Wireless Routers for Congested Areas? 138
An anonymous reader asks: "I have been living close to campus at UW Madison for the past six months or so and have come across a problem. We, along with everyone else in the area, have a wireless router, both a Belkin 54g and a Linksys WRT54G. We have Charter 3 Mbit down/.25 Mbit up cable and 6 guys in our apartment. Just on our block about 15-20 people have routers. We are constantly plagued with problems connecting to the wireless, staying connected, getting connected after rebooting, hibernating, and so forth. We have to reset the cable modem and the router many times a day to get everything rolling again. I am thinking that the router is the problem, because my dad always told me that's why they have twenty dollar routers up to thirty thousand dollar routers. What router can I purchase that will help my situation and will work well in a congested college area?"
kismet (Score:5, Funny)
Simple Solution (Score:4, Informative)
Alternatively, you could set up a small linux box with a wireless card and set it up as an AP on channel 13. Assuming you are using a linux desktop, you should be able to take any buffalo card and drop it onto channel 13 with no problems.
For a windows box... install the japanese drivers and you will be fine.
Almost all buffalo products have japanese equiv. models. Grab the japanese firmware and re-flash your firmware...
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Who is allocated these frequencies in the US? The idea should work - I'm just curious who's getting stepped on.
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Licensed services are given precedence over unlicensed services like wi-fi.
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Good point!
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Well, that's true if the equipment allows it. Most likely, what will happen is that they call the FCC - remember, as licensed users, they don't have to do anything if there's interference. They can complain, get the FCC to roll their trucks and send you a fine plus the cost of finding the inte
Re:Simple Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
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If you are in life anything like you are in the above post it is no wonder your not getting any help.
He is not at fault here you are. That is why you are getting ignored by the FCC.
In an effort to help you have two options. Get better speaker wires (use shielded ones) or keep gripeing about it when the law and the government agency that over sees the issue has repeatedly said you are wrong.
Note to everyone else. If approched in a friendly mann
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As far as the FCC is concerned, your speakers are lower on the food chain than a licensed amateur radio operator. Thus you'll never get anywhere with the FCC if you're complaining about a ham operator who is operating legally. (If you read the details of the FCC certification of your speakers, it basically says that if it receives interference from a licensed transmitter, you're SOL, and may not cause harmful interference to licensed users.) Now if you did something to interfere with that ham,
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If more people find out about this, I will have to get all new, probably "A", gear to replace my "G" stuff. Although, I might give homeplug/PowerLine a try first, the new ones seem to be quite nice.
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802.11b/g channels (in the 2.4 GHz band) are 11 MHz wide, and spaced 1 MHz apart. This means that most of them overlap each other.
The only nonoverlapping channels are 1, 6, and 11. If allocated in the same manner (1 MHz increments), 12-14 will overlap 11.
The way 802.11 works, two networks using overlapping (but not the same) channels will perform far worse than two networks on the same channel. This is because the collision
Re:kismet (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why not cooperate with your neighbor(s) on a wireless setup?
Anything that runs dd-wrt (Score:5, Informative)
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Completely -not- reccommended for congested areas, to be sure.
Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt (Score:5, Informative)
The maximum power for the 2.4GHz 802.11x is 100mW. Antennas are usually compared to a reference point which usually is a 1/4 wave dipole antenna. So think of it in terms of compact fluorescent and incandescent light bulbs. A 100 watt Incandescent give you a mix of light and heat which is very inefficient (1/4 wave dipole). A compact florescent can give you 400 watts worth of light with the same amount of power the 100 watt incandescent uses (high gain antenna). so a 100W incandescent would nicely illuminate your own driveway but a C.F. lamp would flood the area with light annoying your neighbors while consuming the same amount of power. The power consumption is the same between the two lamps but their ability to radiate that power into light varies greatly. Same applies to antenna design.
Now the reason crappy low gain dipole antennas are used is this, you want to keep interference down so you use a crappy antenna that has little chance of picking up your neighbor's wireless router or microwave. BUT the transceiver has enough transmission power (100mW) to get a decent signal out of that crappy antenna to your clients and vice versa. A 100mW transceiver with a high gain omni directional would not only open your network up to interference from other 2.4GHz devices but you would flood a wider radius with your RF power interfering with other wireless systems. So its legal to get the power to 100mW but only with the crappy dipole. If you used a 3dBi omni @ 100mW it would be comparible to pumping 200mW into the dipole which is illegal. So while it sounds enticing to use high gain antennas on both the clients and AP, its going to cause only more headaches for your network and the networks that surround you.
Hopefully I have explained this properly as its been a while since RF/communications class.
