Wireless Routers for Congested Areas?

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?"

Comments

kismet

[Gothmolly]

Easy, snarf your neighbor's wireless connection, and dump your router entirely.

Re:kismet

[WilliamTS99]

Well, I wouldn't go this route, but you could easily go with A instead of G, then you won't have the cordless phones, microwave, people down the street, etc using the same frequencies. It may not be the cheapest solution, but is probably the best legal solution if you have to stick with wireless. If you want to stick with your wireless G equipment, I would go with directional antennas as they can be bought or made pretty cheap. Also, if you can stick your router in the basement and point the antenna upwards, then it will only receive strong signals from within your building. That should eliminate most of your interference. The best solution in my opinion would be to go with wired, esp when you are sharing all of your 'study materials' you will be able to transfer all of those educational videos a whole lot faster without worries about interference.

Re:kismet

[scruffy]

> Easy, snarf your neighbor's wireless connection, and dump your router entirely.

Why not cooperate with your neighbor(s) on a wireless setup?

Re:kismet

[texas]

Pointing your antenna straight up is exactly the worst thing to do in this situation. The type of bipolar antenna most routers come with are omnidirectional, but with weak spots in the coaxial direction (directly out the two ends of the antenna). You would do better to turn your antenna sideways (horizontal) to broadcast in the "up" direction. The problem then is that you are also broadcasting sideways and down, so the up direction gets about 1/4 of total output power. What you really want in that situation (basement installation) is a parabolic antenna pointed upwards. They have very good gain (3 dBi or more) in the forward direction, while rejecting most signals from the sides or rear.

Re:kismet

[WilliamTS99]

You are correct about standard omni-directional antennas, I should have been a little clearer with my sentence structure to point out the use of directional antennas better.

Anything that runs dd-wrt

[lavid]

You can boost the signal strength on routers once they're flashed with DDWRT. Do that (up to like 80mW) and use the least used channel and you should be good.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[CliffSpradlin]

Just to be clear, doing this is illegal (as in illegal illegal, not just a breach of contract/warranty) in most countries (including the US). In addition, boosting up your power like that can have the effect of screwing the people around you over by flooding the frequencies.

Completely -not- reccommended for congested areas, to be sure.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[TheSHAD0W]

Very often, "peaking" your router's radio will wind up distorting its output and actually reducing its range. You'll need to boost it some, then check on how well it's working. If you're lucky, you may turn up a ham enthusiast who'll have equipment you can use to actually check for signal distortion; but equipment that'll work in the multi-GHz range is rare and expensive.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bluephone]

No, it' sonly illegal to go over the maximum power output regulations. As long as you do not combine and modify equipment to operate above regulation, it's legal. That's why you can buy higher dBm antennas in Walmart, they're designed to stay within spec. It's not illegal to boost power at all, it's only boosting power over regulation that's illegal. Here's a link to a Cisco support page listing some specs.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[ThousandStars]

Good advice. The grandparent poster is like someone saying, "I can't see in the theatre, so I'm going to stand up." Then no one behind him can see, and if everyone stood up, the problem would be just as acute as it originally was.

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.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[Gothmolly]

Illegal-illegal, as in "FCC doesn't certify the frequencies here" illegal. As in, who gives a crap. What else can be expected from a slashdotter who uses their real name?

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[LoRdTAW]

To better understand the grandparent with respect to antenna gain and maximum power dissipation, here is a little analogy:

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.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm pretty sure the FCC has jurisdiction in Wisconsin.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bill_mcgonigle]

As long as you do not combine and modify equipment to operate above regulation, it's legal. That's why you can buy higher dBm antennas in Walmart, they're designed to stay within spec.

