[Hidden-tech] Advice sought: Can passive WiFi use by a crowd's phones drain bandwidth...?

[Aaron E-J]

Those things certainly could affect the quality.  Even a few people 
using a standard connection can do it – when the three people at my 
house are all online, everything takes longer.  If someone at the church 
is tech savvy and the router will permit, they could probably set up a 
dedicated network for the stream that has priority over everything 
else.  I think, although I could be wrong, that most Netgear brand 
routers have that ability, but you definitely need to know what you're 
doing.  Connecting via Ethernet cable will help to a certain extent, but 
if you are streaming out to rest of the world, the bottle neck is the 
cable modem and your internet provider.

Aaron E-J
The Other Realm
http://otherrealm.org
http://theotherrealm.org  (Blog)

On 2021-12-06 11:32 AM, Duane Dale via Hidden-discuss wrote:
> Holiday greetings, Hidden Tech.
>
> My church has been offering live streaming of its Sunday services via 
> its YouTube channel.
> Hiccups in the video (and audio) stream are common. (And those hiccups 
> show up when streaming the recorded version after-the-fact.)
>
> An iPhone in the sanctuary is doing the "capture" and is connected by 
> WiFi to a cable modem/router in an adjoining room (outside the stone 
> walls of the church).
>
> Some people place blame on those stone walls, but my speedcheck in an 
> otherwise-empty sanctuary shows a pretty consistent ~25 Mbps up and down.
>
> As a possible solution, a WiFi extender in the sanctuary, wired with 
> CAT6 to the modem/router, has been tried with apparent success for 
> small mid-week services, and we may start using it for the Sunday 
> services.
>
> *But here's my question:
> *Can passive WiFi use by a crowd's phones drain bandwidth and/or slow 
> transmission speeds?
> Imagine a Sunday service with 100+ people in the space.
> Imagine that a majority have smartphones in their pockets, and some % 
> of those are on, with WiFi enabled,
> and some % of /those/ have used the WiFi modem/router in question and 
> have stored its password.
> Let's say 25 such phones, though it might possibly be 50.
>
> Assume that no one is making intentional use of WiFi (streaming the 
> service, watching movies, checking emails...) other than the 
> "official" streaming iPhone,
> but some (most?) of those with WiFi enabled might have connected 
> "automatically" to the modem/router in question and are doing passive 
> tasks, unattended.
>
> With 25-50 such phones, could that raid bandwidth enough to cause 
> hiccups in a live video upload?
> (Or if not with 25-50 phones, what about 250-500 such phones in a 
> larger hall? Or some even-larger number?)
>
> If that could be a problem, are there solutions other than the obvious 
> one -- asking everyone to power off, or use airplane mode, etc.??
> Or some sort of temporary lock-out of all but the preferred device?
>
> Thanks for any insights and advice.
> Duane Dale
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Hidden-discuss mailing list - home page:http://www.hidden-tech.net
> Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
>
> You are receiving this because you are on the Hidden-Tech Discussion list.
> If you would like to change your list preferences, Go to the Members
> page on the Hidden Tech Web site.
> http://www.hidden-tech.net/members
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20211206/fe2d0b75/attachment.html>