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Cutting Through a Wi-Fi Traffic Jam?
eric3xxx asks: "A week or so after Christmas, I tried to connect to my home wireless network and while I could see my access point I could not connect. After scanning the network, it turned out that there were at least twenty new access points in my apartment building (and in the surrounding buildings). Most of them had names such as 'linksys' and were all set on their respective vendors default channel (apparently a lot of people received 802.11b/g WAPs as presents). I tried changing the channel on my access point, starting at 1 and continuing through all of the channels, and none of them worked (probably since the channels overlap). In any case, I have no clear solution to this problem. I suppose I could boost the signal, however, that also increases noise. Perhaps I could convince my neighbors to put together a shared wireless network. I may just switch to 802.11a since it isn't as widely used." Has anyone else had success in configuring their APs to work in an areas of heavy wireless traffic?
Having this problem here as well. My new Netgear 802.11g works just fine on channel 11 - but this is one of their new products which has the ability to do 108Mbps. The problem is that the 108Mbps feature is only available on channel 6 - the router will not let you select another channel if you have 108Mbps enabled - and I have *TWO* neighbors with WAPs on channel six.
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At this point I'm seriously considering returning my Xmas present and just getting the next model up, which does 108Mbps over 802.11a 5.8GHz, thus bypassing 2.4Ghz entirely . .
--Ryv
The non-overlapping channels are 1, 6, & 11. Don't use anything else as this just overlaps with the other two default channels. You can also discourage your neighbors from using the 2.4GHz frequency by buying a 2.4GHz phone and leaving it off the hook for a while. Also, make sure you microwave lots of water. That'll piss em off real good.
Back in Law School, there were a number of students in my class living in the same apartment complex. When one of my classmates got himself cable internet and a wireless router for him and his room-mate, we offered to "buy" access from him. (Most of us had newer laptops with WiFi cards) When the dust settled, each of 5 students paid about $30 for cable internet at home for the entire semester. It pays to get to know your neighbors.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Hehe...I was about to suggest this myself.
Don't forget, though, that channels 12-14 are illegal under FCC regulations in the US.
That said, my Netgear WAP/router asked me what country I was in when I first set it up. If I had been dishonest, I could have chosen a country where 12-14 are available, and used those instead (but I'm the strongest WiFi signal near my house, so it's not an issue).
And then I've got some Lucent WaveLAN Orinoco cards that I've hacked to support all 14 channels, so I can use those cards as well (most other domestic cards/drivers are smart enough to restrict themselves to ch. 1-11, at least under Window in my experience).
I went on a wardrive once with those cards, but to my dismay I didn't find any extra access points operating outside the legal range.
CyberDave
For instance, on my network, there are a few iTunes databases feeding to the TiVo, the TiVo has to see the music to play it, all of which has to be on the same subnet. And that's just my roommate. I use several automated ssh scripts to play time shifted radio in various rooms (office, bedroom), have a NFS server with loads of video that I'd like to keep private... or the college kids in the neighborhood will suck my bandwidth like an Earnest movie.
In short, all is well and good... if *all* you want is bandwidth to one machine and never wish to reliably connect to another machine you own... and don't care about the privacy of your network.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
would be to somehow use all the wireless routers to increase bandwidth. There's gotta be a way to set up all the wireless routers including your own to be freely accessible to all and then take advantage of all the bandwidth at once when you need it, and let your neighbors do the same. I posted this idea in an ask /. , but I never got a response I don't think, or posted for that matter.
If there isn't a way to do this, we should have it be this way in the next generation infrastructure, no? Maybe have it run automatigically too!
Imagine getting your 300k/sec plus your 10 neighbors 300k/sed on some nice little torrent.....
Or... If you had a beowulf cluster of wifi routers... PROFIT!!!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
You GNU hippies should buy an FCC license, reserve some frequencies, develop hardware and communication protocols for data transmission, and then use it for wireless networking.
Stop ripping off IEEE's hard work.
FCC regulations for unlicensed spectrum mean that it's basically a free for all, you have to accept interference. You can't complain (technically anyways), and you can't intentionally screw with or overpower thier signal.
However, being a good neighboor can solve the problem with a bit of leg work.
My neighboorhood was the same way, AP's on different channels all over the place causing no ned of problems. I did a little direction finding, knocked on the doors and explained the problem. Ended up orginizing the entire block so that everyone was using non-overlaping channels and no-one was interfering with each other. Solved alot of thier problems as well in doing so.