Typically those antennas are certifed with certain gear. See here.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[greg1104]

The peak output setting available for the WRT54GL I have when running dd-wrt is 250mw. As you say, it would be unwise to push to the limit. Similar to the GP post here, I'm running mine at 75mW. It works dramatically better than the default 28mW. The last time I came across a good analysis from someone with test equipment, for that particular model the distortion level made the effective useful maximum around 100mW of output.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bluephone]

Right, they stay within regulations for those bits of kit. Hence my point you can do some mods while staying within regs.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[Anonymous Coward]

I see you're not familiar with their new tactics, which are unspeakably wicked.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[tverbeek]

A slashdotter using his real name doesn't make him an idiot or subservient to the government. Maybe he's just a grown-up who's learned how to function in society and doesn't feel a need to hide.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bill_mcgonigle]

Right, they stay within regulations for those bits of kit. Hence my point you can do some mods while staying within regs.

No, did you follow the link I gave? From the Part 15 rules:

Only the antenna with which an intentional radiator is authorized may be used with the intentional radiator.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US it is legal to use a high gain antenna, but illegal to use an amp. I.e. legal to use that 3dbi gain antenna on a 100mw radio for a ERP of 200mw. NOT legal to use a 2.4ghz amp to boost that 100mw into the OEM antenna, even if both methods resulted in exactly the same range.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bluephone]

Yes, I did. And an authorized add-on antenna is, well, authorized and legal.

(b) A transmission system consisting of an intentional radiator, an external radio frequency power amplifier, and an antenna, may be authorized, marketed and used under this part. However, when a transmission system is authorized as a system, it must always be marketed as a complete system and must always be used in the configuration in which it was authorized. An external radio frequency power amplifier shall be marketed only in the system configuration with which the amplifier is authorized and shall not be marketed as a separate product.
(c) Only the antenna with which an intentional radiator is authorized may be used with the intentional radiator.

So, you're sold the entire unit, the system. The add on antennas are already authorized with the units too, and they sell the antennas "solely" for use with specified models. It's not sold as an indivudual product but as an add on for those specified units, to be used as part of a system.

Further, as per the link you pasted:

"Equipment authorization is not required for devices that are not marketed, are not constructed from a kit, and are built in quantities of five or less for personal use."

So if you crate a homebrew antenna or other mod, as long as you're with that rule, and your power output does not exceed regs, you're legal. The FCC rules aren't designed to keep people from doing anything, they're meant to ensure people don't interfere with other users of the airwaves. You'll find all throughout the regulations exceptions for small-scale users as long as they play nice.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[poopdeville]

There's no such thing as a "high gain omni-directional antenna". An antenna's gain is defined to be the logarithm of the ratio of signal strength and what an omnidirectional antenna's signal strength would be. (To be precise, the definition involves "perfect" omnidirectional antennas. The so-called 'isotropic' antennae)

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 lightbulb will put out 100J every second, but "split up" evenly in all directions. A 100W spotlight will put out the same power, but illuminate the spot much more brightly. It is a "high gain" light. The plain old light bulb is a "no gain" light, because gain is defined in terms of what it outputs. Indeed, high gain antennas are inherently more directional. Just a minor detail.

This is a good point for me to respond to the Ask Slashdotter. You already have two fairly capable routers. I know the Linksys will easily run OpenWRT, HyperWRT-thibor, etc. HyperWRT allows (*ahem*, I forget exactly what they call it) wireless "bridging", which lets you run multiple routers as access points to the same wireless network. (So instead of having two separate WLANs, you have a "roaming" cell phone-like effect). HyperWRT also gives you some control over how much power the router's transmitter can use.

Depending on your home's architecture, you might want to look into using high gain directional antennae. You want to use directional antennae to help eliminate RF leakage. If your neighbors can see your wireless network, you're radiating power that could be useful to you. In this case, your router is also picking up your neighbor's noise.

So figure out where you actually use your wireless network. Use high gain antennae to "illuminate" those spots. Look into "cardioid" or "log directional" antennas. Also, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-periodic_antenna. It has a nice picture of the energy distribution of a log directional antenna over North America. Obviously, you're working on a smaller scale, but the idea remains the same. Put the antenna in a corner, radiating towards the longest dimension in your home.

