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In general, if I have a 802.11g AP and a client is connected at a speed of 22Mbps (as seen from the AP's administrative interface), will this affect the speed/throughput of other devices connected to the same AP at the same time?

It is my belief that it does not, but I can't find any reference materials regarding this. Could someone help?

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It depends on the WAP's implementation, but most allow mixing client speeds without affecting the transmission speed of other clients. That said, a client running at a lower speed takes longer to transmit the same amount of data and will have a larger impact during TDM transmissions (multiple clients talking at the same time).

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  • It has nothing to do with the AP's implementation. All APs handle mixed client speeds, because 802.11 was designed to handle that from the beginning. It's not possible to be 802.11 compliant without handling mixed client speeds.
    – Spiff
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 4:43
  • Ideally yes, that's what the spec says. I've dealt with a few cheap SOHO APs, particularly when G first came out, that didn't deal with mixing clients well at all.
    – Chris S
    Commented Dec 23, 2011 at 5:25
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It can affect other clients on the same radio. 11g is half duplex unless a really specific implementation, so full duplex applications can really throttle your available bandwidth. I had to move some systems off of the wireless because our application changed to something that was trying to do full duplex communication. The process went from 5 seconds to 1+ minutes.

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  • sorry, but I don't understand - how is half/full duplex related to an arbitrary speed being achieved due to poor coverage? (if this is a stupid comment, my bad - wireless is not one of my best areas of knowledge).
    – Shade
    Commented Dec 21, 2011 at 20:13

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