How many users can Cisco APs handle?

[sphinx99]

I have a number of Cisco 1252AP points, with both 2.4 and 5.0 radios. Performance is getting pretty bad. I have IT admins saying that Cisco is saying that these things only have 15-20 simultaneous users at which point they start to come apart.

Is that true for this caliber of AP? I find it hard to believe.

 

[B1zz]

depends on what each user is doing with the wireless signal, like only 6-8 VoIP can be used per AP, video conferencing slightly more or less(depending on how heavy the stream is etc etc) but uncle Cisco recommends you start adding APs once you reach ~15 users per....

 

[Motley]

Ya even on high end APs, when you have 20 users on each, that's alot of traffic for them to handle. Make sure your channels aren't overlapping.

 

[xphil3]

Is that true for this caliber of AP? I find it hard to believe.

Yes, its completely true but it all depends on how much traffic is traversing the "air". You can have more clients assoicated to the access point, not transmit traffic and it will pretty much go unnoticed(beacons are tiny). With a consistent traffic flow from multiple clients, Cisco recommends no more than 24 clients to be associated to any given access-point. It may be time for you to upgrade to another access-point, but ideally a wireless solution(AP's + Lan controller).

only 6-8 VoIP can be used per AP, video conferencing slightly more or less(depending on how heavy the stream is etc etc)..

This is just incorrect. Even with a high quality codec(G.711) each phone is looking at around ~100Kbps of actual traffic with overhead. The phone count will most likely be about double the amount of computer clients that can connect to the AP. VTC slightly less? um no . SD VTC @ H.263 4CIF runs well over 400Kbps w/overhead.

 

[sphinx99]

These are just office laptops.... using MS Office docs, simple web-based apps and the like, in meetings. Nothing I would consider bandwidth-intensive.

I will take a look at the traffic (hopefully I can do that at the switch; these things are connected to a network core) to see whether someone's torrenting or something off their laptop.

 

[Valnar]

I have a number of Cisco 1252AP points, with both 2.4 and 5.0 radios. Performance is getting pretty bad. I have IT admins saying that Cisco is saying that these things only have 15-20 simultaneous users at which point they start to come apart.

Is that true for this caliber of AP? I find it hard to believe.

That statement is true. After 20 connections, things are bad.

 

[Wodz]

Are you using LAPs or SLAPs ? Distributing various 1252 LAP and having them work through the controller would easily allow each device to push 30+ connections since the controller is primarily delegating the packets.