Is wireless speed "shared"?

[Zenthar]

First of I know my fair share about networking (or at least once knew). Unfortunately I don't know that much about the wireless part of it which leads to my question: when you have a 300Mbps wireless access, is the 300Mbps per client PC or total for all connected PC? Would that be influenced by the number of available "streams"? Wikipedia is great to gather technical information, but not that much when you need practical knowledge.

 

[Saga Lout]

First of I know my fair share about networking (or at least once knew). Unfortunately I don't know that much about the wireless part of it which leads to my question: when you have a 300Mbps wireless access, is the 300Mbps per client PC or total for all connected PC? Would that be influenced by the number of available "streams"? Wikipedia is great to gather technical information, but not that much when you need practical knowledge.

The speed you get from your ISP is the best it's going to get in the network and the way it's shared is more or less on a first come first served basis although that first person will notice when nine others cut in. Test that speed with only one computer connected to the router and using http://www.speedtest.net then test again on one machine with the others all connected and using the net.

That speed doesn't impact in any way on the speed of transfer between computers.[/#000ff]

 

[Zenthar]

The speed you get from your ISP is the best it's going to get in the network and the way it's shared is more or less on a first come first served basis although that first person will notice when nine others cut in. Test that speed with only one computer connected to the router and using http://www.speedtest.net then test again on one machine with the others all connected and using the net.

That speed doesn't impact in any way on the speed of transfer between computers.[/#000ff]

I know my ISP will be the bottleneck to the internet, but I also do internal file transfers and video streaming and I was wondering on the impact this could have on other client PCs.

 

[Saga Lout]

I know my ISP will be the bottleneck to the internet, but I also do internal file transfers and video streaming and I was wondering on the impact this could have on other client PCs.

Streaming will slow their use of the Net or completely wreck your enjoyment of eth video. A separate router just for the internals might be an answer - do all the clients have to be wireless or can you introduce a switch somewhere along the line?

 

[Zenthar]

I wire as many devices as possible, I even have a 2nd switch close to my TV to limit wireless use (PS3, TV, BD-player, ...). I'm not experiencing any issues, I was mostly making sure my understanding of the wireless networking was accurate; trying not to become one of those people that know just enough to be even more dangerous 😉.

So basically a wireless access point way of working is closer to that of a hub than of a switch.

 

[Zenthar]

Best answer selected by Zenthar.

 

[Flog89]

when you have a 300Mbps wireless access, is the 300Mbps per client PC or total for all connected PC?

I think wireless devices work on a Listen Before Transmiting, which means that they will wait the other devices to send their packets before sending its own. Makes your 300Mbps shared, but I doubt it's evenly.

Would that be influenced by the number of available "streams"?

I'm not sure about this one, but I think a higher number of channels means better distribution of the bandwidth.

Now my turn to ask: what are you using to get 300Mbps with wi-fi?