or
software. These are just some of the particular ways that we’ve tried, tested, and found the
results to be enough to merit our recommendations.