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Number of WiFi Clients Per AP

Posted: Sun May 03, 2015 10:05 am
by jaredabe
I've been asked to determine how many concurrent connections our Stake Center WiFi can support. This is in prep for an area Family History Convention that will be open to the public. Patrons will be bringing their own devices and will need to browse FH related websites.

We have a Cisco 881W and one additional Cisco 1041N AP.

I've seen different numbers as far as how many clients each device can handle. I've seen 25-30 as best practice and I've also seen "technically 2000ish".

If we had, let's say, 200 patrons connecting at once, would these 2 AP's be able to handle the load?

In my opinion, the bottleneck or performance issues would be associated with the available ISP bandwidth (15/5MB).

Re: Number of WiFi Clients Per AP

Posted: Sun May 03, 2015 12:18 pm
by michaelfish
I've been asked to determine how many concurrent connections our Stake Center WiFi can support
tm.lds.org has the information you're looking for, but only certain stake officers can access it. A member of the stake presidency or stake technology specialist can view the status of your firewall, and under the USAGE STATISTICS tab determine what your maximum IP leases are set to.

I would ask your stake technology specialist to help. Newer firewall software configurations will allow the maximum number of IP leases. Under the TOOLS tab is a button to refresh the configuration for the maximum number of IP addresses. Note: He will need to make sure the wires connected to the firewall are connected to the proper ports to ensure everything works correctly. Instructions can be found here (link).

Our stake's firewall is running on the latest configuration which allows 990 concurrent IP leases.

Re: Number of WiFi Clients Per AP

Posted: Sun May 03, 2015 12:32 pm
by michaelfish
Another consideration is how close the wireless access points are in proximity in relation to where the client's devices will be. If the access point is out of range in one area, you may want to consider a room which has a stronger signal or better coverage.

Again, the stake technology specialist can help with this.

Re: Number of WiFi Clients Per AP

Posted: Sun May 03, 2015 12:58 pm
by russellhltn
jaredabe wrote:I've been asked to determine how many concurrent connections our Stake Center WiFi can support.
I'd suggest this thread: Cisco 1040AP client limit
jaredabe wrote:In my opinion, the bottleneck or performance issues would be associated with the available ISP bandwidth (15/5MB).
I think so. It might be a bit lower if there's a 802.11b device in the mix (11Mbit). But there's not much you can do about that.

Do check on the number of IPs that the DHCP will support. If the firewall is still running the older configuration, it may hold the number of IPs lower than 200.

Re: Number of WiFi Clients Per AP

Posted: Mon May 04, 2015 1:36 pm
by johnshaw
I have experience setting up a conference like this for genealogy purposes, depending on what you're doing there are some strategies that are successful - shoot me a PM and we can talk it through if you want.

We dedicated the Stake Center ISP to online streaming from the RootsTech site and dedicated access for trainers/presenters, we downloaded many presentations to save bandwidth for live sessions (I realize there are not live sessions you'll be doing) and then we setup some hot-spots with WiFi-for-Internet capabilities for guest access through the building.

Our issue was guaranteeing presenters access while providing guest access as a 'bonus' - We did some tricky things with the internal Ethernet to work it all out but was pretty successful.

Re: Number of WiFi Clients Per AP

Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 3:07 am
by Mikerowaved
If your concern is maxing out your AP's by the sheer number of connected clients, then the simple answer is to add more AP's. This can easily be done with any typical home router. Yes, the bandwidth will be shared among quite a few users, but at least you'll get them all on line. PM me for details on how to do this, or just grab any tech savvy youth. :)

At the beginning of the convention, I would explain to the patrons the issue and ask that they please minimize their Internet activities unless it directly deals with Family History. Most will understand.

Along those lines, I would also contact your ISP and see if they can bump your speed for that weekend. You never know unless you ask.

Internet Speed Increase for a FHC Event

Posted: Tue May 05, 2015 10:53 am
by pete.arnett
In our area we had a Family Discovery Day - 28 Feb 2015
Here area some of the steps that we suggest you do:
1) Contact your Stake's Technology Specialist (STS) and ask for his help
to confirmed if your ISP has the infrastructure in place to be able to increase your Internet speed​
2) Contact your Stake Building Specialist, (aka, Stake PFR), with permission of your Stake President, and ask your Building Specialist to contact your local Facilities Management Group (FMG) to have the Internet speed increased in your meetinghouse for your Family History event
3) Suggest you request the speed be increased at least two (2) weeks before your event
4) Please do a speed test now and after your increased has been put into place
speedtest.net Note: speedtest.lds.org is no available today
5) Ask your Stake's Technology Specialist (STS) to confirm if your meetinghouse Cisco firewall has been upgraded?
If so, then the meetinghouse public wireless network is on a different address range from the wired Family History Center desktops and laser printers. Patrons wireless laptops will not be able to print to the laser printers in the FHC