Multicast Tx rate

[Vanadil]

Hi Guys,

I'd be really grateful for any help on this one.

I've been configuring a business WAP, however clients that have been connecting to it have been seeing high ping response times and packet loss.

The WAP itself is b/g and configured to have a maximum available rate of 54Mb/s. It is currently in b+g mode, however I'm confident most devices connecting are all g/n.

I have however noticed that the "Multicast Tx rate" is set to 1Mb/s. I have Googled and Googled until my fingers ached but simply cannot find a detailed description of what this is? I have read it simply means transfer rate and this concerns me as 1Mb/s is pretty pathetic! I can however increase this to 54Mb/s but am unsure of the affect this will have. I would be very grateful if someone could explain this in any detail? Spare nothing!

The WAP in question is also using a directional antenna and so the current power output has been limited to 32% of its current strength in order to stop it from going into the next office.


Thanks to anyone who reads / replies!


Vanadil

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Very few services use multicast; it is NOT used for normal web browsing or downloading files.

 

[Vanadil]

Hi Phil,

Yup. I understand that most things are unicast, however from my understanding, the switches on my network are going to be broadcasting to populate their ARP tables as well as DHCP requests (currently set to every 10 minutes due to the high number of connections that the clients require).

My current thinking is that if I have a lot of clients connected to the WAP, all requesting IP's every 10 minutes, plus the fact some might be streaming, or trying to over a shared 54Mb/s connection, in addition to all of the other multicast traffic, could this cause a problem with response times to the WAP?

 

[PhilFrisbie]

Nothing you mentioned uses multicast, which is different than broadcast.

 

[Vanadil]

Nothing you mentioned uses multicast, which is different than broadcast.

can you please give advice rather than arrogant criticism?

 

[john-b691]

You will likely never see multicast traffic on a home based network.

There is some software you could if you really wanted to stream video using multicast but there really is no benefit in a home network and most players will not accept it.

The only other multicast you will see are related to things like routing protocols but since what people call a router in their house can't actually run routing protocols like real routers can you won't see that either

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Hi Phil,

Yup. I understand that most things are unicast, however from my understanding, the switches on my network are going to be broadcasting to populate their ARP tables as well as DHCP requests (currently set to every 10 minutes due to the high number of connections that the clients require).

My current thinking is that if I have a lot of clients connected to the WAP, all requesting IP's every 10 minutes, plus the fact some might be streaming, or trying to over a shared 54Mb/s connection, in addition to all of the other multicast traffic, could this cause a problem with response times to the WAP?

Are you saying that you have 20 minute DHCP leases? Why? All you are doing is saturating your network with DHCP requests. Set leases to a more realistic value, 24 hours isn't out of line, and I'll wager that you see things settle down quickly.

 

[PhilFrisbie]

can you please give advice rather than arrogant criticism?

I was simply stating fact and attempting to provide education. I am sorry you took it as criticism.