Max number of clients per AP

[clyde.wilson]

I am using a 1200 AP in a clinical area for wireless access. It only runs 802.11b. I have about 25 clients in this area connected all the time. We just went live with this yesterday and the wireless devices keep dropping the connection to the AP. Is there a "agreed upon" max number of clients per AP. I have already done a site survey and the signal strength is good to excellent throughout the entire area.

[p.krane]

I have read documents that recommends the association of 20-30 clients per AP, because this situation gives 300 Kbps for each user. But ultimately it depends on the various factors thats why Site survey is very important in wireless networks.

[sushilk]

Hi,

As tested and suggested by Cisco you can connect up to 30 users. You need to understand that wireless is a shared mesium. Any bandwidth you are using will be equally shared by all the users.

802.11b says a bandwidth of 11Mbps, but the actual through put will vart between 5-6Mbps. So this bandwidth will be shared between all the users.

There is no "agreed upon" max number of clients per AP.

Regards

Sushil

[jroyster]

Totally agree with Sushil.

It all depends on the application and what you're trying to do.

For me...

Video - 4-5

Voice - 6

General web browsing - 10

"network friendly app" - 20.

[estein]

I know there's no definite answer to the question of how many users an AP can support. But I'm wondering if APs are more sensitive to increased numbers of users when they are doing something more complex like 802.1x authentication, versus when users are doing a simpler static 128 bit WEP encryption? We've seen problems since moving to 802.1x authentication that are more pronounced during higher AP usage. But when we were simply using static WEP encryption we had almost no issues.