Wi-Fi bandwidth monitoring with PRTG

While bandwidth monitoring involves tracking the total amount of data transferred across a network, WiFi bandwidth usage monitoring specifically focuses on the data that’s being transferred over wireless connections. Unlike wired connections, wireless networks can be affected by additional factors like signal strength, interference, or the number of connected devices. Wi-Fi bandwidth monitoring helps identify these specific issues and provides insights into how your wireless network is performing and where improvements can or should be made to maintain consistent and reliable connectivity.

Wi-Fi bandwidth monitoring means tracking how much data your wireless network is processing, while Wi-Fi bandwidth management means controlling and optimizing the available bandwidth for wireless connections. Think of it this way: if your Wi-Fi network were a highway, monitoring would be traffic cameras, and management would be traffic flow measures such as bus lanes, speed limits, and traffic lights.

Both are critical if you want to manage your Wi-Fi network effectively. Wi-Fi bandwidth monitoring shows you how much bandwidth is being used and which devices are your top talkers. Wi-Fi bandwidth management is the process of assessing traffic patterns and whether bandwidth usage suits your needs and, if not, prioritizing where it should go.

PRTG network monitoring software monitors all your Wi-Fi devices and access points round the clock, enabling you to see exactly how much bandwidth specific software, hardware, or other components are using at any point in time. Better still, it alerts you if Wi-Fi bandwidth consumption goes above a predetermined threshold, so you can adjust on the fly, before your network's performance starts to suffer. With the powerful combination of real-time Wi-Fi traffic monitoring and advanced Wi-Fi traffic analysis, you can make sure that your wireless network stays optimized and stable.

In PRTG, “sensors” are the basic monitoring elements. One sensor usually monitors one measured value in your network, for example the traffic of a switch port, the CPU load of a server, or the free space on a disk drive.

On average, you need about 5-10 sensors per device or one sensor per switch port.