I suspect that a firmware upgrade and some smart antenna placement will solve your problem.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bill_mcgonigle]

So if you crate a homebrew antenna or other mod, as long as you're with that rule, and your power output does not exceed regs, you're legal.

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 in both, it wasn't practical. That's probably why the pre-built kit is so expensive in comparison; but those prices also made the low-cost WISP infeasible. The folks who are doing it successfully are using $600 units with an $80/mo service charge not including static addressing - double what I'd hope to do with $100 equipment. I think if you're big enough to have an engineer and FCC liaison on-staff it would be doable.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[bluephone]

No, you're right, we are agreeing. You can't mix and match willy nilly, if I inferred that I apologize. I merely meant to correct the other gent's inference that _any_ mod was illegal. That's all. I also think the FCC's licensing terms are a little too restrictive these days because so much IS possible now at lower costs to millions of people.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[dougmc]

The maximum power for the 2.4GHz 802.11x is 100mW.

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, right out of the FCC regulations, 15.247. (And here it is on the FCC site itself.) :

Sec. 15.247 Omni-Directional Antennas (b) The maximum peak output power of the intentional radiator shall not exceed the following: (1) For frequency hopping systems operating in the 2400-2483.5 MHz or 5725-5850 MHz band and for all direct sequence systems: 1 watt.

For the 2.4 GHz band, for point to point use, you can use a higher gain (more directional) antennna, but you have to reduce your power by 1 dB for each 3 dB of gain your antenna has over 6 dBi. For the 5.8 GHz band, you can use higher gain antennas with no power reduction for point to point connections.

I see how Cisco's documentation says 100 mW, but I'm not sure what that's about, because that's not what the FCC says. Perhaps they're referring to other countries -- I think the limit is now 100 mW in much (all?) of Europe now, for example. Perhaps that's what Cisco is referring to -- they want to make gear that can be sold outside of the US as well.)

Your antenna gain analogy took a few too many liberties. You really can't compare a dipole to an incandescent bulb, and a high gain antenna to a more efficient florescent bulb. In both cases, a good antenna is pretty close to 100% efficient for transmitting, low or high gain. The difference is that the high gain antenna sends most of the signal in one direction, and a low gain antenna (like a dipole, but a dipole does have 3 dBi of gain) sends it all over the place. A 100 watt spotlight vs. a 100 watt bare bulb is a much better analogy -- both emit the same amount of light (assuming similar efficiencies) but the spotlight sends it mostly in one direction, and the bare bulb sends it in all directions. As for which is better, it depends on what you need -- high gain antennas are not automatically better than low gain ones.

Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt

[dougmc]

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

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 everybody transmitting with more power, there's some benefit there as well. What matters is the S/N ratio, and with spread spectrum systems somebody else's signal is your noise and vice versa. So if you double the Signal and double the Noise, the S/N ratio doesn't change. However, this assumes that the only source of noise is other WiFi systems. If there's other noise sources (like plasma TVs, microwave ovens, etc.) then there may be some benefit to everybody using more power. I'm not saying that everybody should just use more power, but just that saying `it won't help' is simplifying things too much.

N?

[pdbaby]

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)

Re:N?

[CliffSpradlin]

This is very bad information. Current 802.11n draft devices use 2.4 GHz, same as b and g. The only devices out on the market that use 5 GHz are 802.11a.

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.

Re:N?

[micksam7]

Actually the 802.11n spec CAN use the 5GHz range. Says Wikipedia

You just have to hope your router actually allows it. :)

Re:N?

[CliffSpradlin]

If you read my message, I never said anything to the contrary. What i said was -current- draft N devices only support 2.4 Ghz, most likely to keep costs down for compatability mode for b/g devices. The OP is suggesting buying current draft N devices.

Re:N?

[volsung]

Is this still true, even of the Airport Extreme?: http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/specs.html

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?

Re:N?

[volsung]

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

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.

Re:N?

