how many people can connect to a wlan router?

Hello,

don't know much about wireless, but i am planning to buy a wireless router. D-Link AirPlus G 802.11g Wireless Router to be specific. I am planning on setting it up in m apt.

Q1. How many users can use it to surf on internet wirelessly?
Q2. How do I know how many people are stealing my connection?
Q3. Can I monitor other users' activities?

 

1) As many as you want... I think.
2) There is a monitor in the admin setup that will show you.
3) I don't think so...but I could be wrong.

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to answer Q1, it's actually 253 unique users/IP addresses that a wireless router can support. Unless your router has software that supports monitoring of other users activity you can't do much to see what others are doing, just who's connected.

 

thanks [ ]

 

how would i know whos on my network? would it say the person's computer name or what?

 

1. Let's get overly technical for a second in case anyone is interested in the why's of the matter. There is no strict limit to the number of users. There are limits to the numbers of addresses. All networks exist within an address space. There are two spaces reserved for private networks - 192.168.X.X and 10.X.X.X. If you stay in the 192.168.0/1.X space that most routers use as a default, there are 253 available addresses (255 - the router's addresses, 1 for the wired connection and 1 for the wireless). If you use a 255.255.0.0 netmask, it opens that space up to just over 65,000 address. If you switch to a 10.x.x.x addressing scheme, then that allows over 16 million addresses - however the DHCP server built into home routers only handle around 250 addresses so anything more than that and you have to either get a different server to administer them or manually set and manage all the addresses. And you always want to use one of the reserved address ranges so that you don't conflict with anything on the web - otherwise you might not be able to get to some of the places you want to go.

2. You really don't. The best tool to kind of see what is going on is to look at what DHCP addresses your router has handed out. Most have a tab that says something like "local connections" that lists all the devices that have requested an address.

3. Not without very sophisticated tools that cost a lot of money.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by jchastain
There are two spaces reserved for private networks - 192.168.X.X and 10.X.X.X. If you stay in the 192.168.0/1.X space that most routers use as a default, there are 253 available addresses (255 - the router's addresses, 1 for the wired connection and 1 for the wireless).<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'></font id='quote'></blockquote id='quote'>

There is also 172.16-25.x.x as a private addressing scheme but that's besides the point.

Also, technically with the general/default class C subnet (the 192.168.0/1.X, there are 253, but the wireless router uses only 1 address. Of the theoretical 256 numbers/addresses in a standard class C mask (i.e. 192.168.0.X), one is the network address (192.168.1.0 in this example), and another is the broadcast address (192,168.1.255 in this example). Ok, now I'm just getting nit-picky, but I'm bored

Anyway, to answer the original question, you could theoretically have over 16 million addresses available on one wireless router (with a 10.x.x.x/8 addressing scheme). However, at that point, not only would it become a management nightmare and broadcasts would chew through the bandwidth, but I don't think even a Cisco Aironet WAP could support that many users at once. If you are wanting to have more than 200 wireless users on one AP, you'll need a better AP (I think the D-Link would crap out at this point) and you should have a better understanding of subnetting just for the sake of knowing it. http://www.learntosubnet.com/

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Scott

Network Guru Extraordinaire

 

The 1st part of the question has been elaborated on, however to answer the second part. You can limit acesses to your router by setting up the wireless security options in the router. If you add WPA using a password you can exclude all but the most experienced hackers. You also can use mac filtering to permit access to only those computers you want

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by phroenips

 

damn, you're right...I really need to get back into the networking field

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Scott

Network Guru Extraordinaire

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by phroenips

 

actually there is a hardware limitation to the amount of data that can be dealt with wirelessly, You can only get about 30 users per access point with any amount of reliabilty and speed. Although technically you can have your 253 ip addresses but you can't support that many people wirelessly at once with out additional access points. Thats even using Cisco 1200 series APs which I doubt is what you have in mind.

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