Can I kick connected devices off of the Liahona Network?

So I am the STS and attempting to get some new cameras working in the Chapel to broadcast our meetings. When I come to the chapel during the week, I am able to connect to the network, and run all my tests successfully and without issue. On Sunday, while attempting to broadcast our meeting, the network connection is extremely slow and I am unable to get a good broadcast. I have been able to determine that there are significantly more devices connected to the network on Sunday, which is eating up my Upload speeds. I have disabled the SSID broadcast for the Liahona network, yet there are still devices connected. I have not found a way to prevent these people from connecting, or a way to completely disable the WIFI. Here is my setup:

Download Speed: 75 Mbps
Upload Speed: 8 Mbps
Software in use: OBS, Zoom, Chrome

Our building is very old and cannot handle higher network speeds. I need to ONLY have my computer and the cameras online during Sacrament. I would appreciate any suggestions or instruction on this. Thanks!

If you've disabled Lithonia and they're still connected, that suggests you have a rogue WiFi somewhere.

russellhltn wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:31 am If you've disabled Lithonia and they're still connected, that suggests you have a rogue WiFi somewhere.

It is my understanding that disabling the SSID broadcast prevents new connections, but the currently connected devices will remain online until their lease expires. I'm hoping there is a way to completely disable the WIFI. I was thinking I may need to unplug the APs during Sacrament to force all connections off. My laptop and the cameras are hardwired to the switch, so the required devices would remain online.

russellhltn wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:31 am If you've disabled Lithonia and they're still connected, that suggests you have a rogue WiFi somewhere.

What's Lithonia?

jihnen1982 wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:48 am It is my understanding that disabling the SSID broadcast prevents new connections, but the currently connected devices will remain online until their lease expires.

That theory might be worth testing.

I think what is more likely is the list of devices is the list of leases - they won't disappear until the lease expires and is not renewed. I would expect turning off the SSID would indeed shut off access, but the list will not reflect that until the lease expires.

I say this because a list of leases is easy - just pull it from the DHCP, but determining who is connected is going to be a bit harder. Especially since authorized devices may create and break a connection at whim.

rmrichesjr wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 12:27 pm What's Lithonia?

Autocorrect failure

If you turn off Liahona, devices with a physical ethernet connection (clerk computer, printer, etc.) are still on the network and will show up on the connected list. Also, Wi-Fi-connected connected devices seem to remain on the list for a while after they are disconnected. Not sure about the lease extending after shutting down. That would be interesting (and not very helpful).

Are you hard wired? Do you have people on Lehi who might still be interfering? Lehi uses the same Internet bandwidth. I cleared out Liahona one time but enough leaders were Zooming on Lehi that I also had to shut that one down.

My experience has been when you schedule the Liahona network to be shut off, it's almost immediate. You don't have to wait for leases to expire.

I have also had to ask a bishopric to remove a personal router with WiFi that they connected to their Clerk's office hardline.

What used to kill my upload and damaged my meeting quality was where a device would sync with a cloud account. iCloud, OneDrive, and GooglePhotos are a few examples. They are often set to only sync when connected to a non-metered internet connection. So, a member can be totally unaware that all their pictures from their kid's soccer tournament are using 10Mbps of upload when they connect to the network. Unfortunately, the only remedy I am aware of is that you have to get the message out to everyone to update their settings. They need to set the Liahona network to be a metered connection and set their apps to not upload on metered connections. Also, let them know to pause their syncing with cloud apps while they are at church. It was a pain to get everyone on board, but now it's rare that our meeting quality suffers. Since then, I have only needed to kill the Liahona network once, and it was during our last Stake Conference general meeting.

Sounds familiar! Last week a sister asked me for the Liahona password. As soon as her iPad connected to Liahona, it started to download an iOs update. And that is exactly why Liahona displays a ToS screen.

Thank you all for the input! @craigkehl, this is a great idea! The only major problem is that the majority of the people connecting to the network in this building are older and not very tech savvy. I can understand how this was a pain. Which is why I feel like it would be easier to just disable the APs to prevent new connections during the meetings. We are also looking at switch ISPs to get better upload speeds. 8Mps is super frustrating to try to deal with. Thanks again for all the suggestions!

The idea with Liahona having the splash page/captive portal is that, even though those devices automatically connect, they don't actually get past the firewall until they accept the terms. If they never get on their device and accept the terms, their device will not have an internet connection via the meetinghouse wifi so it won't start syncing or anything in the background, even though it'll show as connected. They may have some affect on the wireless performance in the building, but shouldn't affect your internet speeds on the wired at all. I'd highly suggest hard wiring in these cases if you're not already.

rmrichesjr wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 12:27 pm

russellhltn wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 11:31 am If you've disabled Lithonia and they're still connected, that suggests you have a rogue WiFi somewhere.

What's Lithonia?

The name of Nephi's ship.

Hi l'm a TS at our ward so the trick for this things is for you to disable internet access that heads to the access point, lf any networks are also available do disable. Also check that the clerk's computer is off and you are good to go instead of my network going 75mbs it runs up to 105mbs

Try it , it works

Software engineer here (so not familiar with Church technology)

Some routers allow you to prioritize traffic, and I'm wondering if that's a viable option here.

You basically tell the router how important each device is, and the router will care more about providing good-quality Internet to that device than to the others.

So if every device on the network is competing for bandwidth, the presidents, teachers, meeting Webcams, etc. will get a better quality of service than Sister Rando's iPad.

moonman239 wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:38 am Some routers allow you to prioritize traffic, and I'm wondering if that's a viable option here.

Quality of Service (QoS) is available with the routers the church provides. However, the routers are not managed locally. They are managed by church headquarters.

moonman239 wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 9:38 am Some routers allow you to prioritize traffic, and I'm wondering if that's a viable option here.

That might work for upload, but not for download. As far as I know, any QoS has to be set up before the bottleneck, not afterwards. Depending on the protocol, the upload may depend on timely response, so control of the download is needed as well.