How many laptops to a wireless AP?

[Stephen Ryan]

On Sat, 2009-02-28 at 10:22 -0500, Pam McLeod wrote:
> Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I read this as the number of
> supported WIRED connections!  Many of the wireless routers also have
> several wired ports.  I really don't think this is talking about
> signal strength through the air - I've never heard of a WAP which will
> support hundreds of wireless clients simultaneously. This is from the
> Cisco KB Wiki:
> "Solution #  K47828638
> Title  How many wireless clients an access point can support.
> Resolution  The Access Point can support up to 20 clients (PC) or 7/8
> phones comfortably, which depends on the application.
> The AP has the physical capacity to handle 2048 MAC addresses.
> However, because the AP is a shared medium and acts as a wireless hub,
> the performance of each user decreases as the number of users
> increases on an individual AP. Ideally, not more than 24 clients ... "

I think this is the answer right here; wireless uses the same CSMA/CD
algorithm that Ethernet does, so using WiFi is just like using the old
unswitched hubs.  Documents from a few years back talking about
unswitched hubs reference a 30-40% limit on utilization; collisions end
up limiting maximum performance to no more than that.  
-- 
Stephen Ryan
Software Developer,
Dartware, LLC