wifi signal boosters steal from others bandwidth?

Personally, I thing the campground manager is correct (to an extent). If you have a very strong transmitter you're going to take some of the bandwidth away from a very weak transmitter (e.g. my signal is strong at the AP and someone else's is weak at the AP). If both stations RTS at the same time - the AP will probably reply to the very strong signal.

One of the big issues is the wimpy transmitters in laptops and hand held devices. The transmitter from the hot spot probably has more power and a much better antenna and location. The wimpy ipod just cannot transmit back well through metal skins, trees, and other rv's. Getting a good antenna on a usb stuck to a window can greatly improve performance. There are tons of other options including as mentioned repeaters. I probably have one of everything. The newest toy is a Nano device. It smokes.

I think the information the park employee got from someone else was regarding repeaters, not a signal booster. A repeater does exactly that, repeat the signal. They are designed to be placed between an access point and the user when the distances are too great for the user's signal to reach the access point. Some people use repeaters in their RVs and if their devices wifi signal is strong enough to reach the access point, the access points traffic has doubled since it "sees" the signal from the device and the signal from the repeater. Also, repeaters repeat all the signals they receive so even if the device user was directly next to the access point and the repeater 500 feet away, the repeater will still send the repeated signal from the device even though there is no need. In most RV park situations, repeaters are generally not a good idea, it is much better to have multiple access points, each with their own ssid. People who have their own repeaters in their rigs do degrade the service for others.

From a technical standpoint, for the same number of users, system speed will actually increase. This is because digital communications systems use a method of handshaking to verify no data was lost in the transmission. When you have low signal strength, the communications system will lose bytes (information) and will request retransmission of the lost information. (Sort of like not hearing someone and asking them to repeat it.) This retransmission takes time and bandwidth away from other tasks (i.e.; other users).

However, from a human side, it is just the opposite. As more folks learn that having a amplifier and better antenna increase their throughput (speed) because there is less repeating of information, they are more likely to use the system instead of finding other solutions (or just not bothering). This increase in users will slow the system.

So the park owner was incorrect from a technical standpoint. But from a from a human sociology point of view, he/she has a point.

Steve

Somebody is full of it:) The correct answer is no. :)

The signal booster improves your range, it does NOT improve your speed, it does NOT steal bandwidth from others. You share and share alike. It just means you do not have to lug your computer to the family center.. Which reminds me of something... Thank you.

2oldman wrote:
Park wifi is usually slow because of too many people using it, not because of any signal boosters. The signal from the tower to you isn't the problem, it's the 'backhaul' to the internet.

precisely. think of a 4-lane tollway. traffic (the total number of campers in a park using the wifi) is moving just fine between the camper and the office's router (the toll booth) where the link between the router and the connection to the internet is made (DSL, cable, etc). the slower the DSL/cable connection (the fewer the number of toll takers there are) the more of a bottleneck occurs at the tollbooth (router). the larger the bottleneck the slower the system will be.

the other issue is poor engineering of the wifi network itself. even a medium sized park should probably have more than a single node in the park. a properly sized and engineered system will have multiple nodes sprinkled throughout the park and a robust internet connection. but that takes money and a lot of parks are reluctant or unable to spend those kinds of dollars. that's one reason why so many people are dumping the park's wifi in favor of their own personal hotspot devices such as mifi.

OP: Not true at all. Misinformed.

Many times the park's wi-fi is fairly slow. Sometimes if there are 5 or 10 people online, then they will be sharing the park's connection. So even if the park is able to transmit 100,000 baud, it will be split up, so the computer server will pick the first person, send their data, then the second request, and third, and so on. Many times the connection will be in the 1 megabit per second range, and then you might not notice if anyone is sharing your bandwidth, because it is wide enough to serve everyone's reasonable request without a delay. Each person might only be requesting say 1 megabit every 20 - 50 seconds (when they go to a new page, or download a bunch of e-mails.)

With a slow connection, it might take a couple of seconds to just download one e-mail with 3 pictures in it. This will slow the next requester's information to be downloaded - somewhat in order of the information request time.

Some high speed fiber optic, satellite or cable TV systems are in the 10 megabit per second speed range. So even if 10 users are asking for a large file, it should not delay anyone for more than 1 second.

Your antenna is another thing altogether. How fast it can communicate has nothing to do with the above problems. A better range antenna will actually transmit everything only once, correctly, and then receive everything once, without having to tell the host computer "It did not download correctly, re-transmit again"

I have a Hawkins HW1 (I think) antenna in my motorhome, and it has a range of about 400 - 600 feet. Sometimes the host computer might have a booster too, and be able to transmit a litter farther than the average Wi=Fi hot spot.

When I was at Morrow Bay, (2006) I was able to connect to Firedude's wi-fi system, and he had a satellite system to post messages at high speed. He had a 'modified' transmitter, with about a 1 watt output, about 5 times more power than a average Wi-Fi.

Stronger wi-fi means the transmitters are better quality, and have a high capacity. However it will not take away someone else's ability to transmit.

Fred.

Park wifi is usually slow because of too many people using it, not because of any signal boosters. The signal from the tower to you isn't the problem, it's the 'backhaul' to the internet.