Best Practice in Testing Client Hardware

[Colin_Steadman]

I've had a complaint from a lecturer that wireless was rubbish when he connected 15 laptops to one of our wireless access points in a class room. I've been up and tested after this event and didn't see any issues with it:

• Bandwidth was 7-8Mbps down (exactly what we limit it too) and 34Mbsp up (unrestricted).
• Coverage was all green on the survey I did.
• No interferers detected at the time of testing.

I would therefore like to test that his laptops are up to scratch incase they are responsible for his poor connectivity somehow but am unsure about how to go about this.

Could anyone suggest any tests I could perform on one of them to ensure they aren't the bottleneck in this case.

Thanks,

Colin

[Ronald_Dvorak]

You could enable Flexible Client Access so slower b/g clients don't mess up the thruput of 802.11n devices.
> VNS > Global > Flexible Client Access - set to 100% Airtime Fairness
> VNS > WLAN Services > "NAME" > QoS - Flexible Client Access enabled

[Jarek]

What standard do you use b, g, n, a ?
If you can tell what equipment do you use ? Is it some SOHO device like Dlink/Tplink etc. ?

1) For example, if you have 1 AP standard B/G in the room and it is broadcasting their SSID (it is open for all),
it is possible that you will have some problems with WiFi.

You write that there are 15 laptops in this room, when all will talk in the same time,
sending/receiving data with maximum speed,( maybe some laptops update the system etc.) network will slow down.
Remember also that most people have smartphones and the devices could have Wifi card enabled.
In this moment all devices will connect to this only one AP. (more than 15)

Have you any log how many devices was connected in the same time to this AP?

2) Maybe someone put their phone in Router/AP mode on the same channel as AP ?
Then you will have interferences.

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Jarek

[Colin_Steadman]

Just one. I didn't hear about the issue until after the event unfortunately. I've asked the person who reported it to book the room and bring his devices along for testing at his earliest convenience, but haven't heard back from him yet.

Because I know the wireless network is OK, I want to find a way of eliminating his laptops from the equation.

[Jarek]

Did you tested the network with 15 laptops or only one ?

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Jarek