How is bandwidth allocated through a wireless router?
I have a linksys wireless router, 1 family PC, my laptop, my dad’s laptop, my brother’s laptop and a PS3. Is bandwidth divided equally all the time or divided by the number of connections on at the same time. If so, how can I channel all the bandwidth to one computer if I want to?
Comments: 4 Comments
Each device will connect to the router at the maximum available bandwidth over wireless.
However, it will only use the bandwidth to the internet when it needs it and then will use the maximum allocated and available to make a request. So laptop A could be using all the BW to pull a webpage whilst laptop B is idle but if B goes online then A+B get 50% each.
It really all depends on your router. Most domestic ones do not have the ability to restrict usage. Check in your user guide.
Wireless (and wired) work on the principle of CSMA/CD; Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection. Meaning first come, first serve.
quote:
a transmitting data station that detects another signal while transmitting a frame, stops transmitting that frame, transmits a jam signal, and then waits for a random time interval (known as "backoff delay" and determined using the truncated binary exponential backoff algorithm) before trying to send that frame again.
if you have a basic router then it will just allocate bandwidth as and when needed if the demand exceeds the total bandwidth everyone will simply suffer a slow connection – if you need this feature consider upgrading your router i think something similar to a Vigor 2800 offers this function
The short answer is you can’t reserve bandwidth, general bandwidth is handled on a first come first serve basis.
The long answer is:
The basic end user home router, does not come with the functionality for ‘packet shaping’, this technology allows a reservation of a set amount of bandwidth per client, usually identified by the connection MAC address.
Depending on your technical ability, you can run a Linux based box to act as your networks gateway, and from there using open source software deploy a for of packet shaping to allow you to allocate bandwidth as you wish.