Re: What if a mesh wifi access point reaches maximum connections?

wilber87 · ‎2018-10-03

What if a mesh wifi access point reaches maximum connections and a new device wants to join the network at the location of that access point? Will the device be switched to the other access point automatically?

splogue · ‎2018-10-04

I have three satellites and over a hundred devices, so I've been watching closely to see if there is load balancing. There doesn't seem to be. One of my nodes gets over forty connections, while fairly nearby nodes get far less. I believe it is going just on signal strength to determine whether to hand off clients to other nodes, not capacity.

Sean

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-10-04

How many devices do you have connected total?

@Christian_R

@wilber87 wrote:

What if a mesh wifi access point reaches maximum connections and a new device wants to join the network at the location of that access point? Will the device be switched to the other access point automatically?

wilber87 · ‎2018-10-04

@FURRYe38 I want to have about 50 devices connected to 1 access point. If there's a 51st device wanting to join the network, I will want it to be connected to the other access point in the same mesh network. Is that possible?

rhester72 · ‎2018-10-04

@wilber87 wrote:

@FURRYe38 I want to have about 50 devices connected to 1 access point. If there's a 51st device wanting to join the network, I will want it to be connected to the other access point in the same mesh network. Is that possible?

Very short answer - no. Slightly longer answer - you wouldn't want it to be anyway, because the signal strength (in a proper install) will be much poorer on the other AP.

The number of connected devices is entirely irrelevant (you can literally have thousands of STAs), it's merely a question of *simultaneous and unidirectional* bandwidth utilization.

Odds are, if it _is_ a saturation problem, the backbone is already saturated anyway and it really won't make a whit of difference which AP you connect to, as they will all be equally bad.

FURRYe38 · ‎2018-10-05

50 is alot to have connected to 1 AP. It's recommended to have more than 1 AP source and spread the device connections across each AP for best operation and performances.

@wilber87 wrote:

@FURRYe38 I want to have about 50 devices connected to 1 access point. If there's a 51st device wanting to join the network, I will want it to be connected to the other access point in the same mesh network. Is that possible?