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I am trying to connect 150 smartphones (Samsung Galaxy S5) to a single wifi network, so that I can access streams from them on a computer on the LAN. What should my (multiple) access point (AP) setup be like to get the best access speed?

I need to access a file/stream from each phone whose address would be "http://192.168.1.X:8080/link" (x changes for each phone). And I cannot connect all my phones to the same wifi AP without tanking my access speeds. In what way should I configure 3 APs so my computer (also on the same network) can just see all the device ip addresses?

I found this Windows Phone video wall (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcSd2xH_vS4) where they have a 14 x 14 grid of phones connected to a media server through 3 wifi APs. My use case is similar to this.

If I just daisy chain 3 APs with the first one as a master with DHCP enabled and the other two with static ips and they all have identical SSIDs, how can I control which Phone connects to which AP? (All the devices are in close proximity, and all three APs sit together about 5 feet from the installation, so its unlikely that a device is only in range of one AP)

Ideally, I want each AP connecting to a different set of 50-ish phones and I want to maintain decent enough access speeds, so that I can stream data in realtime to the computer.

Thanks for looking into my question! :)

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  • Just a little note... let's call them Access Point instead of router :) . – radtrentasei Apr 18 '14 at 7:06
  • Did any answer help you? if so, you should accept the answer so that the question doesn't keep popping up forever, looking for an answer. Alternatively, you could provide and accept your own answer. – Ron Maupin♦ Aug 10 '17 at 3:41
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A common miscomprehension when dealing with streaming is the relation between bitrate and throughput.

Meanwhile your throughput is higher than the bitrate of the stream you are, generally, OK. (ever heard about the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem)?

Therefore you should first of all try to stimate the bitrate of the stream and than do your estimation based on this and not on the maximum throughput of your devices.

Consider also that the worst enemy of real-time video is the jitter.

For what concern the problem of the association this is not a problem at all since each AP can broadcast an arbitrary SSID (even hidden) while referring to the same VLAN.

Of course go for the 5GHz spectrum since you will need to use, a lot, of non-overlapping channels.

I'm sorry but with my limited knowledge I can't suggest you more than this.

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  • I agree about the bitrate. I won't be needing the maximum throughput of the devices. "For what concern the problem of the association this is not a problem at all since each AP can broadcast an arbitrary SSID (even hidden) while referring to the same VLAN." So I can assign a different SSID to each of the APs and connect each batch of devices to a different AP (and it wouldn't affect the ip addresses because only the first router/AP handles the DHCP)(Pls Correct if I'm wrong). I think I know enough to give this a try now. Thanks a lot radtrentasei and @Aimed, I'll update after trying! – user5306 Apr 18 '14 at 20:45
  • Yes you can, it's the easiest solution that came to my mind, I don't even know if some other option is possible. Let us know! – radtrentasei Apr 18 '14 at 20:50
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You may want to use more than 3 Access Points. You will definitely want to use the 5GHz Spectrum and Disable the 2.4 GHz Spectrum. If you can swing it, go for APs utilizing 802.11AC specifications which take advantage of multipath, but you don't need to bond 40MHz or 80MHz channels. You will also want to make sure that you use the same SSID and non-overlapping channels (take care not to introduce side-band interference). Remember that WiFi is simplex, a shared medium- You do not want too many devices contending for the same medium, especially when you have a multimedia stream. Remember that half of your overall bandwidth (Give or take) is going to be used up in overhead, and the theoretical throughput listed on the manufacturers descriptions shows speeds that you are highly unlikely to achieve. I would recommend using at least 5 APs for this because you are trying to provide capacity, not coverage area.

Hope this helps

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Seems to me that you can get the maximum speed of each phone which on my S3 is less than 10 mbps which will give you about 15 phones per wireless access point. So we are talking some 10 access points on the same DHCP. Ambitious but doable. Some AP's have 300 Mbps so less gear. Good luck. Aimed

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  • Good point Aimed. I might need more than three but I don't think I'll use more than five (or even five for that matter), because I don't really need 10 mbps speeds from each phone and I think my colleague is sourcing some enterprise level routers for me. – user5306 Apr 18 '14 at 20:23
  • Do you have any thoughts on how to constrain the phones to connect to a particular AP? (I mean, all the APs I have will be sitting next to each other. How will the connections be distributed across these? Isn't there a chance that all the phones might just choose one of the APs?) – user5306 Apr 18 '14 at 20:32

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