Practical Limit to the Number of Devices that can be on my Home Network?

[Mark Y]

(I posted this, then realized how long it is - sorry, a lot of info, but I erred on the side of too much info versus not enough)

First, my setup:

• I have an Actiontec C1000A modem/router.
• My ISP is CenturyLink
• Type: DSL (internet only - I don't have landline phone setup)
  
• Speed: max 10 up/1 down
• I live in a rural area. There is a small CenturyLink building in town, about a mile away. Immediate area population - approximately 1000 in about a five-square mile radius. Don't know if that matters/helps, but I thought potential service load and proximity to what I believe to be the closest switch may be relevant
• My router is in my basement and the majority of the wireless devices that connect are either in a room next door or directly above the router in the living room
• Devices connected via Ethernet (I just added a 4-port switch to enable that many Ethernet connections)
  • Roku
  • Blu-ray player
  • Smart TV
  • Verizon network extender
  • IP phone for work
  • Work computer
    
  • NAS
• Devices that have wireless access:
  • 2 Samsung Galaxy S6s
  • 2 Kindle HD 7 tablets
  • 2 Kindle readers
  • 2 Laptops
    
  • 1 smart TV - on maybe 3 hrs a week average
    
  • 1 Blu-ray player - on maybe 3 hrs a week average
  • 1 Wii - rarely used
    
  • 1 Roku - rarely used

Wow - that's the first time I really sat down and inventoried all of the devices on my network!

Is that too many devices to reasonably expect my router/modem to handle? I get that how a device is using the network matters greatly: streaming video, downloading large files versus checking email, general surfing, etc.

Will my network perform better if I get more devices on Ethernet? I recently changed 3 of my heavy-use devices (Smart TV, Roku, Blu-ray) from Wifi to Ethernet, as I was experiencing slow-downs while streaming in the evening.

I have a lot of devices making use of my internet connection, but really, only two are streaming significantly (Roku and Blu-ray player) and those are on Ethernet. We don't do gaming or music downloading and don't stream videos on our computers, phones or tablets much at all. Those are mainly just surfing, downloading books and email.

We're experiencing significant drops in connection speed (as reported by Speedtest.net) down to as low as 2Mbs in the evening when we're most likely to be streaming. I understand that is peak use time, but I was thinking of calling CenturyLink to complain about the speed drop, but I'm wondering if they'll just come back with saying I have too many devices connected.

So, how many is too many, and should I be able to expect my ISP to deliver more than 2Mbs in the evening, during peak internet use?

 

[System Error Message]

theres no limit what so ever as long as you dont exceed the number of mac and ipv6 addresses (assuming your network is ipv6 capable).

With wifi its different. On the hardware level 32 devices, on the software level, as much ram as your wifi AP has if it handles clients with software rather than hardware.

 

[Mark Y]

I assume the first line is referring to Ethernet connections. I see IPv4 & 6 in my router settings, but how do I know which is being used?

"on the software level, as much ram as your wifi AP has if it handles clients with software rather than hardware."

I have no idea how much RAM my router has or whether it "handles clients with software rather than hardware", but I'm sure I can find out somehow. But even if I know that, how can I know if I am reaching that limit?

[Edit]
I see this in my modem status page:
Modem IPv6 IP Address: N/A

DNSv6 Address #1: N/A

DNSv6 Address #2: N/A

So that must mean my modem isn't using - or can't use - IPv6...

 

[Elisha]

More than a decade ago, I used to work for an ISP who provided DSL. The biggest cause of speed degradation was using a filter on the phone line or using a long phone cable.
As far as Wifi goes, you could get a better standalone router but I would probably try to up your internet package first. Watching 1080p streams on Netflix alone will chew up half of what is coming in on a good day!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[CaptainSTX]

In this day in age your number of connected devices would be considered low. I have sixty eight devices at home which connect to my network. As with your setup I use Ethernet to connect my heavy Internet data users and/or devices that I back up to my NAS.

