The theoretical limit is 253 connections as limited by the DHCP server and the number IP's that can be NAT translated and routed by the IP stack. I've actually connected with about 150 simulated network connections, with a different router, with few ill effects. However, there was little traffic involved.
The practical limit really depends on the type of users and the backhaul. The cynical rule of thumb is: 100 typical light home users 10 typical business users 1 downloader
This is largely true as one user can easily saturate your entire bandwidth depending on what they are doing. Someone firing off a bittorrent session can saturate all your bandwidth indefinately. To solve this problem, many access points and hot spots offer bandwidth management or QoS features. These will limit the amount of bandwidth an individual connection can monopolize. At that point, the number of users is limited by the bandwidth managers rule set. You may also want to tinker with the speed, as a high speed connection will hog more bandwidth than a slow connection.
You might wanna slog through: |
formatting link
covers much of the basics (except for bandwidth management).
Also, be sure to look into dedicated firmware for running a hot spot.
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