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Obviously, the ratio of what an omni puts out and what an omni "would" put out is 1/1. The gain is therefore 0 dBi.
Your lightbulb analogy is the perfect example of this idea. A plain old
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Actually, it's one watt, with a maximum EIRP of 4 watts (which corresponds to one watt and a 6 dBi antenna.) (You're in the US, so I'm assuming that you're talking about the US here. I am, just so there's no confusion.)
Here is my citation [qsl.net], right out of the FCC regulations, 15.247. (And here it is [fcc.gov] on the FCC site itself.) :
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Typically those antennas are certifed with certain gear. See here [qsl.net].
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No, did you follow the link I gave? From the Part 15 rules:
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Yes, I did. And an authorized add-on antenna is, well, authorized and legal.
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Right, I think we're agreeing here. DYI is fine, but that doesn't mean you can do anything you want with mix-and-match. I looked at the economics of starting a low-cost WISP around here, using linksys gear and Pacific Wireless antennas, and the Part 15 rules made it too expensive to be profitable. Each pairing would need to be certified, and with the rate of change i
Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt (Score:4, Insightful)
Sort of like saying "SUVs are safer in a collision." Well, yes, if you hit someone smaller, but if everyone owned SUVs their advantage would disappear and we'd just be using more fossil fuels.
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To be fair, this isn't really correct. Larger cars ARE, as a general rule, safer -- even if you hit another large car. A large car has more space around you to absorb the impact. So in the case of a head on collision, you slow down from 60 mph to 0 mph in 10 feet rather than 5 feet -- so the odds of you surviving are indeed signifigently higher.
As for
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N? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no real way around it -- assuming you *have* to have wireless -- however there are a few options that might help. Using 802.11a or 802.11n should get you out of the frequencies that are in use by most other people. 802.11n isn't finalised yet, afaik, but plenty of people will sell you it (and it should work ok - as long as you stick to the same brand, anyway).
A lot of people I know run cat5 cabling around their doors to get around this (works well if you're in a drafty house with gaps under the doors)
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Also, 802.11n draft devices have a knack for fucking up non-n routers in the vicinity..you may be screwing the people around you over.
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You just have to hope your router actually allows it.
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Is this still true, even of the Airport Extreme?: http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/specs.html [apple.com]
I have to admit, the tech specs are ambiguous. It says the router does 2.4/5 GHz, and also that it does 802.11a/b/g/n, but does not say in which combinations. It could be 802.11b/g/n on 2.4 GHz and 802.11a on 5 GHz, but it could also be 802.11b/g/n on 2.4 GHz and 802.11a/n on 5 GHz. It isn't clear.
Anyone have one of these devices that can check?
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To answer my own question: This reviewer says he tested the device in 802.11n/5 GHz mode: http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/airport-n . ars [arstechnica.com]
So I guess the answer is yes, you can get 802.11n, 5 GHz devices now. (At least one, anyway.) What sucks is that it can't run on both 2.4 and 5 GHz at once, so unless you have all 5 GHz devices, you'll have to run on 2.4 GHz or you'll have to get another base station for the older devices.
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Unfortunately, the non-gigabit ethernet ports on the Airport Extreme ruin an otherwise beautiful product.
-Cliff
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802.11n on 5GHz (Score:2)
So yes, 802.11n can run at 5GHz. With Apple's wireless cards, anyway. The AEBS can be configured for 802.11n only on either frequency, 802.11n with 802.11a compatibility on 5Ghz or 802.11n with 802.11b/g compatibility on 2.4GHz.
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Sommoderators will moderate anything up, it seems. (Score:5, Informative)
7 8 9 -- all of those will suffer from the same problems from people on channel 6. 802.11[bg] is not designed to work well and play with others.
Re:Sommoderators will moderate anything up, it see (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, you will see worse problems. 802.11 is in fact designed to work well with overlapping networks. Devices on overlapping networks will watch all the packets in the air on the same channel, including those on other networks. They will backoff when they see other devices sending packets. You can still get bad congestion of course, but the devices are at least trying to play nice.
If you switch to a neighboring channel, like 5 or 7, then the devices can't play nice any more. Instead of being able to hear and understand the traffic on other networks, it all just shows up as big blasts of noise. I actually did a bunch of testing of this years ago. If I put two AP's on channel 1 right next to each other and ran simultaneous transfers with two clients, the aggregate bandwidth was about 95% what I would get with two clients on 1 AP. But when I moved one AP to channel 2, it dropped to 75%-85%. At channels 1 and 3, it dropped into the 70%--75% range. After that, it climbed, getting back to just over 100% at channels 1 and 5. Channels 1-6 got me up to 180% of the original throughput and 1-7 up to 210% of the original. In retrospect, I had the AP's way too close which explains why I still saw interference at the 1-6 step. But assuming your neighbors aren't putting their access point 2 feet away from your own, this shouldn't be an issue.
