How many connections can an AP support, and at what speeds?
Q: How many clients can a typical single host-AP support and if there are several clients connected, does each users connection to the AP (not to the internet, just to the ap) slow down?
In other words, if one user connects to an AP that is 802.11g and gets 27 Mbps from the Nic to the AP, do subsequent connections split the speed or do all clients get 27 Mpbs from their devices to the AP?
1 connection: ~27 Mbps
2 connections: ~13.5 Mbps each client
4 connections: ~7 Mbps each client
...and so on, you can see that moving in on 16 connections the speed would drop to 1.5 Mbps if that were true.
The connection speed itself isn't dropped when more users connect, but the throughput of data is. I.e. you can have 100 people connect to an access point at 54Mbit, but when they start using data that's when you'll see the difference.
The thing is not everyone will be using the network 100% of the time. I.e. you'll never have 100 people trying to download as fast as they can. You may have a couple of people doing this and the others downloading a web page or something.
The connection speed itself isn't dropped when more users connect, but the throughput of data is. I.e. you can have 100 people connect to an access point at 54Mbit, but when they start using data that's when you'll see the difference.