[Jeff DeMaagd]

It might vary by device. If you get a device that claimes a/b/g/n, then you will get the 5.something GHz frequency. I know Apple's newest version of the Airport Extreme supports it. Just 'a' will do the job too. Using 'n' on the 2.4GHz band would not be so great, 'n' works by using the entire band, equivalent to channels 1-11, so it would be adding noise to every channel.

Re:N?

[CliffSpradlin]

Cool.

Unfortunately, the non-gigabit ethernet ports on the Airport Extreme ruin an otherwise beautiful product.

-Cliff

Re:N?

[volsung]

Oh, that is disappointing. All of Apple's computers for the past year at least have gigabit, so you would have expected the router to support it as well. I guess they figure the average use is not computer to computer, but computer to internet via broadband...

Re:N?

[StarWreck]

There's no real way around it -

No, no... there is a way around it. 90% of people leave their router on the default channel 6. You can avoid the interference caused by routers on channel 6 by using a channel other than channel 6!! Try channel 7 or 8 or 9!!

Re:N?

[ThousandStars]

As others pointed out, Apple's Airport Extreme can broadcast on 5 Ghz, but only so long as every computer talking to it uses 802.11n and 5 Ghz. As soon as you have someone who wants to use b/g and older equipment, you're hosed. And since most people don't have brand new and very expensive Apple kit (is anyone else shipping this stuff yet?), this may not be a practical solution at the moment.

Re:N?

[micksam7]

Ahh I appologise, I missed that. :)

Re:N?

[xeoron]

Another option is Power Over Ethernet via power outlet (forget the name for this). If one has an appartment-- just encrypt all traffic.

Re:N?

[spacey]

You've got your product buzzwords backwards.

  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

Re:N?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right you are. However GP's idea is still good. The computers need power anyway, adding a Belkin Powerline to the other power outlet is neither hard, bulky nor expensive (about USD 60.)

802.11a

[vrwarp]

You can try setting up an 802.11a router up. It has shorter range and it isn't as widely supported as 802.11b/g but it operates around 5ghz instead of 2.4-2.5ghz.

802.11a

[MrHanky]

Since it uses a different (5 GHz) frequency spectrum it won't be affected by the congested 11b/g spectrum.

2 Routers?

[bobbozzo]

Why are you running 2 routers? Isn't that just compounding the problem?

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

[micksam7]

I've been using a D-Link 524 router for a while in my home setup. It's given me nothing but trouble, rebooting and randomly blocking computers on the network [part of it's built-in security junk, it's blocking logs show it will block perfectly valid computers for random reasons]. Firmware updates don't seem to fix it.

I got tired of that and searched for a router capable of running OpenWRT in case the default firmware sucked.

I found the Asus WL-500g Premium 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 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

[volsung]

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. :)

Re:Asus

[Southpaw018]

Another way to do this is get a router that uses DD-WRT. It's designed to be much more functional out of the box: install it, pull up the web interface, configure the WAN settings, and go. OpenWRT requires a good deal more knowledge than the average user has; DD-WRT can be installed by a much broader user base and retains some of the incredible functionality OpenWRT offers for power users.

Re:Asus

[RKThoadan]

Not necessarily. I tried DD-WRT and I couldn't get it to handle DNS right, I had to hard-set the DNS servers on the PCs. I installed OpenWRT yesterday, and it was pretty much just worked. Admittedly, I haven't bothered with the wireless at all yet.

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.

Re:Asus

[Gothmolly]

You DO realize that X-wrt is just the GUI for OpenWRT? Or are you just a wannabe-techie/fanboi/ricer/douchebag?

Re:Asus

[micksam7]

Yes I realized that... it says it on the top of the x-wrt page after all. :P

Just probally went a bit fast in my post, didn't really care to clarify that. :)

Re:Asus

[syncrotic]

Note that this doesn't mean that you should only use channels 1, 6, and 11. If you use channels 3 or 8, then instead of competing with a half-dozen strong signals directly overlapping yours, you'll be competing with much weaker sidebands from, say, a dozen devices.

That said, the real solution to this problem is 802.11a. But good luck finding a router that isn't three years old - the standard is pretty much dead in the water.

Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[Fallen Kell]

Check what version of the WRT54G that you have. You should be able to run "DD-WRT" on it. This read up on doing the flash properly as you can nuke your router if you put the wrong image on first. Basically there is a "first time flash" image to use. And then once you have put that on it, you can flash to the full version that your router supports. Again, it will depend on which hardware version of the WRT54G you have as there are something like 6 different revisions, some more powerful then others and some more friendly for using third-party images (due to having more storage on the device, some have as little as 2MB total space for the OS, others can have as much as 16 or even 32MB of space).

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.

Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[hankwang]

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).

This is about network security and has nothing to do with RF interference between devices sharing the same channel. If you're afraid of people using your network, use WPA encryption. MAC filtering and cloaked SSID broadcasting and even WEP encryption will only help against casual (nonintentional) use, but can be circumvented by anyone with wireless network sniffer software.

I personally have a 16 dbi omni on my wireless router.

High-gain omnidirectional antennae don't help very much against a congested ether. The problem isn't that the desired signal is to weak, but that the background signal is too strong compared to the desired signal. An omni antenna will amplify both of them. A better approach is a directional antenna, both on the access point and on the connected computer.

Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[Fallen Kell]

Which is why I told him to use the channel that is unavailable with the normal firmware in the USA. The rest is just things to do in a congested area. And YES, putting up a high gain antenna WILL help in a congested area. One of the main problems in a congested area is dealing with all the other channel interference as the channels overlap. By having a stronger signal to your specific channel, you effectively improve the signal to noise ratio that you deal with in high congested areas. This is why if you have a radio station broadcast tower a half a mile away you will only be able to listen to that station because all the others are drowned out due to the completely overpowering signal of that station. By being the loudest network in the area, you will be pushing the wireless problems on the other people's networks are their equipment will be having the issues communicating with thier own system.

The great thing about the updated firmware is that it also gives you very good information about your site in terms of other wireless signals/networks being detected, what SSID's are being used, what channel ID's are being used. This will let you more easily use an unused channel, and thus remove a lot of the problem the original poster is trying to deal with.

Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[hankwang]

I see, you're talking about high gain for the transmitter rather than the receiver. (I forgot that both go hand-in-hand) In that case it's an arms race that will only help as long as you're the only one, and at a cost of your neighbors who will have even worse reception.

Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[ComputerSlicer23]

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.

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 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

Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[dwater]

You might want to consider choosing one of the alternatives to dd-wrt :

http://xwrt.blogspot.com/2007/02/dd-wrt-continues- to-exploit-free-open.html

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

Re:Change your firmware on the Linksys...

[slthytove]

I have been using tomato for about a month, and am VERY happy with it. The interface is pretty slick (semi-realtime SVG bandwidth graphs!), it has a much more flexible DHCP system (static IPs handed out via DHCP), it handles BitTorrent traffic more effectively, great QoS... overall, I've been impressed. Plus, you only need to flash your firmware once - not the crazy two-step process involved with OpenWRT and the like.

france

[mastershake_phd]

When you set up some routers that are also sold in other countries it will ask you what country you are in. This is because some countries allow an extra channel or two. You should be able to find an empty channel. Oh this is illegal, so dont blame me if the FCC comes a knockin.

Any DD-WRT router

[WhiteWolf666]

Simple. Get any router than you can install DD-WRT from http://www.dd-wrt.com/ on.

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).

Re:Any DD-WRT router

[Anonymous Coward]

I would recommend stop using the Linksys device for anything other than a AP. 6 guys who may game and probably pirate are bring both devices to their knees. My version 3 Linksys just doesn't have enough horse power to handle this type of traffic with out maxing out the CPU. Take an old machine PII or something and get a decent free firewall. I've used smoothwall and are currently using pfSense as my NAT/Router/Firewall. 32-64MB of RAM and a bigger processor fixed all my networking woes. I now use two of my Linksys (with DD-WRT) routers as APs only to provide wireless service. They both have WPA2 with the same settings so I get great service on all 3 stories of my apartment.

