I have approximately 30 supervised WiFi-only iPad 2s located in a central office. They all need to connect to the same network to access the Internet. The most they'll do is visit a website, fill out some online forms, and download a 1 MB document for downloading. More than likely, not all 30 iPads will be in use, probably 15 on average. I bought this router thinking it could handle the load of iPads, but we seem to be having major slow down issues every now and then. I thought it was related to the speed of the Internet, but turns out the connection from the iPads to the router was severely degraded. I couldn't even get the Routers configuration page to pull up on an iPad connected directly to the wifi. I ended up completely turning off half the iPads and rebooting the router and speed increased drastically.
Therefore, what would be the best way to go about hooking up 30 iPads to the same network?
FYI, I'm using Configurator 2 to push the same profile to all iPad's to automatically connect to that wifi network.
*Side Note: Anyone know of a way to stop an iPad from requesting automatic updates? This could cause a lot of network strain if 30 iPads try to update at once. The messages are also quite annoying.
Best Answer
This can be easily solved by getting the proper infrastructure, not just a router.
The specs of your router don't matter. What you are going to find is that after about 5 (maybe 10) devices simultaneously connect, your speeds are going to drop. This is because each iPad (device, actually), regardless of what you are trying to do is attempting to use 100% of the bandwidth. It's the nature of the TCP/IP stack; not your router or device.
I know this from having to deal with a government client that provided free wireless for the jury pool. When people would come in one at a time, wireless was fine. When they came in en mass, the WAP would crash. It didn't matter if there were less than 30 people in the pool or 100. If they came online en mass, Wi-Fi was down.
What you need is
Try Ubiquiti Networks WAP's. They will have the features you are going to need.