Wireless N sufficient enough for 15+ laptops?

[broomop]

very basic question:

 

Wireless N sufficient enough for 15+ laptops?

 

We will be using ZyXEL’s WAC6103D-I AP's for this. I want to make sure my legacy equipment will still work.

 

I have been told by some company's that you will need AC because of the Dual Band etc. But i don't believe it purely because there was a time where AC did not exist.

 

Any suggestions?

[Sagima]

It depends a bit on what you use them for but I've had a class of 24 laptops running adequately (I wouldn't go as far as saying "well") with N

[broomop]

It depends a bit on what you use them for but I've had a class of 24 laptops running adequately (I wouldn't go as far as saying "well") with N

 

OK, lets say general research on google for images and information on things. Playing some flash educational games. I can understand that it won't work really amazing. Logging in locally and using the resources would this be a issue?

[Sagima]

As long as that access point supports that number of connection I think it would be fine. That's exactly how we used to run the primary laptop suites

[synaesthesia]

You're probably mixing things up a little. It doesn't matter what tech they're using really - plenty of people remember running 30 laptops from one or two Wireless B APs at 11Mbps without issue. It's more to do with the capability of the AP(s). With the likes of UniFi managed systems being so cheap, many people have moved away from the standalone points. (Something I'm glad of. I remember, not fondly, managing multiple schools who's wireless solution was a crap D-Link access point screwed to the laptop trolley.)

[mavhc]

Firstly what laptops, what wifi cards have they got?

 

What are they going to be doing, word/internet, photos/graphics, video/3d? Streaming videos?

 

How many streams? What speed connection back to the network? What other wifi devices nearby? What wireless controller?

[broomop]

You're probably mixing things up a little. It doesn't matter what tech they're using really - plenty of people remember running 30 laptops from one or two Wireless B APs at 11Mbps without issue. It's more to do with the capability of the AP(s). With the likes of UniFi managed systems being so cheap, many people have moved away from the standalone points. (Something I'm glad of. I remember, not fondly, managing multiple schools who's wireless solution was a crap D-Link access point screwed to the laptop trolley.)

If you look up my model its one of the latest AP types and not some cheap wireless point. I just want to prove a point because i am kind of getting frustrated with this company.

[synaesthesia]

ZyXel kit is usually quite good, no problems there. Compared to a UniFi AC Pro at just over £100 though, not many benefits. Haven't seen many out in deployment though, would be interesting to see performance figures.

 

If it's any help, a single Unifi Standard (older Wireless N model, £40 each) here has supported 30 laptops and 10 iPads simultaneously without a problem, so anything more modern would be more than good enough with the correct tech behind it. Not dual band, but the newer unifi kit certainly is.

 

It's amazing what some companies will do to try and sell you the kit they make the highest markup on!

Edited June 29, 2016 by synaesthesia

[ITJS2015]

I would look at your back bone switches your NIC card and APs

 

Look at how many connection that a AP can host

Look at your bandwith between your downloads of streaming of or searching at the same time

Look at the Dual Band NIC cards as if its only a single channel it will not go above 75mbps

 

Wireless AC is 400mbps and would still work on with dual Band wireless N cards, depending on cost and how much you would get out of them as budgets are being slashed either N cards or AC card will work well

[broomop]

hp 250 g4 laptops are the ones we have and a load of legacy toshibas. However we are interested in the hp 250 g4 laptops working ok with windows 10. Realtek RTL8723BE wifi adapter.

[mavhc]

RTL8723 seems to be "Complete 802.11n 1T1R (1x1) solution for 2.4GHz band"

 

Does it support 5GHz?

 

Dual band and AC are 2 different things, can have one without the other, AC is only 5GHz anyway

 

Is this the only wifi in the building?

[ITJS2015]

Depending on your wifi you can set both 2.4 and 5ghz on your Aps

 

Unifi APs have this option available and we don't have any problems at all. We have Ipads Macbooks Iphones Samsung tablets connecting at differently

[broomop]

we have 15 ZyXEL’s WAC6103D-I covering the whole school and it can have two separate frequencys.

