How many simualtaneous users can WRT54G handle? [closed]
I am need to setup wifi connection for an expected audience of 100 users connected via Laptops. I currently have 3 802.11 G routers, that are all designed for home usage such as the WRT54G APs. Google didn't really turn up anything helpful. And will the 54Mbits connection be shared among the number of connected users as well? Any tips and experience in setting up wifi for conferences would be great. Thanks.
Update: The clients will be a mix of a/b/g/n. Although we won't be supporting n. The internet pipe is a 8 Mbits and isn't that great. But there is an internal file sharing that part of the event as well other than internet. Instead of WRT54G, if there are other better options such as RouterStation or installing OpenWRT I am all ears. Tried out a priliminary test and it is like everyone has commented below. Trying to get even up to 10 client connected was not an easy chore.
Update2: DHCP will be handled by a Ubuntu Server.
Solution 1:
See The “WiFi At Conferences” Problem by Joel Spolsky
and
Why is Internet access and Wi-Fi always so terrible at large tech conferences?
Solution 2:
Even with good enterprise grade Access Points like Cisco Aironet 1200's and with a managed environment (with WDS\WLSE etc infrastructure) you will struggle to sustain >10 active users per AP on 2.4Ghz. If you can use 5Ghz 802.11n\a then you may be able to hit 30 concurrent users and still get acceptable web browsing traffic. To set this sort of thing up properly you would need about 10 AP's with 2.4Ghz kit and you can not do that reliably without using a management system so you can be certain you are getting effective cell coverage and managing interference. Even if you do that the various 2.4Ghz client devices tend to misbehave a lot so if you cannot ensure a uniform set of clients you will struggle to get this to work consistently especially in an environment with a lot of warm wet human bodies moving around.
If you need to support 60 concurrent users in a reasonable space with 5Ghz WiFi standards things are a lot easier - there are (many) more non-overlapping channels available, the RF environment is much cleaner, the Client devices that support 5Ghz are generally much better behaved and you have that basic carrying capacity on each channel that is higher. You might be able to get away with just two but with 3 AP's it should work pretty well for 60 users provided none of them are doing unfriendly things like bit-torrenting or live-video streaming and you have an internet uplink that is fast enough - 100Mbps or so would be ideal.
Solution 3:
From personal experience, we had 2 of these for 80-odd people in a classroom, and they worked, but we had to reset them constantly--They are just built not for that type of use.
Josh
Solution 4:
Another question about using the WRT54G beyond its operational capability. You're lucky if you can get >10 clients to connect to it, and still have reasonable performance.
If you want really good wireless, you're going to have to pay for it. You'll want Cisco Aironet 1200 access points, maybe a WLAN controller too.
I'd say that you're probably going to need to fork out between 1000 and 3000 USD, ish, and that's before you start thinking about the fat pipe you're going to have to share.
I could spend ages architecting the Ideal Conference Wifi Solution, but I don't think the market is there for it.