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We are building a cart to secure and charge up to 50 Nexus 7 tablets.

The tablets need to synchronize databases nightly.

Range will not be an issue as the tablets will all be within about 5' of the router. (There will be metal shelves between.)

The Nexus 7 supports dual-band wireless.

Will "wireless congestion" be an issue with supporting 50 wifi connections at once in such a close proximity?

Another option would be to get a HUGE usb hub and connect all the tablets via wires, they need to be plugged in to charge anyway. This company sells a 49-port hub: http://www.cambrionix.com/components/large-capacity-49-port-charge-and-sync-station-professional-series-a6/ However, the software is expecting the clients to be connecting via TCP/IP and I'm not sure how that would work with the tablets connected via USB.

disperse
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    `onsumer-grade routers may have a problem supporting 50 wireless connections at once` Yup, you'd be right. You'll want to use an enterprise-grade WAP (wireless access point). The product sheets will tell you how many clients it can serve concurrently, but we don't do product recommendations here, so you'll have to do your own legwork and decide which one to get. ... and even at that, having 50 wireless radios within 5 feet of each other is gonna cause you some wireless congestion issues. – HopelessN00b Apr 11 '14 at 16:51
  • The fact that the units are dual-band makes this dramatically more feasible. If you could somehow schedule the synchronization so that all 50 clients aren't running simultaneously you could probably get away with a lower-end wireless access point, too. – Evan Anderson Apr 11 '14 at 18:08

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As far as your question about concurrent clients attached to your "router" you need to look at the product spec sheet to see how many wireless clients you can have on the hardware.

If you are doing it on the cheap, you may want to consider buying multiple consumer lever APs and setting 20 or so tablets to each AP. Otherwise you need to buy a product that can handle your client load simultaneously.

Secondly you need to consider the database you are syncing with. Can it handle the client load as well, and how taxing is the syncing operation to the master server.

I don't think the USB option is the way to go, as you will need to setup TCP/IP over USB on the tablets, and that seems like a far greater obstacle, then you still need to conside the database syncing issue I bring up above.

kalikid021
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  • Interviewers are going to be returning the tablets at different times, maybe in small groups, which should naturally spread out the data synchronization. I think I'll spec out a reasonably priced small-business dual-band router. Thanks, everyone for the help. – disperse Apr 11 '14 at 20:05