[ITJS2015]

I think there telling you that if you get Laptops with AC cards are future proof even if your APs are not AC compatible they still should work with your existing wireless with 2.4 and 5ghz

 

It just means that your laptops will only connect to 300mbps if your APs are wireless N

[broomop]

I think there telling you that if you get Laptops with AC cards are future proof even if your APs are not AC compatible they still should work with your existing wireless with 2.4 and 5ghz

 

It just means that your laptops will only connect to 300mbps if your APs are wireless N

They told me to upgrade because it won't work otherwise. I just need a second opinion because the teachers i am with will side the company. This is why i am mainly asking for opinions to show i am not mental and i know as long as the Network infrastructure is sound it will work. Because i think they know there is some issues with the network and using AC to just hide the issues or something.

[ITJS2015]

There is always going to be issues with wireless, drivers updates for Nic Cards, power consumptions with wireless cards, how high should your wireless key be.

 

What is your back bone on your switches ? 10gb switch or 1gb switch ?

[mavhc]

It will work of course, question is will it be a) fast enough, b) reliable enough, c) cost more in the long term to pick something cheaper today.

 

Ask them for more technical details, if they can't provide them, or what they provide doesn't answer your questions, you know they're just marketing drones

[broomop]

There is always going to be issues with wireless, drivers updates for Nic Cards, power consumptions with wireless cards, how high should your wireless key be.

 

What is your back bone on your switches ? 10gb switch or 1gb switch ?

1Gbit netgear switches i believe but only 5 ap's on each one. I have tested legacy laptops on it and they are working fine 70 teachers all over the school and no issues.

[broomop]

It will work of course, question is will it be a) fast enough, b) reliable enough, c) cost more in the long term to pick something cheaper today.

 

Ask them for more technical details, if they can't provide them, or what they provide doesn't answer your questions, you know they're just marketing drones

Yeah thanks for the advice.

[mavhc]

Wi-Fi gets multi-gigabit, multi-user boost with upgrades to 802.11ac | Ars Technica

 

Note the multi user part

[broomop]

thanks for your help guys, i found the issues was related to them either a) purposely making it slow or b) not knowing what they are doing. They had the wireless set to 20mhz which reduced the whole wireless N bandwidth by half which left little room for devices to even do anything. I enabled this to 40mhz i did some tweaking on windows updates (it was maxing the wireless connections to 40mbit/sec or something stupid) and i did tests with 10 laptops and it was ok. Thanks for your feedback guys.

[ITGURU]

We regularly have 30 laptops connected through one D-Link Wireless N AP - typically we get 2 or 3 where it doesn't map all the drives first time, but a log off and back on sorts this.

 

They are all single band 2.4ghz.

[broomop]

We regularly have 30 laptops connected through one D-Link Wireless N AP - typically we get 2 or 3 where it doesn't map all the drives first time, but a log off and back on sorts this.

 

They are all single band 2.4ghz.

Nice to know this thanks a lot.

[m25man]

Using 40Mhz channels on 2.4Ghz is not recommended especially in areas of high density.

We all know that there are only 3 non overlapping channels on 2.4Ghz 1,6,11 and if you set your 2.4Ghz radios to 40Mhz you now only have 2 channels to use! 1 & 11.

You will raise your noise thresholds and limit your effective range and throughputs.

 

If you only have 1 AP and are well away from your nearest neighbour fine, 40Mhz might get you 300Mbs on a 3x3

But in a dense noisy 2.4Ghz environment 65Mbps is all you can expect on a single chain.

Your provider did nothing wrong but implement best practices.

 

When your clients outside of this room start to report connection issues and drop outs, your 40Mhz channels will be the 1st thing to change back.

Get dual band or .AC you know it makes sense (but only if your clients can use it).

[mavhc]

Sometimes it's worth upgrading the wifi cards in your laptops too