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Escaping WiFi Interference In The Modern Dorm Room?
j.cherney writes "I recently moved my son up to a dorm at Michigan State University. We set up a wireless router (D-link) and everything worked well-until the rest of the dorm moved in. Now he is getting intermittent outages which I am quite sure is related to the large numbers of cordless phones on the 2.4ghz frequency. So my question to everyone is: Is there anything that I can do to make wireless work in this environment? Obviously I'm not willing to buy everyone in the dorm a new cordless phone! Is one brand more resistant to interference than another? Is there a filter than can be installed? Or is he S.O.L.?"
like.. could having too many of them in the area cause that?
of course obvious solutions: bigger/better antenna.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
First: I'd guess that some of the interference is coming from other 802.11b/g gear, not necessarily cordless phones. It all defaults to channel 6 from the factory, so try 1 or 11. Or load the ETSI firmware and use 14, and just don't tell the FCC.
Second: Try some FHSS gear, it seems tougher in noisy environments than DSSS. The old Proxim RangeLan equipment is cheap.
Third: Get out of 2.4GHz entirely. Go go 5GHz with 802.11a, or 900MHz with older Aironet gear.
Fourth: It's a dorm room, and worse than that, it's an MSU dorm room. What is it, 4x8 feet? Stick with wired. Get a real patch cord that uses stranded conductors, as the solid stuff is too stiff and will stress the connectors.
Obviously, this situation sucks, but it does give the son a dose of reality. Move into a new neighborhood? Contend with interference. Move into a new apartment? Contend with interference. Sounds like a great opportunity to test out his technical and negotiation skills that he'll need once he enters the post-college real world.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
I don't know I picked up a Proxim Harmony access point (802.11a) for $10 on Ebay, pretty much the most affordable access point I have ever found.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
FCC Part 15 rules state that this device must accept any interference, including interference that might disrupt its operation.
This means that any other wireless routers, cellphones, microwave ovens, etc... are free to wreak havoc on it, and vice versa.
Having said that, you can always spend more money to upgrade to the newest 802.11 wireless protocols that operate in a different range. It will still be another 6 months before prices drop enough for students without rich parents can afford them.
Honestly, as a young man, I am sure he can tough it out with a CAT5 cable like we did in my day and age, before these new fangled wireless things made life easy. It won't be chic, and it is certainly very old-fashioned, but it gets the job done. Its quite possible your son might never have seen a CAT5 cable before, so now its time for you to show him how Daddy use to do it.
Or you can have Grandpa come down and show him how they did it with 10base2.
Most schools, including mine, ban wireless routers for this reason. They want to track who does what with what computer on the school network. They also ban regular wired routers too, for the same reasons. You might want to check to see if Michigan even allows wireless routers - they probably don't. While a wired router is hard for them to find, my school will sniff out student-run wireless and bust people for running them. So the first thing I would do is just make sure you aren't wasting your time trying to get this to work.
Even if they do allow wireless routers, you might want to re-evaluate just how badly he needs that wireless. Dorm rooms aren't that big - just buy a long cable. Or buy a cheap hub and run a cable to the desk, to the bed, and anywhere else he's going to use a laptop. One of my roommates did just that, worked fine. Lastly, you might just try unplugging your router and seeing if you can pick the school's wireless if they have it. If he's really lucky, he might get a good signal from some other sucker's wireless router. In which he can download as much music, movies, warez, and p0rn as he wants, and if the RIAA/MPAA/BSA comes around, or if the ResNet people get annoyed at the excessive bandwidth use - they'll bust the poor guy who registered the MAC address on that router.
I work in a noc doing cpe (customer provided equipment) support for small companies in pop in downtown Toronto. Since we've introduced cpe enabled wifi, I've turned on snmp polling for stats on connectivity, signal strength etc, and its open my eyes as to where things can go wrong with wifi in a chaotic enviroment. We have about 64 + access points in a building that is less that 300 feet long, and 80 feet wide, that is two stories, and we have no radio interference. 99% of the cases of lost ip transit to wireless endpoints like laptops, bridges or a/ps were due to either Trojans/spyware/malware/viruses swamping the cpe's wan interface, nat process or someone cracking wep and swamping the connection with Kazaa traffic. Either way, I suggest you stick a network sniffer like snort on the wan ethernet interface of the dlink inline (an old p200 w/ 128 megs of ram and an 8gig disk makes a great sniffer, running linux, freebsd or openbsd), and watch what traffic patterns you see. Your son will be able to see what traffic is being used, and will have the tools he needs to take responsiblity for his own connection. Isn't that what great geek dads are supposed to do for their kids ? It might save you a few rolls of tinfoil.
Mostly correct, but the toaster is a special case. The toaster is ungrounded because it is safer when (not if) someone puts a knife in it. For just about everything else, grounds are required by UL. Toasters are about the only thing where having a ground would make it fail UL!
Absolutely. I just disagree with the "you have to live it the hardest way possible so you can appreciate when things are better" approach. You may learn something in the process, but is it worth the price? Considering how little time we have on this earth, wasting the best years of it making burgers or cleaning toilets when you don't have to, when you could easily be enjoying it all instead, seems like an insult to life itself. Now if you have no choice about it, fair enough, but if you do...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
More people should use the "declare bankruptcy" approach for school.
- Get the biggest student loan possible, interest and tax free while you are at school.
- Invest the portion of the student loan that you don't actually require for school. Build a good credit rating.
- Graduate, and get as many credit cards, personal loans, and lines of credit as you can as quickly as possible.
- Pay off entire student load with new credit.
- Declare bankruptcy immediately, as you can't possibly pay any of this off.
- Wait 7 years for good credit to return.
Sure beats trying to pay off $100,000 or more in student loans over the rest of your life.
True, but it's a pain in the butt to install it all. Have one of your buddies convince your floormates to "prank" you, by covering your entire room in aluminum foil. Act really pissed, and then never take it down.
Err no, overall I ate healthier than the average student. Sure I ate McDonalds when working there, but most of my meals where elsewhere. I cook for myself, and I always made sure they were well balanced. My health is just fine. Better than many others my age in fact, in part because I've always avoided junk food, and when I did have it, just a little bit.
I also don't drink, and I never could stand crowds/parties. These two are major time and money wasters for the average kid. Mind you have to make your own choices. I have nothing against someone who chooses to enjoy school years and pay for it latter. That wasn't my choice. I'm annoyed when someone claims only the rich can get through school paying for it themselves, cause I did it.
I don't have a significant other. I'm still looking. Then again "everyone" knows that for the typical /. geek this is normal. :)