Re:Any DD-WRT router

[WhiteWolf666]

Hmmm...

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 averages about 1, which is a little high, but it keeps on running just fine. I find that it helps to keep the "router" box running without wireless enabled, with a secondary box to handle wireless functionality.

Why do I prefer DD-WRT to a separate computer, like I used to have? Simple; reboots are faster, the hardware is drop-dead easy to replace if there's a failure, and power consumption is substantially less.

*shrug* Works for me, but I get that YMMV.

Part of that is likely your settings.

[Anonymous Coward]

But a lot of it is just saturated channels. If you were going to upgrade the hardware, moving everyone to draft-N 2.0 in a little while, or 1.0 now might be a nice option. Other things you can do include ditching cordless phones, and covering your exterior walls in tin foil (which has the added benefit of making your pad look a space porn adventure set).

A tip for resetting router/modem.

[ForestGrump]

Go to wallyworld/slows/home despot/etc.
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

Re:A tip for resetting router/modem.

[fred fleenblat]

These are great.
http://www.intermatic.com/?action=prod&pid=203&did =3&cid=43&sid=114
Battery backup, lots of memory for on-off events, you can differentiate M-F, 15A through the relay, manual override, and not that expensive.

you have no idea what you're doing...

[Anonymous Coward]

.. but you're asking questions, which is good!

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 and the router many times a day to get everything rolling again.

You are asking many different questions:

1. Is the cable modem working and getting signal from your ISP?
2. Is the router working and communicating with the cable modem?
3. Is the router working and providing a wireless signal?
4. Are your computers working and connecting via wireless?

To rule out the wireless questions, connect a computer to the router with an ethernet cable and see if you connect to the internet. If you can't, then the problem is #1 or #2.

You say that you are in a congested wireless area due to many other wireless routers. That's a fact of life these days. How good is your signal strength? Can you change your wireless channel to a channel where is less interference?

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.

You are confusing the capabilities of a router with the reliability of a router. Capabilites and reliability do not always correlate with price.

Have you thought using 802.11a

[Oryn]

There are many old 802.11a access points available on ebay for very little money.
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.

Re:Have you thought using 802.11a

[peacefinder]

While it's true that 802.11a has a shorter range, it's still more than adequate for almost any home application.

Aluminum Foil

[JuicyBrain]

Here's a stupid idea !

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 !

Re:Aluminum Foil

[yoprst]

Protect you in case of fire? Isn't aluminum a rocket fuel?

Re:Aluminum Foil

[hahiss]

At least he won't stick to the walls as he roasts . . . .

Re:Aluminum Foil

[Applekid]

While funny, maybe you're onto something. Embed some copper mesh into your walls and you should be able to reduce the EM interference you're getting from elsewhere. Maybe someone with a better physics education could help out here, but maybe you could even get away with just setting it up on a just a few walls.

Re:Aluminum Foil

[Tofystedeth]

I do believe I read somewhere (most likely /.) that they had come up with a paint for blocking cellphone signals. Something along the lines of carbon nanotubes with copper inside suspended in the paint.

Ignore Everyone Else, There's an EASY FIX

[StarWreck]

Just ignore everyone elses posts, there's a very very easy fix.

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".

Go wired? Form a cooperative?

[davidwr]

Consider going wired and encouraging your neighbors to do the same when possible. This means turning on the wireless ONLY when you need it.

Also consider cooperating with your neighbors so you rig your routers to work like a mesh. This may require cooperation with an ISP.

If that doesn't work, try getting everyone to crank down the power and switch channels so immediate neighbors don't share channels, e.g. you use 1, your immediate neighbors use 6 and 11, and so on. Collectively buy a few "a" routers so you have more sets of frequencies to play with.

The primary goal is for everyone can use their own laptop in their own apartment on a router they have permission to use.
The secondary goal is for everyone in the "cooperative" to be able to hop online anywhere in the neighborhood.

Re:Go wired? Form a cooperative?