So what's my point in all this? Stick to 1, 6 and 11 for everybodies sake. I have actually heard of some sites using four channels with, I guess, three channels of separation. So 1,4,7,10 for example. I haven't testing this and I'm not convinced it's really any better. Because the performance at three channels is about the same or a little worse than the same channel. It only starts to get better at four channels of separation, but then you have to use 1,5,9,13 and channels 12 and 13 aren't permitted by the FCC.
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Power over ethernet provides DC over pins that are not used for data on an rj-45 connection. What you're talking about is powerline ethernet (or ethernet over power).
-Peter
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The list of UTP advantages is long but INSTALLATION COSTS IS NOT ONE OF THEM. Coax is far cheaper to run, but whatever money you recover from co
802.11a (Score:1)
802.11a? Come on... (Score:1)
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html/ [faqs.org]
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802.11a (Score:2)
2 Routers? (Score:5, Informative)
Use Kismet or NetStumbler, and find a channel with no strong signals nearby, and use that one.
Try different antenna orientatations.
Put a metal reflector behind the AP if it's in a corner of the house.
Asus (Score:5, Informative)
I got tired of that and searched for a router capable of running OpenWRT [openwrt.org] in case the default firmware sucked.
I found the Asus WL-500g Premium [asus.com] and bought that for about $100 at the time. The default firmware worked fine, but I decided to try openWRT, then tossed that in favor of X-Wrt [x-wrt.org] which had a better web interface.
The router's current uptime is 37 days with no crashes or any oddities what so ever. Last restart was for a firmware reflash.
As for reception, try lesser-used channels. 6 is a really common channel, so try 1 or 11 instead [or any other channel].
Note however, that if you go the path of openWRT or X-wrt, you're going to have to spend some time working out the kinks at first. Mine worked fine, except wifi couldn't access wan, which took a bit to figure out how to fix it; openWRT's wiki and forum were a big help in figuring out that.
Re:Asus (Score:5, Informative)
Just to note: On the 2.4 GHz band used by 802.11b and g (and n which can do both 2.4 and 5 GHz), there is substantial frequency overlap between channels. Channels 1, 6, and 11 considered "non-overlapping" (which is mostly true, though not entirely). Channels 1 and 2, however, interfere quite a bit.
This is another advantage to the 5 GHz band used by 802.11a and 802.11n. The 5 GHz band is divided into channels which do not overlap, which allows a lot more concurrent access points to be run. Unfortunately, 5 GHz does not penetrate through walls as well, which limits the area you can cover with one access point. But in a high density housing area, you likely don't have very much area to cover, unless you are trying to split your wifi with your neighbors. :)
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Admittedly DD-WRT's interface is extremely nice, but OpenWRT's is quite usable. I've seen commercial Firmware's with worse interfaces then either of them.
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Just probally went a bit fast in my post, didn't really care to clarify that.
Change your firmware on the Linksys... (Score:5, Informative)
Now, once you have flashed it, you can use additional channel space that is normally unavailable to use as it is reserved bandwidth. I forget which channel ID it is, channel 14 I think is not normally accessible in the USA. Change to that channel and most of your interference should go away from other competing devices.
Now, other things to do, turn off the broadcast SSID. Setup the MAC Address Filter and only include the MAC addresses of devices that you want to allow to connect. You can now even setup your own local DNS and statically assigned DHCP addresses for devices (in other words, your device still does the normal DHCP request, but you always get the a specified address for that device, useful if you have any kind of file sharing or network server).
Other things you can do is boost your antenna gain in the software if you have poor coverage in the house/apartment. You can also try specifying a specific antenna to transmit or receive, which can be useful if you want to upgrade an antenna with one of your own design, or something you purchased. I personally have a 16 dbi omni on my wireless router. I also have a 24 dbi directional in case I ever need to do something like making a wireless bridge. Using something like that could potentially let you connect to your campus's wireless net and use their higher speed pipe that your student fees already pay for.
