You guys/gals at anandtech have always come through for me in past, hopefully you can help me with this next challenge.
I have two hotel conference rooms sharing roadrunner cable internet for my event (a business case competition). Each room is going to be used for a internet research center. Users will likely only need bandwidth for webpages (html stuff). In order to distribute the access (about 40 users in one room, and 15 users in the other), I've located some nice Cisco 2900 series switches and netgear hubs.
My issue is this: People will be coming in and out of these rooms continuously. It may not be feasible to man each room at all times. This hardware is a bit pricey and I would like to not have a single device stolen or damaged.
There is not enough time to install ports and wire the rooms so I can hide the swithces and hubs in a IDF or closet of some sort. I am basically going to have to lay cable from the devices to the point at which a user will place their laptop. [People stealing the cables is acceptable].
Right now, I am toying with the idea of building a wooden box from home depot stuff, in order to conceal what hardware we are using and to make the devices more massive in size to deter theft. I can then also make holes so I can secure these wooden boxes using a chain and lock or a Kensington cable lock. This is a bit ghetto, I know.
I am contacting the hotel to see if they can help, but I need a backup plan.
Any ideas?
Update:
Go to http://www.pac-safe.com to see my solution. It worked out perfectly, just fyi. Thanks for your help everyone.
I have two hotel conference rooms sharing roadrunner cable internet for my event (a business case competition). Each room is going to be used for a internet research center. Users will likely only need bandwidth for webpages (html stuff). In order to distribute the access (about 40 users in one room, and 15 users in the other), I've located some nice Cisco 2900 series switches and netgear hubs.
My issue is this: People will be coming in and out of these rooms continuously. It may not be feasible to man each room at all times. This hardware is a bit pricey and I would like to not have a single device stolen or damaged.
There is not enough time to install ports and wire the rooms so I can hide the swithces and hubs in a IDF or closet of some sort. I am basically going to have to lay cable from the devices to the point at which a user will place their laptop. [People stealing the cables is acceptable].
Right now, I am toying with the idea of building a wooden box from home depot stuff, in order to conceal what hardware we are using and to make the devices more massive in size to deter theft. I can then also make holes so I can secure these wooden boxes using a chain and lock or a Kensington cable lock. This is a bit ghetto, I know.
I am contacting the hotel to see if they can help, but I need a backup plan.
Any ideas?
Update:
Go to http://www.pac-safe.com to see my solution. It worked out perfectly, just fyi. Thanks for your help everyone.