How many simultaneous connections can a Netvanta 160 reasonably handle ?

[Anonymous]

Looking for the amount of concurrent sessions a Netvanta 160 AP can handle and give satisfactory wireless speeds.

[jayh]

I suspect that this is going to be rather dependent on the definition of "satisfactory".

[Anonymous]

Say 3MB.   Why I ask is the Cisco 1140s used to support 20-25 connections.  The newer 26xx support just over 100.

I will have between 80-100 users on wireless at one time.  Looking to know if 1 AP or more APs are needed.

[jayh]

This will depend a lot on the environment where they're deployed.  You've got the following to consider:

• Total number of associations per radio in software.  This is going to be a hard limit based on the radio and/or its controller.  I couldn't find anything in the data sheet of the 160, but this will be a show-stopper if lower than the number of users. Hopefully someone with specific product knowledge will chime in.
• Aggregate RF throughput.  If your users are all sharing 802.11a/b they'll slow down with fewer users than if they're on 802.11n.  This limitation also depends on how bursty the traffic is.  Per user 3 MB sustained or 3 MB bursty?
• Radio environment - interference, distance to be covered, antenna type, site constraints in terms of shielding and dead spots, etc.  A commercial kitchen with lots of big stainless steel hardware and several microwave ovens will be tougher than a hotel conference room with high ceilings and open space.
• QoS and protocol support - VoIP users aren't going to be big bandwidth pigs but are going to want low latency and jitter.  Facetime and Skype video are both going to be bandwidth pigs and also want low latency and jitter.  Someone doing bulk file transfers (backup to the cloud, etc.) will be a bandwidth pig but won't care about latency or jitter.

[Anonymous]

All good valid points to consider, the area is open conference area.  No VoIP riding on it.  Used for Internet access, downloading files, email usage, etc.

The real question like you mentioned is how many associations per radio.  I had looked through various docs with no success before putting my question here.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

The maximum number of simultaneous associations with a
NetVanta 160 or 161 access point equals 128 (64 per radio).