Limiting wifi bandwidth use
I manage I.T. for a small non-profit theatre company, and I am not particularly strong on networking. We have a single 100 mbs internet connection (Comcast) and support both wired ethernet and wireless access. Our boxoffice computers and a couple of administrative computers are connected to the network via ethernet. We also have actors and staff who connect various devices via wifi. The problem is this: the boxoffice computers are critical because if we can't sell tickets, we can't exist. But there are times (e.g., when rehearsals are over) when everyone jumps on their wireless devices and use all the bandwidth, so boxoffice and admin computers grind to a halt.So my question is: is there a way to place a limit on the amount of bandwidth available to the wireless routers (we have several access points across our campus) and maintain availability of bandwidth to the ethernet network? The people and devices accessing via wifi is constantly changing, so setting individual limits by IP is not practical. Any ideas would be appreciated.
ASKER
Thank you for that suggestion. Please help me understand - I thought QOS was set on a device by device basis (by IP). Are you saying that it can be set up so all wireless traffic is limited? If that is the case, is there a specific implementation of QOS that I should be looking for if I buy new routers?
Were this me, I would just look at using old hardware. An 802.11g device from around a decade ago has a theoretical WIFI connection speed of 54Mb, but in the "real world" something around 20Mb would be more realistic. Pretty much all devices will work fine with 802.11g. A few of these devices should not saturate a 100Mb link to the outside world.
Another simple option might be to manually set the speed of the Ethernet port connecting to the WAP. If you can set this to 10Mb, then each WAP can only possibly use 10Mb of bandwidth. 10Mb should be heaps for users who just need to check email or update Facebook on a smartphone. If you could find one, maybe dropping in an 8 or 16 port 10Mb switch just for the WAPs would work.
Another simple option might be to manually set the speed of the Ethernet port connecting to the WAP. If you can set this to 10Mb, then each WAP can only possibly use 10Mb of bandwidth. 10Mb should be heaps for users who just need to check email or update Facebook on a smartphone. If you could find one, maybe dropping in an 8 or 16 port 10Mb switch just for the WAPs would work.
More information is required.
What are the maximum of users / devices at peak hour?
Do you have an acceptable use policy in place for your wifi network?
What are the maximum of users / devices at peak hour?
Do you have an acceptable use policy in place for your wifi network?
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We get it - no one likes a content blocker. Take one extra minute and find out why we block content.
So first step is dig out your router docs + see if your hardware even support this.
Also, if you happen to be using Linux, you have the tc tool, where you can create different packet queues + prioritize each.
So you'd create a primary queue, which always had priory + route your box office transactions through this queue.
Then all other queues, would run at a lower priority.
This will effectively cause WiFi connections to lag/freeze whenever higher priority queues (box office sales) have traffic.