Re:Use a specturm analyser. (Score 1)

Great suggestion. Using WiFi scanner only gives you half the picture. Your biggest enemy may not be wifi nets, but 2.4 cordless phones, baby monitors, wireless speakers, video cameras, microwaves. Previously operating a small wireless ISP, I found Panasonic 2.4 GigaRange clans uniden cordless phones to be horrible offenders. A lot of cordless phones hang-out around channel 1, usually making ch 1 useless for wifi. WiFi devices will wait until the channel is clear before transmitting. If your neighbor is xmitting AND your PC and AP can hear your neighbor they will wait until your neighbor backs off before the xmit. If your pc or ap cannot hear your neighbor xmit the signals will collide and you will drop packets. So, YES it depends on usage patterns of you and your neighbor. While wifi will wait for a clear channel, cordless phones just xmit full power without regard for other devices - causing downloads to drop off or disconnecting you from the ap completely. How to mitigate: 1. eliminate other devices on the band (difficult to impossible) 2. Guess and check to find the best channel 3. Use directional antennas so your devces do not hear the other devices on the band 4. Use the more robust 802.11b modulation (this will slow down your neighbors on the same channel as well, but it works much better) 5. turn on rts/cts with a value of, say 256 and experiment. Google what this does.. FYI it did nothing for my network due to spread spectrum cordless phones 6. Use 5 ghz a or n. Forget about 5.7-5.8 because new 5.8ghz phones are here and will creme wifi here as well. 7. Call a meeting to get everyone to dump their 2.4phones and junk devices and coordinate a community wifi network or at least get coordination between neighbors for channels and get power levels turned down