4 ms·

This may not help if you can’t control your environment. You will often benefit from nearby routers hearing you and each other if you are forced to share a chan

This may not help if you can’t control your environment. You will often benefit from nearby routers hearing you and each other if you are forced to share a channel with them, as that is what enables the carrier sensing to work correctly. Otherwise neighbouring APs that can’t hear your quieter use of the channel may shout over your devices rather than backing off, creating collisions and resulting in retransmits.

eqvinox 1y ago
You're describing the situation where the prisoner's dilemma has already gone wrong, with someone else not-nice shouting over you trying to be nice. In other words: you don't need carrier sensing to work if you're not getting drowned in noise to begin with.
- Retric 1y ago
  You can get this kind of interfere even if the signal from the router to your device is sitting just above the noise floor and the property next to you is doing the same thing. Both signals are so weak they get drowned out by an even weaker signal. The router on the other hand can’t tell the message is corrupted until your device responds.
appreciatorBus 1y ago
If you’re using the same channel as a neighbouring router that’s close enough to overpower yours then you’ve already lost, pick a different channel. If you stick to 20 mhz there are plenty options, even more if you are able to use DFS channels.
- martinald 1y ago
  Wifi7 can use 320MHz channels on 6GHz. There's only 1 of those in many locations.
  - appreciatorBus 1y ago
    Yes, exactly, this means you shouldn’t use 320Mhz. Find quietest 20mhz available on 5 or 6 GHz. It’ll be far more reliable than trying to battle someone over the 320.
    - tymscar 1y ago
      But also faaaaaaar slower
      - bcrl 1y ago
        The only person I've encountered recently that had a legitimate actual need for multi-gigabit wireless and internet access works on cleaning up LIDAR data from construction site scans. Maybe if you're editing a lot of video content, but people doing that tend to benefit more from fast local storage during the editing process. End-user wise the only customer I've had that sustained a gigabit transfer rate for multiple days was doing something stupid: they uploaded their 20 TB NAS to a backup service, reformated the unit, then downloaded it. They could have done an in place filesystem conversion cheaper and way faster, but they chose an option in the idiot realm instead. I'm guessing they don't have backups of their data and will be very disappointed when one of the HDDs dies.
        tymscar 1y ago
        As it turns out, I do play with LiDAR all the time. I think I have a blogpost about scanning my environment too
        KeplerBoy 1y ago
        Got a link to that blog?
        tymscar 1y ago
        Here’s one where I did a Gaussian Splat. But I talk about my LiDAR scanned head there too https://blog.tymscar.com/posts/gaussiansplat/ https://blog.tymscar.com/posts/gaussiansplat/
Brian_K_White 1y ago
You control your environment by not adding yourself to the dicks creating the bad environment. Everything else is just rationalizing for your own maximum convenience. There is no such problem as "you have to shout enough so the others hear that you're there". There's no such thing, by at least 2 different vectors. 1, They hear everyone just fine, weak and strong, all at the same time. 2, It doesn't matter even if they didn't, because you obviously hear them if you're getting clobbered by them, and so your router can channel hop around them even if they don't channel hop around you.
- arghwhat 1y ago
  While indeed you shouldn't fix noise by shouting louder, your justification isn't quite right. 1. It's the AP that has to decide to change channel, and if you live somewhere with channel contention, from its perspective all channels will be busy. At that point, if your channel appears the quietest (either by being the least noisy or by your clients not being active), then the AP will decide to clobber your channel. Their WiFi devices may also not hear you and won't back off to give your airtime, even though you hear theirs and give them airtime. 2. Having your AP change channel (note: channel hopping is something else entirely, which isn't used for WiFi) wouldn't help when all channels are busy. As long as your usage appears quiet, other APs will keep moving on top of you during their channel optimization. For residential, the only solution is to use technology that cannot propagate to neighbors. 5/6GHz and many APs, and good thick walls (mmm, reinforced concrete). WiFi channels is a solution to make a few bits of equipment coexist in the same space, but is of limited use when it comes to segregating your space from that of your neighbors. Especially if you want good performance, as there's very few wide channels available.
  - lazide 1y ago
    Notably even drywall attenuates 5/6ghz to an obvious degree. It’s quite useful in apartments.
    - arghwhat 1y ago
      Well, everything attenuates everything, and you want signals from your neighbors attenuated to the point of non-existence to avoid having your devices back off. That's quite a bit more than a few sheets of regular drywall.

eqvinox 1y ago

You're describing the situation where the prisoner's dilemma has already gone wrong, with someone else not-nice shouting over you trying to be nice. In other words: you don't need carrier sensing to work if you're not getting drowned in noise to begin with.

