Advanced Wireless Settings on the RV180W Wireless Router

Objective

Advanced Wireless Settings are used to configure a variety of router options including beacon intervals, fragmentation thresholds, multicast rates, and more. Advanced Wireless Settings provide more customization than basic wireless settings and may result in an increase in network performance. The network performance depends on the settings input by the user.

The objective of this document is to show you how to configure the advanced wireless settings on the RV180W.

Applicable Devices

• RV180W Wireless Router

Advanced Wireless Settings

Step 1. Log in to the web based configuration utility and choose Wireless > Advanced Settings. The Advanced Settings page opens:

Step 2. In the Beacon Interval field, enter the time in milliseconds between beacon transmissions. The default interval is 100 milliseconds. The interval tells receiving devices on the network how long they can wait in low power mode before they need to handle the beacon.

Step 3. In the DTIM Interval field, enter the interval in milliseconds at which the delivery traffic indication message (DTIM) should be sent. The default interval is 2 milliseconds.

Step 4. In the Request to Send (RTS) Threshold field, enter the packet size that requires the access point to check the transmitting frames to determine if an RTS/Clear to Send (CTS) handshake is required with the receiving client. It is set as 2346 by default.

Note: If you choose a small value it will cause the RTS packets to be sent more often, consuming more of the available bandwidth, and reducing the apparent throughput of the network packets.

Step 5. In the Fragmentation Threshold field, enter the maximum length of the frame, in bytes, beyond which packets must be fragmented into two or more frames. It is set as 2346 by default.

Step 6. In the Preamble Mode field, click the radio button for the desired mode. A long preamble is required for compatibility with the legacy 802.11 systems for them to operate at 1 and 2 Mbps. Long section is clicked by default. A short preamble tends to be more efficient in processing packets, but causes problems in high traffic networks. Use a long preamble if you are setting up a noisy network.

Step 7. In the Protection Mode field, click the None radio button to turn off CTS or click CTS-to-Self Protection to enable it. CTS-to-Self Protection mechanism is used to minimize collisions among stations in a mixed 802.11b and 802.11g environment.

Step 8. In the Short Retry Limit field, enter the short frame of a size limit that will determine the least number of times the router will reattempt a frame transmission that fails. The limit should be between 0-128 milliseconds.

Step 9. In the Long Retry Limit field, enter the long frame of a size limit that will determine the maximum number of times the router will reattempt a frame transmission that fails. The limit should be between 0-128 milliseconds.

Step 10. Step 10. Enter the Multicast rate for the router. The default choice is Auto. The Multicast rate will set the minimum speed at which a device can connect to it. A higher Multicast value will result in a lower range of devices that can connect to the router.

Note: Setting a high Multicast rate can negatively affect the performance of each device in the network, especially if there are many devices connected to the router. It is recommended to set the Multicast rate to Auto if the user is unsure how many devices are connected to the network at any given time.

Step 11. Click Save.