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I'm currently experimenting with the effect of restricting certain data rates on a service set. I'm wondering if anyone can explain if the following client behaviour is correct.

On an 802.11g radio I've disabled support for 1, 2 and 5.5Mbps, 11Mbps is set a mandatory and the beacon/broadcast rate has been set to 11Mbps.

A wireless packet capture confirms the AP is beaconing at 11Mbps and the frame indicates supported rates of 11Mbps upwards.

I can also see a client struggling to authenticate which eventually connects

The concern I have is once this client is on the network the majority of the packets appear to be sent at 1 or 2Mbps, although this traffic is all broadcast or multicast.

Is this behaviour correct? Is the data rate setting only a one one street i.e. the speed is only controllable from the AP whereas the client will use whatever rates it's chipset allows?

thanks,