Retric 1y ago
You can get this kind of interfere even if the signal from the router to your device is sitting just above the noise floor and the property next to you is doing the same thing. Both signals are so weak they get drowned out by an even weaker signal. The router on the other hand can’t tell the message is corrupted until your device responds.

appreciatorBus 1y ago

If you’re using the same channel as a neighbouring router that’s close enough to overpower yours then you’ve already lost, pick a different channel. If you stick to 20 mhz there are plenty options, even more if you are able to use DFS channels.

martinald 1y ago
Wifi7 can use 320MHz channels on 6GHz. There's only 1 of those in many locations.
- appreciatorBus 1y ago
  Yes, exactly, this means you shouldn’t use 320Mhz. Find quietest 20mhz available on 5 or 6 GHz. It’ll be far more reliable than trying to battle someone over the 320.
  - tymscar 1y ago
    But also faaaaaaar slower
    - bcrl 1y ago
      The only person I've encountered recently that had a legitimate actual need for multi-gigabit wireless and internet access works on cleaning up LIDAR data from construction site scans. Maybe if you're editing a lot of video content, but people doing that tend to benefit more from fast local storage during the editing process. End-user wise the only customer I've had that sustained a gigabit transfer rate for multiple days was doing something stupid: they uploaded their 20 TB NAS to a backup service, reformated the unit, then downloaded it. They could have done an in place filesystem conversion cheaper and way faster, but they chose an option in the idiot realm instead. I'm guessing they don't have backups of their data and will be very disappointed when one of the HDDs dies.
      - tymscar 1y ago
        As it turns out, I do play with LiDAR all the time. I think I have a blogpost about scanning my environment too
        KeplerBoy 1y ago
        Got a link to that blog?
        tymscar 1y ago
        Here’s one where I did a Gaussian Splat. But I talk about my LiDAR scanned head there too https://blog.tymscar.com/posts/gaussiansplat/ https://blog.tymscar.com/posts/gaussiansplat/

Brian_K_White 1y ago

You control your environment by not adding yourself to the dicks creating the bad environment. Everything else is just rationalizing for your own maximum convenience. There is no such problem as "you have to shout enough so the others hear that you're there". There's no such thing, by at least 2 different vectors. 1, They hear everyone just fine, weak and strong, all at the same time. 2, It doesn't matter even if they didn't, because you obviously hear them if you're getting clobbered by them, and so your router can channel hop around them even if they don't channel hop around you.

arghwhat 1y ago
While indeed you shouldn't fix noise by shouting louder, your justification isn't quite right. 1. It's the AP that has to decide to change channel, and if you live somewhere with channel contention, from its perspective all channels will be busy. At that point, if your channel appears the quietest (either by being the least noisy or by your clients not being active), then the AP will decide to clobber your channel. Their WiFi devices may also not hear you and won't back off to give your airtime, even though you hear theirs and give them airtime. 2. Having your AP change channel (note: channel hopping is something else entirely, which isn't used for WiFi) wouldn't help when all channels are busy. As long as your usage appears quiet, other APs will keep moving on top of you during their channel optimization. For residential, the only solution is to use technology that cannot propagate to neighbors. 5/6GHz and many APs, and good thick walls (mmm, reinforced concrete). WiFi channels is a solution to make a few bits of equipment coexist in the same space, but is of limited use when it comes to segregating your space from that of your neighbors. Especially if you want good performance, as there's very few wide channels available.
- lazide 1y ago
  Notably even drywall attenuates 5/6ghz to an obvious degree. It’s quite useful in apartments.
  - arghwhat 1y ago
    Well, everything attenuates everything, and you want signals from your neighbors attenuated to the point of non-existence to avoid having your devices back off. That's quite a bit more than a few sheets of regular drywall.