Do Additional Users of Wireless Router Signal Affect Signal?

Do Additional Users of Wireless Router Signal Affect Signal?

Perhaps a dumb question, but a neighbor asked me if they had more than
one person using the Internet via Wireless (in a home) would it affect
the signal strength? (she complains at times a signal gets dropped)



Thanks for your opinions/facts. (Windows 2000, Linksys WRT54G)


Patty

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>Do Additional Users of Wireless Router Signal Affect Signal?

Depends... (on what "signal" means).

>Perhaps a dumb question, but a neighbor asked me if they had more than
>one person using the Internet via Wireless (in a home) would it affect
>the signal strength? (she complains at times a signal gets dropped)

That doesn't sound like she means "signal strength" so much as
she just means that the "connection" goes away.

It should not affect signal strength at all, but there are a
number of scenarios where she might see a lost connection, or at
least what appears to be a lost connection.

One would be if the signal actually does fade, and the bit rate
is reduced to something low enough to be noticed. With one user
it might be acceptable, with two users that same rate might
appear to someone with an interactive process (and sharing the
network with someone doing a massive file transfer) as "a signal
gets dropped".

Also keep in mind that two users might well be able to cause
congestion for the Internet connection, and they might assume
it is the wireless.

--
Floyd L. Davidson <http://web.newsguy.com/floyd_davidson>
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska) (E-Mail Removed)

Thanks. Funny Best Buy Geey Squad I spoke to tonight says it should not
matter how many people are on the wireless (within reason)--it should
still hold the connection. I assume with 4 people all on at same time
(with one being wired) it should not drop the signal. The person is
telling me that she is unable to get on. However I told her to try it
again with a few people in her family on and see what the results are.
Not sure there should be much congestion with just browsing and email
among 4 computers. However, perhaps one of the computers (laptop) has a
low tolerance adapter built-in. The other has a PCMCIA card, One has a
USB Wireless Adapter, and the other hard - wired. All Linksys with
SpeedBooster all the way around with 7DBI antennas.
Soon she will add a Range Extender since she has some funky walls as
tested with my Wi-Fi Detector. I think also the main signal ends up
oging thru her kitchen and she cooks a lot...not sure electrical
interference can do much. I realize Microwave and 2.4ghz phones
might...

Thanks, Patty

On 2 Mar 2005 16:53:14 -0800, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>Thanks. Funny Best Buy Geey Squad I spoke to tonight says it should not
>matter how many people are on the wireless (within reason)--it should
>still hold the connection.

That's generally true for small numbers of connections. However, the
bridging table on many access points overflows as the number of
*ACTIVE* connections increase. The original WAP11 would lock up solid
if you had more than 31 connections. Later versions of the firmware
sorta worked around the problem where it just slowed down (while
thrashing) but at least didn't hang. Most of the current access point
will handle at least 100 active MAC addresses before doing something
disgusting (because I tried it on a few and I know it works). The
really nifty access points (Proxim, Cisco, Symbol) will handle up to
about 2000.

>I assume with 4 people all on at same time
>(with one being wired) it should not drop the signal.

Getting disconnected is NOT the same as "dropping the signal". The
signal should remain functional and nobody should be disconnected,
regardless of the number of users.

>The person is
>telling me that she is unable to get on.

"Get on" can have many meanings. The connection process has several
step and layers. At which point is the connection failing?
1. Associate with an SSID.
2. Exchange encryption (WEP or WPA) keys.
3. DHCP assigned IP address and gateway.
4. Surf the web.

>However I told her to try it
>again with a few people in her family on and see what the results are.
>Not sure there should be much congestion with just browsing and email
>among 4 computers. However, perhaps one of the computers (laptop) has a
>low tolerance adapter built-in. The other has a PCMCIA card, One has a
>USB Wireless Adapter, and the other hard - wired. All Linksys with
>SpeedBooster all the way around with 7DBI antennas.

No model numbers? Speedboost tends to get in the way when enabled in
an access point. The AP keeps trying to negotiate a speedboost
connection with whatever happens to be connected. While it's busy
doing that, all connections are essentially comatose. Eventually, it
recovers and goes back to non-speedboost mode. However, if it takes
too long to recover, then the client side might time out, resulting in
your observed connection loss. My astute guess is that with 4ea
clients, it might take too long for the last client to give up
negotiating a speedboost connection and timing out some of the other
connections. Try disabling speedboost in both the client and the
access point.

>Soon she will add a Range Extender

Don't both. Piece of junk at best.

>since she has some funky walls as
>tested with my Wi-Fi Detector.

Her walls are made of funk? Interesting house. Any aluminium foil
back fiberglass insulation or chicken wire in the walls?

>I think also the main signal ends up
>oging thru her kitchen and she cooks a lot...not sure electrical
>interference can do much. I realize Microwave and 2.4ghz phones
>might...

Interference from power lines is zilch. However, I enjoy
demonstrating how my ancient electric shaver has harmonics up into the
microwave region and does a marvelous job of interfereing. I do have
to be very close to the access point antenna (about 1-2 inches) to
have an effect, so I guess I'm cheating a bit.

>Thanks, Patty

--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

Great answer Jeff. I appreciate it. Will try shutting off the
Speedbooster in the WRT54GS.

Thanks, Patty

One more thing you asked and I did not answer. The connection she is
having trouble making is to the Internet.

She is going to try to recreate this situation and see if she can pin
it down to one machine or one room, etc.. I do not have all the
details. However I do appreciate your endulging me with the sparse info
I had so far in your answer previously.

Take care.

Thanks
Patty

On 3 Mar 2005 07:19:11 -0800, (E-Mail Removed) wrote:

>One more thing you asked and I did not answer. The connection she is
>having trouble making is to the Internet.
>
>She is going to try to recreate this situation and see if she can pin
>it down to one machine or one room, etc.. I do not have all the
>details. However I do appreciate your endulging me with the sparse info
>I had so far in your answer previously.

There's an easy test to see where things are breaking.
First, you need three IP addresses (not names to avoid a DNS lookup).
1. The IP address of your wireless router (192.168.1.1)
2. The IP address of your ISP's gateway.
You get this from the "status" page of the WRT54GS.
It will change as you connect/disconnect from the ISP.
3. The address of some major web site that's unlikely to evaporate.
Yahoo is 66.94.230.49

Open an MSDOS "cmd" window on your machine and wait for the connection
to fail or get flakey. Then ping each IP address in succession.
1. ping IP_address_of_router. If that fails, you have a wireless
problem between the client wireless device and the router. It can be
a large number of different causes. This will just pinpoint the area,
not identify the exact cause.
2. If pinging the router works, try:
ping IP_address_of_the_ISP_gateway
That will check connectivity between the router WAN side and the ISP.
If your DSL, cable, or wireless connection is flakey, it will show up
here.
3. If pinging the gateway works, then try pinging a site on the
internet. That will test your ISP's router's connection to the
internet. This is usually not a problem with the major cable or DSL
vendors, but is worth a check.

My guess(tm) is that the problem will manifest itself in the first
step. If you run:
ping -t 192.168.1.1
it will run continuously. This way you can sorta see it start and
stop as she moves around the house. A better version of ping is
called "fping" and will show the sequence numbers. If any packets are
lost, the missing sequence number will be obvious.
http://www.kwakkelflap.com/fping.html

Ping is not really as good as a field strength measurement, but it's a
tolerable test. If you wanna do a site survey (measure the radio
coverage), I suggest downloading and installing Netstumbler:
http://www.netstumbler.com



--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558