Hi James:
There are two considerations here:
* Firmware
* Throughput
First, check that your airport base station has the latest firmware upgrade
installed. If it hasn't, it creates low level communications errors on the
network. Usually, they "stop" communication, rather than slow it down, but
it's worth a try.
However, I would not attempt to run a remote installation over airport for
more than one user: it *will* be like treacle in winter!
To get a hefty application such as Microsoft Office up and running, you are
heaving a LOT of data around. And WiFi just ain't fast enough for that.
I know, I know... Wifi is very convenient! I use it all the time at home,
but I am only one user, and everything is locally-installed. And that's
what I recommend to you!
This is not Apple's fault: the WiFi vendors are lying in their back teeth
about the *throughput* you can expect. It is nowhere NEAR what they claim
on the box! In "real world" use, the protocol mathematically won't go
anywhere near the speed they promise!
To begin with: It is a very inefficient protocol. Something like half the
bandwidth is consumed with things such as address packets, control packets,
encryption, and encryption keys. Only about half the bandwidth is available
for data.
Secondly, the network talking to more than one computer slows down to the
speed of the slowest client computer. Let's assume you have a modern
Airport that can do 802.11 a, b, g, and n. B is the slow one: 10 Mbps. If
even one of the computers on the network can't connect at 802.11g, the whole
network will fall back to 802.11b.
You can prevent this by configuring the base station to force 802.11g mode
only. But if you do, any old computers won't connect.
Then there's signal strength and multipath distortion (ghosting, on a TV,
multipath to us). If the signal is bouncing off walls and metal objects on
the way too or from the base station, it will slow down badly with all the
retries ‹ "Sorry, I didn't hear you? Can you repeat that?"
If you have one computer with a clear line of sight to a base station no
more than ten metres away in a grass field with no metal or stone for a few
hundred metres in any direction, you "might" get 20 mbps out of a 54 mbps
802.11g connection. Two computers and you get 10 Mbps to each... Four
computers and you're down to 5 Mbps.
Now let's assume you are in a normal office with partitions and metal
objects such as screens and computers so the signal is bouncing around a
bit, and at least one of the computers is not line of sight to the base
station. Now that computer is going to fall-back, renegotiate slower and
slower speeds until it finds one that is stable.
When it finds one, the whole network slows down to that speed. Say 1.5
Mbps. Then all four computers divide the available speed between them. You
have about 400 kbps available, and as you have discovered, loading
heavyweight applications over that can be a test of patience.
Not to mention the war driver sitting in a car across the road slurping up
all your office data just for fun. An experienced WiFi bad guy can crack
most WiFi connections in less than 20 minutes, because the protocol sends
the password in easy-to-read format!
I would stick with your hard-wired connections, if I were you. Much faster
and more secure
Cheers
We just went back to using Office and it works great over a hard wired
network connection. When the students use Office over Airport, it
takes 15-20+ minutes to load, sometimes much much longer...
Suggestions?
--
Don't wait for your answer, click here:
http://www.word.mvps.org/
Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.
John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:
[email protected]