On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 16:30:34 -0700, Bart <bart@icpage.com> wrote:
>I'm in the process of setting up a free neighborhood hotspot using the
>WRT54GS.
>
>Is there some theoretically limit to the number of simultaneous
>connections or users with using this AP?
>
>How many connection can you have before it become unusable?
The theoretical limit is 253 connections as limited by the DHCP server
and the number IP's that can be NAT translated and routed by the IP
stack. I've actually connected with about 150 simulated network
connections, with a different router, with few ill effects. However,
there was little traffic involved.
The practical limit really depends on the type of users and the
backhaul. The cynical rule of thumb is:
100 typical light home users
10 typical business users
1 downloader
This is largely true as one user can easily saturate your entire
bandwidth depending on what they are doing. Someone firing off a
bittorrent session can saturate all your bandwidth indefinately. To
solve this problem, many access points and hot spots offer bandwidth
management or QoS features. These will limit the amount of bandwidth
an individual connection can monopolize. At that point, the number of
users is limited by the bandwidth managers rule set. You may also
want to tinker with the speed, as a high speed connection will hog
more bandwidth than a slow connection.
You might wanna slog through:
|
http://www.intel.com/business/bss/in...nt/hotspot.pdf
which covers much of the basics (except for bandwidth management).
Also, be sure to look into dedicated firmware for running a hot spot.
http://www.sveasoft.com http://www.hyperwrt.org
etc...
--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
#
jeffl@comix.santa-cruz.ca.us
#
jeffl@cruzio.com AE6KS
WRT54GS used as neighborhood HotSpot 
Linear Mode
