Wi-Fi Access Problem In Hostel

[The Simpleton]

There is a 5MBPS connection provided by Sify to my college hostel campus. We are around 100 students in a single building, and we have routers on separate floors. The problem is that as soon as there is a spike in the traffic, the Wi-Fi connectivity becomes horrible, and no one gets internet access. Our laptops always show that we are connected to the access point, but there is no internet access! This happens only during peak traffic hours. During morning time (when there are classes) or after midnight, there is no such problem. So every evening, all of us face this problem of being connected and yet not having access.

Ideally I ought to be complaining about this to the management, and not in a public forum, But the problem is, the management has not been able to hire a good network admin! The one who's on duty now is left scratching his head over the problem :-\ And we have tried and failed to get someone from Sify to look into this. What I'm requesting from you people is a few thoughts on why such a thing happens. 100 people sharing an internet connection over different routers should not be a big problem, isn't it? Could you share your opinion on why this happens and what could be the solution to fix it? Thanks!

 

[fz8975]

what type of error do you get ?
"web page does not exist " OR "Connection Timed out" ?

 

[d6bmg]

You mean to say that your hostel have routers in each floor.
Now asner the following questions:

1. How many floors are there?
2. Post the details of the routers.
3. If all students are using wifi, then you need to post these extra facts:
3.A. Go to all routers, all see in which channels they are transmitting wifi signal. (cause your case might be a classic problem of channel overlapping)

 

[tkin]

There is a 5MBPS connection provided by Sify to my college hostel campus. We are around 100 students in a single building, and we have routers on separate floors. The problem is that as soon as there is a spike in the traffic, the Wi-Fi connectivity becomes horrible, and no one gets internet access. Our laptops always show that we are connected to the access point, but there is no internet access! This happens only during peak traffic hours. During morning time (when there are classes) or after midnight, there is no such problem. So every evening, all of us face this problem of being connected and yet not having access.

Ideally I ought to be complaining about this to the management, and not in a public forum, But the problem is, the management has not been able to hire a good network admin! The one who's on duty now is left scratching his head over the problem :-\ And we have tried and failed to get someone from Sify to look into this. What I'm requesting from you people is a few thoughts on why such a thing happens. 100 people sharing an internet connection over different routers should not be a big problem, isn't it? Could you share your opinion on why this happens and what could be the solution to fix it? Thanks!

How many routers do you have in total?

This is most probably happening due to some users downloading torrents, that can squeeze bandwidth dry

This is why most college or hostel network admins disable torrents.

 

[d6bmg]

^^ What 'netowrk admins' can do there?
Most prolly his hostel have some cheap routers which can't be controlled in anyways.

 

[tkin]

^^ What 'netowrk admins' can do there?
Most prolly his hostel have some cheap routers which can't be controlled in anyways.

Or someone is using torrent, its very easy to choke a 5MbPs connection with 2/3 torrents, also its sify

PS: He said 5MBPS, hope he means mbps.

 

[Harsh Pranami]

It must be the torrents. I do the same.

 

[d6bmg]

Or someone is using torrent, its very easy to choke a 5MbPs connection with 2/3 torrents, also its sify

PS: He said 5MBPS, hope he means mbps.

Assuming that everything working well,
5mbps real 'fair' share between 100 students leaves everyone with 50kbps, which less than original dialup modem (i.e. 56kbps). We need to consider 5% loss because of using wifi & another 10% loss for sharing. That leaves everyone with 42.5kbps of speed. What more speed can anybody expect?

 

[tkin]

Assuming that everything working well,
5mbps real 'fair' share between 100 students leaves everyone with 50kbps, which less than original dialup modem (i.e. 56kbps). We need to consider 5% loss because of using wifi & another 10% loss for sharing. That leaves everyone with 42.5kbps of speed. What more speed can anybody expect?

And it a hostel, free for all

 

[thetechfreak]

Nothing much you can do. Real world speeds when so many students share connection will be less.
Ask Network Admin if he can do something to increase speeds.

 

[The Simpleton]

what type of error do you get ?
"web page does not exist " OR "Connection Timed out" ?

We don't get any error. We do get connected to the access point, but the connection status shows the message "No Internet Access".

You mean to say that your hostel have routers in each floor.
Now asner the following questions:

1. How many floors are there?
2. Post the details of the routers.
3. If all students are using wifi, then you need to post these extra facts:
3.A. Go to all routers, all see in which channels they are transmitting wifi signal. (cause your case might be a classic problem of channel overlapping)

Well I'll have to find out details about the routers. There are three floors in all.

How many routers do you have in total?

This is most probably happening due to some users downloading torrents, that can squeeze bandwidth dry

This is why most college or hostel network admins disable torrents.

Or someone is using torrent, its very easy to choke a 5MbPs connection with 2/3 torrents, also its sify

PS: He said 5MBPS, hope he means mbps.

It must be the torrents. I do the same.

Torrents have already been blocked (not just the torrent sites, but also the BitTorrent protocol itself)

Assuming that everything working well,
5mbps real 'fair' share between 100 students leaves everyone with 50kbps, which less than original dialup modem (i.e. 56kbps). We need to consider 5% loss because of using wifi & another 10% loss for sharing. That leaves everyone with 42.5kbps of speed. What more speed can anybody expect?

And it a hostel, free for all

Nothing much you can do. Real world speeds when so many students share connection will be less.
Ask Network Admin if he can do something to increase speeds.

I never said anything about the speeds The problem is not about the speeds. Obviously, not all 100 people are online at the same time, so speeds are decent when there is access. The problem is about getting basic internet access. It's frustrating to see that I'm "connected" to the access point, but can't browse any websites!

Thanks all for taking the time to answer!

 

[mitraark]

I don't think there is a problem in the network, the bandwidth might just be too less to cater to all the students at peak hour.

We had similar problems 2 years back, i think the main reason was Redtube. After it was blocked ( Cyberoam, you might want to recommened this to your college authorities, it's used t o blcok sites ), we never faced such issues.

 

[dashing.sujay]

However fiercely you download, complete internet blockage is not possible; at least ping although with packet loss must be possible.

 

[Mario]

Ask your network admin to check DHCP settings. Looks like, not all the 100 computers are getting assigned IP addresses from the DHCP pool - when your network icon says "connected but no internet access", can you do a ipconfig test and see if you have been assigned an IP in the same class that you get when you are actually able to browse the web?

 

[d6bmg]

Well I'll have to find out details about the routers. There are three floors in all.

Channel selection problem in wifi.

Tell whoever managing the network to use wireless Channel 1, 6 & 11 respectively in 3 routers.
And also check the router documentation for the max active connection limit.