Up to 150 Client on MSMS460 with 765 Wifi Controller

[JTN]

Controller firmware 6.5.3

MSM460

Is HP MSM460 can support up to 150 client in 1 AP?

Is anyone use "meshing"?

[Arimo]

If you look at the radio configuration, you will see max 255 clients. However there is a very big BUT:

Wireless is a shared, half-duplex medium - think of a hub. Max transfer rates depend on the wireless standard, and these are only achievable in controlled lab environments. In real life due to half-duplex medium (which directly cuts your tranfer rate to half), protocol overhead, interference etc. you can never achieve those.

Let's assume you have "max transfer rate" of 450Mb/s on the AP. Since we have a half-duplex medium, we get actually 225Mb/s. Due to the other factors you achieve maybe 200Mb/s in total. Each client gets even share of this max transfer rate - so you have 200Mb/s divided for 150 clients - less than 1.5Mb/s throughput / client.

Not very useful in the first place, AND it's only available for clients that are very close to the AP. When client moves further away from the radio the transfer rate it can do drops in direct relation to the distance. The minimum allowed xfer rate for clients is 1Mb/s, and having the lowest data rates enabled generally isn't recommended. This isn't HPE specific, this is just the way wireless works.

The numbers above aren't strict in any shape or form, I just chose them as they're an easy example. 450Mb/s requires a MiMo-capable client, which most clients are not, the "other factors" are impossible to estimate and so on... my estimate actually is on the optimistic side...

Generally "good practice" is 20 - 30 clients / AP; in my experience exceeding 25 / AP is inviting trouble, depending on the requirements placed on the wireless network (for example VOIP over WLAN or streaming HD video requires a lot more bandwidth than emailing). Considering you won't have always a strict 50/50 distribution between 2.4Ghz and 5GHz clients, you should actually count 1 AP / 25 clients = 6 APs to serve 150 clients.

I can only talk about generics. The very best thing you can do is talk to a consultant experienced in WLAN implementations. Describe him your needs, and he will be able to help you come up with a solution that fits your specific situation.

Meshing has nothing to do with client connectivity per se, but yes, it's quite commonly used deployment. It's a method of basically extending your wireless coverage to locations where you can't draw a cable for the AP by configuring a wireless bridge (WDS) between 2 APs. The AP connected to the wire you configure to be Master, the other is Slave. You can use one radio of both APs for both WDS and serving clients, but you have to remember that WDS also takes up bandwidth.