WRT54GS used as neighborhood HotSpot

I'm in the process of setting up a free neighborhood hotspot using the
WRT54GS.

Is there some theoretically limit to the number of simultaneous
connections or users with using this AP?

How many connection can you have before it become unusable?

TIA

Bart

On Sat, 23 Jul 2005 16:30:34 -0700, Bart <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I'm in the process of setting up a free neighborhood hotspot using the
>WRT54GS.
>
>Is there some theoretically limit to the number of simultaneous
>connections or users with using this AP?
>
>How many connection can you have before it become unusable?

The theoretical limit is 253 connections as limited by the DHCP server
and the number IP's that can be NAT translated and routed by the IP
stack. I've actually connected with about 150 simulated network
connections, with a different router, with few ill effects. However,
there was little traffic involved.

The practical limit really depends on the type of users and the
backhaul. The cynical rule of thumb is:
100 typical light home users
10 typical business users
1 downloader

This is largely true as one user can easily saturate your entire
bandwidth depending on what they are doing. Someone firing off a
bittorrent session can saturate all your bandwidth indefinately. To
solve this problem, many access points and hot spots offer bandwidth
management or QoS features. These will limit the amount of bandwidth
an individual connection can monopolize. At that point, the number of
users is limited by the bandwidth managers rule set. You may also
want to tinker with the speed, as a high speed connection will hog
more bandwidth than a slow connection.

You might wanna slog through:
| http://www.intel.com/business/bss/in...nt/hotspot.pdf
which covers much of the basics (except for bandwidth management).

Also, be sure to look into dedicated firmware for running a hot spot.
http://www.sveasoft.com
http://www.hyperwrt.org
etc...

--
# 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

..
>
> Also, be sure to look into dedicated firmware for running a hot spot.
> http://www.sveasoft.com
> http://www.hyperwrt.org
> etc...
>

Jeff, I didn't see any overt mention of hot spot firmware on the
www.hyperwrt.org site. Am I missing something, or did you mean a different
site?


Ed

On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 02:44:54 GMT, Ed
<Huckleberry_REMOVE_@bigvalley.net> wrote:

>> Also, be sure to look into dedicated firmware for running a hot spot.
>> http://www.sveasoft.com
>> http://www.hyperwrt.org
>> etc...

> Jeff, I didn't see any overt mention of hot spot firmware on the
>www.hyperwrt.org site. Am I missing something, or did you mean a different
>site?

The major requirements for a hot spot are bandwidth management, a
splash screen, and some means of authorizing users.

See:
http://www.sveasoft.com/content/view/20/1/ (Talisman Hotspot)
http://www.sveasoft.com/content/view/3/1/ (Alchemy)

Most of the hot spot specific software is based on NoCatAuth:
http://nocat.net

I thought HyperWRT had a hot spot specific port, but I guess I was
mistaken. I think I was thinking of EWRT, which is made for hotspots
http://www.portless.net/menu/ewrt/
and has Qos and NoCatSplash built in. I haven't tried it but some of
the local wireless hot spots run it successfully.




--
# 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

> I thought HyperWRT had a hot spot specific port, but I guess I was
> mistaken. I think I was thinking of EWRT, which is made for hotspots
> http://www.portless.net/menu/ewrt/
> and has Qos and NoCatSplash built in. I haven't tried it but some of
> the local wireless hot spots run it successfully.
>


Thanks, Jeff. Since I am running HyperWRT on my Linksys, I thought I'd
see what they had for hotspot software....

Appreciate the clarification.


Ed