5 ms·

I actually tried to approach this problem in my own apartment complex. The effort died almost immediately. Very few consumer wireless access points even expose

by korethr 10y ago

I actually tried to approach this problem in my own apartment complex. The effort died almost immediately. Very few consumer wireless access points even expose Tx power as a configuration parameter at all, even buried in an "Advanced Settings" section somewhere. You're lucky if they even expose channel selection at all. So with the craptastic firemware of most consumer wifi APs, the AP hops on channels 1, 6 or 11, and stays there, screaming at full power. And the consumer, even if they know enough about radio to realize such is suboptimal, can't do anything about it without changing the firmware or buying a more expensive device.

jlgaddis 10y ago
From my experiences, lots of these consumer APs frequently end up landing somewhere like channel 4 or channel 9. :/
- vacri 10y ago
  In a really busy area, what's the issue there? If there are tons of people on 1/6/11, you may as well hop into the middle bits - there's already plenty of interference going on in the usual channels.
  - msandford 10y ago
    With 802.11g you're actually taking up four channels out of the available 12? So people hopping in the middle are messing with people on both sides of them. Sorry for the mobile link. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11g-2003 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11g-2003
    - vacri 10y ago
      However, if the 'standard' channels are already congested, people are already messing with each other. Look at the semicircle graph on your link - someone on channel 4 is messing a fair bit with someone on channel 5, and a little bit on 6. However, someone on channel 6 is messing a lot with another person on 6. So, people on the same channel silence each other (CTS/RTS), but on other channels it is simply seen as noise. If there are lots of people on 1/6/11, you're going to spend a lot of time silenced. It's one of those things that you just have to try out in your own particular circumstances. Will you get better performance if frequently silenced, or better performance dealing with a high level of 'noise'?

by korethr 10y ago

jlgaddis 10y ago

From my experiences, lots of these consumer APs frequently end up landing somewhere like channel 4 or channel 9. :/

vacri 10y ago
In a really busy area, what's the issue there? If there are tons of people on 1/6/11, you may as well hop into the middle bits - there's already plenty of interference going on in the usual channels.
- msandford 10y ago
  With 802.11g you're actually taking up four channels out of the available 12? So people hopping in the middle are messing with people on both sides of them. Sorry for the mobile link. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11g-2003 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11g-2003
  - vacri 10y ago
    However, if the 'standard' channels are already congested, people are already messing with each other. Look at the semicircle graph on your link - someone on channel 4 is messing a fair bit with someone on channel 5, and a little bit on 6. However, someone on channel 6 is messing a lot with another person on 6. So, people on the same channel silence each other (CTS/RTS), but on other channels it is simply seen as noise. If there are lots of people on 1/6/11, you're going to spend a lot of time silenced. It's one of those things that you just have to try out in your own particular circumstances. Will you get better performance if frequently silenced, or better performance dealing with a high level of 'noise'?