Wireless connectivity issues

asfsc2006 · ‎09-27-2006

Hi. We are a very small organization that uses wireless connection. We use a Linksys router, with 4 PC's connected. We increased to 6 employees and now the connection is constantly on and off (worst than before). Our IT consultant suggested us to go to wired. Is this the only solution or is there something else we can do to don't waste the existing wireless investment?

tbramwe · ‎09-27-2006

Paula:

Your data throughput is mostly dependent on your internet connection and the contract you have with the ISP. If there are six users on a 1.5Mbps connection (for example) it is possible for one user to consume more bandwidth downloading a large file while the others suffer in the balance. Wired access will use the same amount of bandwidth for the same users but allow you to specify the connection speed through the switch and shape your data traffic. A larger internet pipe will provide better response times, although it will add cost.

It may be beneficial to check your access point and be sure it is secure. I have attached the example chapter from a book on wireless security, which should lead you in a direction to prevent unauthorized users from "piggybacking" on your internet connection. If your access point is not secure chances are someone (or more) individuals may be using you as their ISP.

Hope that helps a little. If this does not answer your question please post more specifics and we can reply.

Thanks.

Tom

asfsc2006 · ‎09-27-2006

Tom, thanks. I checked with our ISP and in fact we were at 1.5Mbps connection. If I understood correctly, increasing the current speed should make some diferrence. I upgraded our connection to 3.0/7.68 at not extra charge. I hope this fixes the problem, we will see tomorrow. Thanks for your comments!

robert.wright · ‎11-28-2006

If your refering to the clients acctually looses connectivity to the AP, then this has nothing to do with your ISPs connection.

Wireless is a rather fragile technology in terms of howmany different items can effect it. You may have a neighbor who recently purchased an AP who overlaps with yours causing co-channel interference (CCI) or maybe adjacent channel interference. Also there are known issues with several manufactors cards where depending on your driver version, they can suffer from self strangulation.

Simply put by the amount of information that you have presented to us, it isnt enough. Heck the luch room microwave can cause this as well. =)

One thing i should note, that while the ISP connection does control your speed to the internet it does NOT control the speed between the client and the AP.

jipurser · ‎11-30-2006

Robert makes a great point here. Wireless is a two way communication, so the client and the AP must agree on how to transfer data. I have had MANY issues with laptops with built in WiFi and their sporadic connectivity. Cisco AP's are normally tolerant of other client chipsets. But check and see if the client is a Broadcom based chipset, updating the drivers can really go a long way. On the Linksys stuff, make sure the preambles (long, short or auto) match on both the client and the AP. Start will auto and then go to long if that does not work. Play around with it and see. Some vendors play loose and fast with the 802.11 standards to improve performance like cheating on the CTS timers that kinda stuff...

flopez · ‎02-08-2007

One thing you may want to do is go online and google a Speedtest to find out what you are guys are using.

We have ran into the same scenario at one of our offices with only 6 employees. If you increase their bandwidth and can, great. But when you can not... oh.oh. It helps to know what bandwidth they are using.

Check out this link to do a speed test. There are many of them on the web.

http://www.dslreports.com/stests