Access Point / WiFi Router...

[bob4432]

i have a wrt54g linksys router. now i know the 4 port switch on the back gives 100Mb/s to each port, but the wirelss part, is that a swith or hub? is the 54Mb/s total bandwidth shared between all connections to the router on the wireless side or is it the amount per each connection?

thanks in advance

 

[nweaver]

You can't really call it a switch or a hub, it's an AP. There are many many many things that effect wireless speed, including channel load, channel noise, signal to noise ratio, signal strength, etc. I have seen multiple machines each eat close to their 54 in ftp transfers, but that is in a VERY controlled enviroment, i.e. copper room, isolation chambers for the AP, ftp transfers and high end gear.

 

[kevnich2]

It's more similar to a hub than a switch. The bandwidth on the wireless side is shared amongst the wireless clients.

 

[JackMDS]

If you are talking about dumb switch and Entry level Router. Each port on a switch is capable to run 100Mb/sec. Each Wireless client can run 54Mb/sec.

If your convern is Internet traffic the amount of the combined flow would not be larger than the Internet source no matter if you use Wire or Wireless. For local LAN traffic the total amount of Wireless traffic at any given momenet can not excced 54Mb/sec.

As far as the real "Speed", peer-to-peer home Network would not yield the rated Mb/sec. numbers to begin with, http://www.ezlan.net/net_speed.html

How many concurrent users can surf the Internet through the same Wireless Connection?
http://www.ezlan.net/faq#wconcurrent

:sun:

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: kevnich2
It's more similar to a hub than a switch. The bandwidth on the wireless side is shared amongst the wireless clients.

Correct. I think it is still some form of CSMA/CD. Like an ethernet hub.

you get to talk if you don't hear anybody talking.

 

[ktwebb]

Correct, though it's collision avoidance. CSMA/CA But yeah, the AP to hub analogy is accurate if what your talking about is how the bandwidth is distributed.

 

[bob4432]

i should have stated in the first post i am talking purely theoretical tansfer speeds here, like if i had 5 machines in the same room as the ap where signal strength would be 100%. so in theory i have 5 machines connected to the ap and i am transfering 1GB files to each machine on the lan (not internet) side, then each machine in theory should get 10.8Mbs (again purely theoretical). as far as internet i am on a 5Mbs down connection so i know i would be fine for quite a few peeps if i wanted to.

thanks for the info, i just wasn't sure exactly how it worked and wanted to verify.

 

[spidey07]

Theoretically one machine will dominate the bandwidth and get most of the speed.

So you can't really just divy it up and divide by 5.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: spidey07
Theoretically one machine will dominate the bandwidth and get most of the speed.

So you can't really just divy it up and divide by 5.

would this be the first machine to start the large file transfer? the ap won't load balance?

 

[spidey07]

The AP doesn't care to an extent.

It is the IP stack and the way TCP works when under constrained resources (a half-duplex medium like wireless or a congested WAN link). But we'd be getting deep into TCP theory if we went there.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: spidey07
The AP doesn't care to an extent.

It is the IP stack and the way TCP works when under constrained resources (a half-duplex medium like wireless or a congested WAN link). But we'd be getting deep into TCP theory if we went there.

thanks for the info, don't need to go to deep here. i will read about it.

 

[spidey07]

lots of stuff with this...

tcp behavior window loss csma ca

 

[gnef]

can you guys give some links? i'd be interested in learning more about this topic. thanks!