Is it possible for Wi-Fi routers to give clients priority?

Question

From a technical perspective, is it possible for a Wi-Fi router to give priority to certain clients?

Answer 1

I think you're looking for quality of service (QoS) settings. My Linksys router has the Tomato firmware on it and it lets me put source or destination IP addresses and MAC addresses within a classification (A, B, C, ...). Then on the basic QoS page it lets me specify a range of bandwidth percent for each classification, inbound and outbound.

Answer 2

If by priority you mean "more bandwidth", then yes, that is possible. As mentioned, it usually appears as QoS, though many home-grade routers don't have the option in the default firmware.

The Linksys WRT54G Series allows users to install a new version of the router firmware [operating system] and the custom ones often do (e.g. I have the DD-WRT firmware on two of mine)

Answer 3

Yes, assuming it has the appropriate firmware, a WiFi router can assign priority based on Quality of Service (QoS) and a specific form of QoS such as WiFi-Multimedia (WMM).