NETGEAR WNR3500 user manual Optimizing Wireless Performance, Identify critical wireless links

NETGEAR RangeMax™ Wireless-N Gigabit Router WNR3500 User Manual

•Advertisement Period. The advertisement period is how often the router broadcasts its UPnP information. This value can range from 1 to 1440 minutes. The default period is 30 minutes. Shorter durations ensure that control points have current device status at the expense of additional network traffic. Longer durations might compromise the freshness of the device status but can significantly reduce network traffic.

•Advertisement Time To Live. The time to live for the advertisement is measured in hops (steps) for each UPnP packet sent. The time to live hop count is the number of steps a broadcast packet is allowed to propagate for each UPnP advertisement before it disappears. The number of hops can range from 1 to 255. The default value for the advertisement time to live is 4 hops, which should be fine for most home networks. If you notice that some devices are not being updated or reached correctly, then it might be necessary to increase this value.

•UPnP Portmap Table. The UPnP Portmap Table displays the IP address of each UPnP device that is currently accessing the router and which ports (Internal and External) that device has opened. The UPnP Portmap Table also displays what type of port is open and whether that port is still active for each IP address.

3.Click Apply to save your settings.

Optimizing Wireless Performance

The speed and operating distance or range of your wireless connection can vary significantly based on the physical placement of the wireless router. You should choose a location for your router that will maximize the network speed.

Note: Failure to follow these guidelines can result in significant performance degradation or inability to wirelessly connect to the router. For complete range and performance specifications, click the link to the online document “Wireless Networking Basics” in Appendix B.

The following list describes how to optimize wireless router performance.

•Identify critical wireless links.

If your network has several wireless devices, decide which wireless devices need the highest data rate, and locate the router near them. Many wireless products have automatic data-rate fallback, which allows increased distances without loss of connectivity. This also means that devices that are farther away might be slower. Therefore, the most critical links in your network are those where the traffic is high and the distances are great. Optimize those first.

Fine-Tuning Your Network 5-13

v1.0, March 2008