High client density, low cost wifi network? [closed]

Solution 1:

Is this 100 simultaneous clients total or 100 simultaneous clients per access point? Either way accomplishing this on your budget with any semblance of reliability will be incredibly difficult if not impossible, although the former is within the realm of possibility, just not your budget unfortunately.

The reason you don't find any data on how many simultaneous clients consumer-grade access points can support is that consumer-grade access point barely support a dozen clients. They are just not designed for this type of use case. Cisco's recommendation is 24 clients per access point and that is with "enterprise-grade" Aironet equipment (reference).

There is no product/s in the market that I'm aware of that can accomplish your goals within your budget. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying. Robust industry grade 802.11 networking is very difficult to do right and thus correspondingly expensive.

I would avoid DD-WRT (especially DD-wRT! UGH!) and consumer grade access points if at all possible. You'll be better served by putting your existing budget towards hiring a specialty contractor to temporarily setup and rent you a wireless infrastructure or investing in proper equipement.