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This is about network security and has nothing to do with RF inter
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Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys... (Score:5, Informative)
Nice to see someone recommend you break the FCC rules (which I believe puts you in violation of a Federal Law)... *Sigh*. The FCC for all it's problem does actually do the frequency splits for a real honest to god good reason. Everything above 11 is outside the USA frequency range, you use 14, because that puts you the furthest away (which leaves you less overlap with 11, each channel overlaps with the next 4 or 5 channels). As to what is usable where, see this page [cisco.com] from Cisco. What the parent is recommended is an FCC violation, probably punishable by a fine. Not sure if it's punishable by jail time. In general, what you'd like to do is actually work with the people in the area to work out a workable system. While this local optimization might work for you, if everyone does it, it's a problem. Along with the fact that it will cause problems for whoever actually is using the licensed equipment in that frequency range. First figure out if you have crappy equipment, or figure out if you have the wireless spectrum in your area is just flooded. If it is, work as a with the folks you live near to mitigate this. They are flooding your network, you are flooding theirs. Set up one network, setup multiple networks and coordinate channel usage. Get everyone to tone down their power settings (thus the signal won't go through walls). As several others have suggested, use directional antennas. Use a different technology to for single room access and use wired for long haul.
Kirby
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http://xwrt.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd-wrt-continues- to-exploit-free-open.html [blogspot.com]
or not...
I have been running dd-wrt for a long time, but the fact that it's httpd always uses close to 100% of the CPU (after running ok for a while) so I have to ssh in and kill it (it's restarted automatically), made me look for an alternative. I'm going to try the 'tomato' one, I think
http://www.polarcloud.com/tomato [polarcloud.com]
france (Score:1)
Any DD-WRT router (Score:4, Informative)
Everything is tweakable, the system is very stable, even in high traffic areas, and you will be able to get it to work reliably (mine does, with 15-20 other access points visible). In fact, I have two, and one serves as a wireless bridge, in a very high traffic area. I've had 40 days or so of up-time.
Even better, you get things like forced QoS, a lot of flexibility in terms of services (DyDNS? Check. Local DyDNS? Check. Excellent Port Triggering? Check. An iptables based firewall? Check. 802.11 briding? Check), and a future-proof, at least in terms of encryption, router (WEP WPA WPA2).
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I suspect you might have to tweak your settings. I get an incredible amount of mileage out of these things
We've got 4 running at my office, one as a main router/DHCP server/QoS firewall, one as a primary access point, two as bridges. The main one does QoS, and we've got ~8 employees online at any given time, with a non-trivial amount of network traffic, especially when I'm here.
We also run all of our phone over vonage (6 lines!), all through this little DD-WRT box, and it runs like a champ. Load
A tip for resetting router/modem. (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a timer switch (the ones people use to turn the lights on/off when they go on vacation. Get a digital one so you won't be plagued with tick tick tick all the time.
Set the timer to turn off at 5am, and turn on at 5:01am. That way, you'll powercycle the router/modem every day and won't notice it because you would be pretending to sleep at that hour.
Grump
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http://www.intermatic.com/?action=prod&pid=203&di
Battery backup, lots of memory for on-off events, you can differentiate M-F, 15A through the relay, manual override, and not that expensive.
Cable companies reset connections every 3 hr (Score:2)
you have no idea what you're doing... (Score:2, Insightful)
We, along with everyone else in the area, have a wireless router, both a Belkin 54g and a Linksys WRT54G.
Why 2 routers? How are they connected? Same SSID? Same channel? One wireless-G router should be enough to cover an apartment. I suspect this is the cause of many of your problems.
We are constantly plagued with problems connecting to the wireless, staying connected, getting connected after rebooting, hibernating, and so forth. We have to reset the cable modem
Have you thought using 802.11a (Score:3, Informative)
The Proxim ones can be flashed with a web interface rather than the telnet based one they arrive with.
I have one here and it works great, once setup just plug into your router and go.
Of course you will need an 802.11a capable card for your laptop. I was able to find a minipci intel dual band one for about $20.
Good points:
802.11a has more channels than b/g
802.11a less range and is more effected by walls etc meaning less interference
Its 5.2Ghz so your 5.8Ghz phone is not going to interfere
Reasonablely inexpencive
Bad points:
The Proxim I got doesn't support wpa-psk so only with a radius server can you use wpa
You need a 802.11a radio to use it, although dual band radios are getting to be more common, they are still not that common.
The signal doesn't go as far, you'll need more access points to cover an area.
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Aluminum Foil (Score:4, Funny)
Use aluminum foil as wallpaper. Not only will it will bounce off your neighbors airwaves and block out alien mindreading capabilities but it will protect you in case of a fire !
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Ignore Everyone Else, There's an EASY FIX (Score:2)
I too have seen areas with as many as 20 wireless access points in congested areas. You think this would be difficult to overcome but its not because most people aren't that tech savy. Everyone leaves their router on the default channel, which for virtually every brand is channel 6. Try different channels, starting with one higher than six, until you get one where the net is "highly responsive".