With your low speed connection you are better off connecting any devices that stream video to your network, and are sensitive to buffering from slow downs, using Ethernet cables. When you connection from your ISP slows down in the evening the last thing you need is to compound the problem with WiFi issues. The more devices you have connected and using the WiFi connection actively the slower the WiFi gets as only one device can use a radio at a time and the others must wait for a break in the transmission.

Having a router and a switch with gigabyte ports will minimize the chance that any Ethernet link becomes saturated and bottle necks your speed on the LAN. This will avoid issues if you are backing up or down loading files to your NAS and also trying to stream videos.

If you don't have a dual band WiFi router getting one could help. Putting clients that can use 5 Ghz channels on that radio and the rest on 2.4 Ghz will divide the traffic.

 

[Mark Y]

The biggest cause of speed degradation was using a filter on the phone line or using a long phone cable.

No land line, so I'm good there.

As far as Wifi goes, you could get a better standalone router but I would probably try to up your internet package first. Watching 1080p streams on Netflix alone will chew up half of what is coming in on a good day!
At 10Mbs I'm maxed out on the service available to me, unfortunately.

I'm streaming Amazon movies/shows and Sling TV. Sling's got its own problems and I get lots of buffering/black screens in the evenings, but I generally get decent streaming with Amazon - even at peak times.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[System Error Message]

In this day in age your number of connected devices would be considered low. I have sixty eight devices at home which connect to my network. As with your setup I use Ethernet to connect my heavy Internet data users and/or devices that I back up to my NAS.

With your low speed connection you are better off connecting any devices that stream video to your network, and are sensitive to buffering from slow downs, using Ethernet cables. When you connection from your ISP slows down in the evening the last thing you need is to compound the problem with WiFi issues. The more devices you have connected and using the WiFi connection actively the slower the WiFi gets as only one device can use a radio at a time and the others must wait for a break in the transmission.

Having a router and a switch with gigabyte ports will minimize the chance that any Ethernet link becomes saturated and bottle necks your speed on the LAN. This will avoid issues if you are backing up or down loading files to your NAS and also trying to stream videos.

If you don't have a dual band WiFi router getting one could help. Putting clients that can use 5 Ghz channels on that radio and the rest on 2.4 Ghz will divide the traffic.

Gigabit not gigabyte. 1GB=8Gb.

Also the point about wifi devices isnt connected using bandwidth isnt entirely true. With MU-MIMO on both AP and clients bandwidth is distributed by channels available rather so one device doesnt slow the other but i've heard of networks having 100 wifi devices connected to one AP and functioning totally fine. Only few APs handle clients via software rather than on the hardware level. The only 2 brands i know that use software are mikrotik and netgear's r7000. There may be more though.

For non MU-MIMO air time fairness can be used to help with having more mixed clients.

When i say address limit i dont mean ethernet, any form of network such as ethernet, wifi, DSL, fiber optics, be it layer 2 or layer 3 has an address. The limit to how much a network can have at once is the limit on both layer 2 and layer 3 addresses. In a home network even a smart home i dont think you can exceed that. The standard LAN address with /24 subnet allows for 250 devices. If you change the subnet mask to 255.255.0.0 this will allow many thousands of devices (254x254). Thats for ipv4 limits. mac addresses however are a 16 digit HEX basically means you can have 16^16 devices (though this is given by manufacturer hence would cost loads).

 

[pete y testing]

We're experiencing significant drops in connection speed (as reported by Speedtest.net) down to as low as 2Mbs in the evening when we're most likely to be streaming. I understand that is peak use time, but I was thinking of calling CenturyLink to complain about the speed drop, but I'm wondering if they'll just come back with saying I have too many devices connected.

first thing to do is disconnect everything but 1 wifi device and see what speed test it gets , if its fine its something causing congestion on your side ,however if its the same its congestion on the isp side and prob something they cant and wont fix usually because they are over subscribed

if its the isp being congested you can look at a better isp one that doesnt over subscribe

btw the isp has no idea how many client devices you have connected

and should I be able to expect my ISP to deliver more than 2Mbs in the evening, during peak internet use?

generally anything above 1.5M is considered ok as its still adsl2 speed