Wirelsss Bandwidth Throttling

[Warwick_Tech]

Hi All,

 

Do any of you use bandwidth throttling on your WIFI networks?

 

My BM is asking if 10mbps throttle is sufficient, but not had any complaints before...

 

[RobD]

There's an argument that you shouldn't throttle at all. I.e. let the heavy user download and get off the network as fast as possible.

This guy talks about it (although he's talking about rate limiting via the switch):

https://wlanprofessionals.com/the-netflix-effect-on-guest-wi-fi-jim-palmer-wlpc-phoenix-2019/

[Warwick_Tech]

There's an argument that you shouldn't throttle at all. I.e. let the heavy user download and get off the network as fast as possible.

This guy talks about it (although he's talking about rate limiting via the switch):

https://wlanprofessionals.com/the-netflix-effect-on-guest-wi-fi-jim-palmer-wlpc-phoenix-2019/

 

Interesting, see we put it in place to prevent torrents initially, but then that changed to watching 4K movies on Disney+....

 

I don't think we will find a definitive answer, but all opinions welcome of course

[DalekSec]

No throttling here, what speeds do you have? We have 10gbps download, 1gbps by time it goes over our OM1! 300Mbps with WiFi as only AC. Never had any issues with speed

[paulkerton]

On a guest connection I used to limit it at one of my old roles. Anywhere between 2Mbps - 10Mbps depending on what was happening on site that day and what we needed for T&L.

[Warwick_Tech]

No throttling here, what speeds do you have? We have 10gbps download, 1gbps by time it goes over our OM1! 300Mbps with WiFi as only AC. Never had any issues with speed

 

The backbone is all 10GBS but the internet is 1GB up/down

 

I also checked and forgot to throttle the student WiFi (whoops)

 

My BM is asking to cost up a whole system replacement (which seems extreme in my opinion) so anyone have any companies they can reccomend?

[RobD]

I can recommend Adam at MSP lab. https://msplab.cloud/

 

Knows his stuff and he used to work in School IT (with me).

[DGardiner]

Interesting, see we put it in place to prevent torrents initially, but then that changed to watching 4K movies on Disney+....

 

I don't think we will find a definitive answer, but all opinions welcome of course

 

its a guest network meant for internet access not streaming, block all the usual suspect bandwidth hogs and leave it uncapped

[Boredguy]

We have the network card on our NAT box for guest Wifi configured as a 100Mb instead of 1Gb to throttle the handful of users we have on it, but thats mainly just to ensure we have more than sufficient on the network stations themselves since giving guest/BYoD access is a bonus not a requirement

[chazzy2501]

I do similar except 10 down 2 up. (as we 80/20 on the guest access) you can still white list certain devices.

[psydii]

We don't have caps here, despite 1000 students on the network with their phones. AC wireless 1Gb/s internet line. No throttling and No performance issues seen. Might be different if we were a Uni, but we'd probably apply filtering/limits at the core/firewall level rather than at the APs

 

From the Wifi perspective airtime management in the all the brands of APs we evaluated back in 2018 were perfectly capable of equitably carving up access to various classes of user with out us having to apply bandwidth management.

[msi_school]

I have a friend who does massive Wireless setups for supermarket chains and writes courses for CCNA and he advises not to do any throttling on the Wireless, if you need it do it upstream.

 

You want the data to travel over the air as fast as possible because it is a shared medium and the wireless kit is generally a bit gutless so it bogs the traffic down even more.