You've just described wireless networking. (Score:4, Insightful)
Cat 5 (Score:2)
A wired one (Score:1, Redundant)
QUIT USING 802.11 AND GET A WIRED LAN.
If your computer room is anything like mine, it is completely immobile, and a wireless lan is the wrong tool for the job.
You shouldn't use a technology just for its sake. You should use the right tool for the right job. Using a wireless network when everybody does too is like using a hub with everyone in your neighbourhood connected to it. In fact, wireless lans have serious trouble operating
Forget wireless... (Score:1, Redundant)
Just disable the wireless o
A few tips from a tech support guy... (Score:3, Informative)
Some of these tips are a bit "brute force" for those times when you can't coordinate your setups with your neighbours' setups, others require cooperation to work well..
There are a few other tricks you could try in order to boost signal strength but a lot of those really only apply if your signal strength is bad without there being other networks nearby, like if your access point is far from the computer then you might try getting yourself a repeater but I'm guessing you're in a fairly small apartment so that shouldn't apply..
/Mikael
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/Mikael
Pool your resources (Score:3, Insightful)
Channels are important (Score:1)
I'm also willing to bet you're using 6. Stop using 6. DD-WRT on your linksys will let you use channels 13 and 14. Which aren't usually included on most router's default firmwares. Those channels are bound to be clear.
If there are a lot of Nintendo Wii's in the area, I suggest NOT using channels 1 or 2. As Nintendo has made it very clear that the "best way to connect your Wii to the internet" is to put i
DD-WRT, Stumbler, P2P (Score:2)
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Madison (Score:2)
Signal Isolation Technology (Score:5, Funny)
Easy - Use a wired connection. (Score:4, Informative)
But I can't count the number of people who have asked me for help with their home networks, who have a cable/DSL modem, a WiFi router (often built into the modem these days), and a single PC - All sitting on the same desk (or at least within the same smallish area such as one wall of a room).
And to elaborate on the FP's example, I dealt with a situation two days ago where a friend kept having trouble with his WAP (one client and one laptop connected to it). Turns out he didn't even connect to his own AP! The laptop could see something like 15 APs, half of which had just "linksys" as the name, and only one used WEP. And on the flip side of that, he had about a dozen people randomly using his AP, over time. Really makes you feel confident in the RIAA's John Doe SLAPP suits based on IP address, eh?
The real "problem" here comes from the perception that we all need wireless (a perception not helped by the fact that most broadband providers try to convince their users to buy crappy low-end modem/WAP combos). Well, we don't! Personally, I run a 4-7 machine LAN at home, and have it totally wired for both security and reliability reasons. And for the rare occasions when I want to use my laptop outside, I do actually have a WAP, which I only turn on about four time a year.
Simple heuristic for everyone - Regardless of the number of machines on your home network, do they move? If not - Run a damned wire! Even if you mostly use a laptop while sitting on the couch, it actually takes less time to plug a 6' cable into a nearby wall than it does to connect to a WAP (though the latter you usually don't notice because it just looks like yet another part of the obscenely long Windows boot process).
I just ran the wireless network for 593 people... (Score:2)
Not just firmware (Score:2)
Using a Broadcom-based router, installing 3rd party firmware, and upping your transmitting power might help.
Might.
However it is not a panacea.
802.11-whichever is a two-way system & you'd only be upping the router's outgoing signal strength, doing nothing for improving the client's signal. Furthermore you can easily over-power your transmitter and end up with literally more noise then signal. Plus the additional load can overheat your router and lead to premature failure.
A different strategy is t
Re:Go wired? Form a cooperative? (Score:4, Insightful)
I regularly plug in my laptop when I have a lot of stuff to transfer, such as a full backup. Gigabit Ethernet still beats any form of 802.11.
It may seem counterintuitive, but one good way to reduce your interference to your neighbors' WiFi networks is to put more access points in your own house. This is especially true if you can't cover your whole house with a single access point. Above all, resist the antisocial temptation to get a power amplifier. Use the cellular approach instead.
Get more access points, spread them across channels 1, 6 and 11 and sprinkle them around your house. Set them all to the same ESSID and plug them into an Ethernet switch (if the access points have built-in routers, use no more than one so all the access points will be on the same logical Ethernet segment.) Your laptop will automatically hand off to the nearest access point when you move, just like a cell phone.
Even if you can cover your whole house with a single access point, having several reduces your average radio link distance and lets the links operate at a higher average speed. (802.11g runs from 1 megabit/sec up to 54 megabits/sec, depending on signal-to-noise ratio). Most WiFi transmitters run at constant power, so increasing your average data rate reduces your transmission time and the interfering energy you dump onto your neighbors for each megabyte of data you transfer.
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