Do you have too many devices on WiFi? With today’s always-on, always-connected world pushing the limits of your WiFi connection is an issue for many businesses. In fact, limited WiFi connectivity errors confront managers and business owners fairly often. Computers and other devices on a network should be able to comfortably share capacity and function efficiently. However, WiFi connection limits depend upon several factors that those running businesses may not take into account.
For example, you may realize that when you connect a number of desktops, laptops, and phones on a network, it may be difficult to stream a video to a screen in the conference room. In fact, not only the quality of the video itself is affected, but it also affects the upload and download speeds of each device connected to the network. This is because the WiFi network does not have the bandwidth to handle the number of devices, therefore straining the networking system for all users.
So, let’s take a look at WiFi speed and WiFi connections and how we can make them faster and more reliable.
(Note: You can use our WiFi speed test to see how your business internet speed shakes out.)
Most businesses today offer WiFi connections for their employees, clients, and visitors. It’s good business practice to offer a solid wireless network to help everyone get their jobs done efficiently. However, having WiFi available means it can sometimes get log-jammed with too much activity or have other issues that slow it down. Ultimately, you need a high-quality connection that allows your team to work productively.
Having a fully managed WiFi solution is one comprehensive way to ensure you get everything you need to increase customer loyalty and employee productivity. A managed WiFi provider can give you a complete service that releases you from building, managing, troubleshooting, and updating your wireless network on your own. And cloud managed WiFi is for wireless setups of all sizes. You might have a large organization, multi-site offices, a full campus, or satellite branches. Cloud managed WiFi lets you coordinate everything for seamless operations.
Managed services also track more than your speed. They cover everything from security, ease of deployment, access point management, traffic reporting, cost avoidance (such as consulting on how to take advantage of trainings, licenses, etc.) and overall full WiFi network management.
Should you decide to setup and manage your own network, here are a few problems that can affect your WiFi connection and speed.
It’s critical that you do a network assessment to see exactly how much use is going on with your network. This includes both known users (your employees, visitors,) and potential unknown users and devices who might be using your WiFi signal.
“Can too many devices slow down WiFi?”
Yes.
You could be carrying the weight from a neighboring organization, or some of their devices. You might be providing WiFi for cameras, appliances, tablets, and other items that you hadn’t considered when you initially set up your network.
Consider the change in tech environment around most offices in the last few years. There is an overlap between working time and personal time, especially on our devices. Do employees connect personal items as well as work items to the internet? You may need to consider a change in or update to your BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy.
Determine what items are on the network, and then consider all the applications those items are running. There may be one or two that are siphoning off a large portion of connectivity and causing a sluggish performance for everyone else.
Perhaps the number of users and devices on your network is not unusual, but you still experience slow uploads and downloads? It could just be that you need to provide more wired bandwidth.
How long has it been since you had an upgrade? Was that upgrade sufficient then, but can’t meet today’s high online demands? Consider how often you are using things like streaming video or live financial updating software? These applications may need more juice than previous years.
Something as simple as a neighboring WiFi hotspot or a microwave could cause network interference resulting in poor connectivity. A network assessment will allow your IT department to see any potential problems.
Wondering if you have too many devices on WiFi? Most of the wireless routers and access points state they can support about 250 devices connected at once. This WiFi connection number includes computers, cameras, tablets, mobile smartphones, appliances, and a wide variety of other devices that are now internet-enabled. However, this doesn’t mean that because you can theoretically connect close to 250 devices on a single access point that you should do it.
Note that every device connected to your WiFi (sometimes spelledWi-Fi) network is likely to decrease the available bandwidth to other devices that are on the same network. The reason is because all these devices will not only be sharing the same wireless network, but also will share the same internet connection supplied by your broadband service provider. In this situation, the problem is not necessarily the wireless connections but rather with the overall traffic accessing the internet router on your broadband service provider.
Larger businesses may choose WiFi networks with multiple access points to better extend the overall coverage area. Each access point or router has its own WiFi connection limits, but by connecting them all together, you can scale up the load.
How many devices can connect to WiFi at one time? We understand that in a network, the functionality of even the best shared internet connection is likely to be slow since many devices and computers are struggling to access the web at the same time. The question remains, how many devices are too many devices on WiFi? Users may also ask “What is the maximum amount of devices for a router?”
When discussing how to know how many devices are connected to a WiFi router, the general rule is to limit connections to a home network, for instance, to about 45. However, this recommended number for router device limits varies widely depending on the task each device performs. For example, if a device is downloading videos or other heavy files, the internet will likely slow down for all users. This is because heavy files require extra bandwidth than simple web browsing or checking email. On the other hand, if a network is hosting FTP or servers for gaming, the recommended limit on the number of devices connected will be lower.
Fixing a second access point or a router on a network can help you to distribute the load of your network. This is possible by increasing the number of access points to your network and any number of devices that can successfully be supported. However, this may make the network become difficult to manage and you might require network management services.
The other thing you can do, if you have one or more routers capable of supporting a lot of devices, is increase the bandwidth by increasing the subscription with your ISP.
In a situation where your internet subscription and network devices allow you to download at a rate of 1 Gbps, having 50 devices connected at once will allow each device to use up to 20 megabits of data per second.
When you are ready to have a network assessment performed, contact Fusion Connect for a fair analysis. We can suggest options to meet both your demand and locations, while keeping an eye on your available budget. The key is making sure your team can function at the highest productivity to meet your current and future customers’ needs.
Originally posted October 15, 2018