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I'm trying to build a wireless infrastructure that allows me to connect as many clients as possible. Ideally I'd like to connect up to 100 clients at the same time. Bandwidth for individual clients is not an issue because the applications doesn't need much. My budget is 100 Euros.

  • How many clients can be simultaneously associated with an Access Point?
  • Should I use wireless "routers"? Or dedicated wireless access points?
  • Should I go with one or two "enterprise-grade" Access Points or a multitude of cheaper consumer-grade devices?
  • Would using 3rd party firmware like DD-WRT on inexpensive consumer grade Access Points work?
HopelessN00b
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andy
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  • Andy, I edited the heck out of your question because it was fast on its way to being closed. You should read the [FAQ](http://serverfault.com/faq) carefully if you haven't already. –  Feb 14 '12 at 19:04

2 Answers2

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Is this 100 simultaneous clients total or 100 simultaneous clients per access point? Either way accomplishing this on your budget with any semblance of reliability will be incredibly difficult if not impossible, although the former is within the realm of possibility, just not your budget unfortunately.

The reason you don't find any data on how many simultaneous clients consumer-grade access points can support is that consumer-grade access point barely support a dozen clients. They are just not designed for this type of use case. Cisco's recommendation is 24 clients per access point and that is with "enterprise-grade" Aironet equipment (reference).

There is no product/s in the market that I'm aware of that can accomplish your goals within your budget. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying. Robust industry grade 802.11 networking is very difficult to do right and thus correspondingly expensive.

I would avoid DD-WRT (especially DD-wRT! UGH!) and consumer grade access points if at all possible. You'll be better served by putting your existing budget towards hiring a specialty contractor to temporarily setup and rent you a wireless infrastructure or investing in proper equipement.

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See

For 100 Euros, it might be a bit difficult.

Community
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Cold T
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  • I know 100 Euros isnt much that's why I thought about using multiple consumer routers. – andy Feb 14 '12 at 17:34
  • I'm currently a bit confused: When I use multiple consumer grade access points all having the same SSID but on differnet channels don't I run into DHCP problems? Are DHCP packets handled by the AP the client connects to only? Then I just would have to configure differnet dhcp ranges on each of them and I could go with some cheap consumer routers ... – andy Feb 14 '12 at 17:36
  • It depends on how you connect and configure them. – Zoredache Feb 14 '12 at 17:41
  • So you think if i have the same SSID nad password but differnt channel and dhcp ranges this should work? – andy Feb 14 '12 at 18:02