Perhaps you might speak to your neighboors and see if you can bring a little orginization to the chaos. I'm betting your not the only one who's having problems, I'm sure your neighboors would love the help.
Where are we going, and why are we in this hand cart?
How does it change the router? What new features are added?
Even if you download it, it *still* doesn't tell you anything about the project.
feh. stuff.
I never purchased a wireless bridge, because I was waiting for decent Linux support for 802.11a. A roommate's equipment negated the need after that.
Part of the reason why I was going to go "a" was because there weren't really any wardrivers checking out the network, and the other major part was that my cordless phone, microwave, and other equipment didn't use the frequency. I know that security through obscurity isn't a good idea as one's only line of defense, but using 802.11a, in addition to proper trusted/untrusted zone firewalling with WEP and software or protocol based encrypted tunnelling should have left me fairly secure for being over the airwaves.
I don't know the status of 802.11a in Linux right now, but if it's good then I'd recommend going to that. It may cost more, but it's faster, it's seperate from a, and relatively unused even by people with systems that would fully support it otherwise.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
ok, I did some reading on faraday cages, and some thinking, and I found so many flaws with what I just said it's not even funny. What I said would only work with a sphere (various shell theorems are probably what I was thinking of), and I already knew that Faraday cages didn't have to be.. So, my understanding of how a faraday cage works is now much better.
I still don't know if it would work if it was just like a wall or two of a structure, as opposed to completely surrounding something (whether with mesh or solid). The webpages linked off the wikipedia article tell me that a closed metal shell around something will create 0 charge on the inside. If you don't have a closed shell though, might that not just add to the interference, acting as noise, esentially?
At one time I used 802.11a, happily living on a 5GHz mountain all by myself.
Then my neighbor brought home a frequency-hopping 5GHz wireless phone.
And then paradise went away, and I found myself unable to connect to my "A" network any more.
Since the condo I live in has a very small yard with a lot of other suburban professionals nearby, I found, like the Topic Author, that I didn't have much of a choice in using "G", either.
Eventually I talked on of my father's employees (an engineer and a Ham enthusiast) into building a smallish 5GHz signal amplifier out of a few hundred dollars worth of his spare parts. The way he was talking I'm not even completely sure my neighbor's phone can even work any more, and I get reception on my (secure) "A" WLAN a full city block from my house.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
I think it would be better if he kept his router actually, that way he could play dumb and say "I thought I was connecting to my router, I didn't know I was freeloading, really." Could anyone make a dispute against him in that situation? If he got rid of the router all together then he's pretty much caught red handed.
Better yet, turn off the broadcast on the neighbor's router then change the password. No more interference!
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
I had several neighbors with access points polluting my connection. I renamed my SSID to "Network Intruder Alert." I no longer see any other access points, and everything is clear now.
True story.
Then *any* dirt will cause it to boil- suddenly.
I've done this myself. I cooked it up, without it bubbling, and then tipped some sugar into it with a long-handled wooden spoon- whoosh and the level in the cup suddenly goes down.
Apparently, one guy blinded himself- he picked the cup of superheated water from the microwave and peered at it closely. Maybe a hair fell in, but whatever it was, he won't do that again- not with that eye anyway.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"From my experience with the law, I would think that the prosecutor would try to avoid a jury of CS majors. If the jury did not understand the evidence, I believe they would just trust the "experts" who caught the guy.
This result can be derived from the van der waals state equation. There is a famous non-microwave case in which a teapot exploded in the kitchen injuring a housewife when her husband slammed the door.
The problem is that with an extremely smooth container (ceramic or glass perhaps) there are no nucleation sites (essencially rough spots) for the phase transition to occur, allowing the liquid to become superheated. The other way to force this to happen would be to disturb the fluid in some way, (such as slamming a door) which would start the process, the bubbles themselves would be sufficient for keeping the process going.
If pockets of water became superheated, then there would be no problem, the uneven heating would be enough of a distrubance to trigger the boiling process.
The solution is that you should never heat water (microwave or not) in a smooth container.
Even this might be ok if the water has high mineral content, but it's best to avoid the possiblity altogether.
on a slightly more on topic note however,
I'd rather not like to think of my microwave oven leaking enough RF to interfere with radio communications several apartments over.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
If you built a Faraday cage to block 2.4GHz signals, though, you'd end up with incredibly awful cell phone (800MHz and 1900MHz) reception. Wireless is wireless, though on different spectrum bands...