[Phil Karn]

I was about to make the same suggestion -- ask your neighbors to use wireless only for laptops. I'm surprised at how many desktop systems use 802.11 when they could be plugged in almost as easily. Wires are faster, too.

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.

Re:Go wired? Form a cooperative?

[Scoth]

I can't even get my neighbors to turn down their crappy music at 2AM on a worknight and stop throwing their cigarette butts outside my apt door. You think I'd be able to convince them to mess with power settings or get new routers and wireless cards?

You've just described wireless networking.

[croddy]

Your experience is par for the course. Get some CAT5 and your troubles will vanish.

Cat 5

[DogDude]

Just get some cat 5 cable and plug your computer in. Problem solved. If you have 6 guys in an apartment, you're probably not roaming around with your computers in a giant house, anyway. Not only will you have a flawless connection, it'll probably be a good bit faster, as well.

try a soekris based router

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are willing to spend about $300 I would try a soekris based router. A company called Metrix provides kits that include its linux distro pyramid. It can be cheaper to buy the parts at different places, but metrix puts it all together and puts an os on it.

I have found that the problem is usually the wifi card though.

802.11a? Come on...

[jdmicklos]

If you really don't want to worry about a sucked up channel try RFC 1149:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html/

Re:802.11a? Come on...

[jdmicklos]

The real link: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

Sommoderators will moderate anything up, it seems.

[Inoshiro]

Because of how "channels" work (how they map to the actual frequencies), the only usable channels (that is, channels far enough away to not suffer interference) are 1, 6, 11.

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.

A wired one

[Ernesto Alvarez]

If your problem is really with the wireless lan, I think the answer is simple:

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 under such circumstances (its throughput is proportional to the thoughput of the slowest station, because the slowest ones turns into a (physical) bandwidth hog).

Get your stationary machines off the air, at least you won't have to endure that problem on desktops. If you can, get your neighbours to do the same. Leave only the mobile machines on wireless. Even if you can't convince anyone, at least your problem will be only on your mobile hosts.

By the way, you might want to check if that's really all of your problems, WRT54G are known to have problems under high loads (like constant bittorrent traffic). It tries to track too many connections until it runs out of table space and then nothing can get to it (or through it). The symptoms match, when I do that to mine, I have to reset it once every two or three days.

Forget wireless...

[gweihir]

... ans use old-fashioned cables. They work far better anyways. Faster, much more reliable and insensitive to other signals. Your problem is most likely interference with other routers. Since there is only a very limited number of channels, you will not get a good signal in your environment. The only other option I can think of is to use RF-shileding on all the outside walls of your apartment. Byt that would be a lot of effort and cost a lot of money in addition. Cables are cheap.

Just disable the wireless output of your router and use the switeched output(s) instead. If there is only one, get an 8 port 100MBps swicth. You can chain switches if needed.

A few tips from a tech support guy...

[mikael_j]

I run into problems like this on a daily basis and there are lots of different things you can try to get your signal strength up, some won't be very useful on their own in your situation but every little bit helps.

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..

• First of all you could try finding out what channels your closest neighbours are running their networks on, and then try to find a channel that's as far as possible from those channels.
• Next you could try moving your wireless access point and/or your computer
• It might also be worth a try to change your encryption settings, switch to WPA-PSK or WPA2-PSK if you're using WEP or the other way around, sounds crazy but sometimes it actually helps, kind of a cargo cult solution but it's worth a shot.
• Directional antennas on both your AP and your NIC might help but it's probably easier to just use regular ethernet over CAT5E/6 if your computer is a regular desktop/tower machine.
• If you are able to talk to your neighbours and coordinate your efforts with theirs then you could try setting up the different WLANs in the building so that everyone turns their signal strength down a bit while also changing channels in such a way that no two adjacent networks are running on channels that are adjacent to each other, the closer two nets are geographically the further away from each others' channels they should be.
• You might also want to make sure that you don't have any other electronic equipment that's causing problems, I've seen cordless phones that weren't even supposed to be running on the 2.4GHz band cause problems with WLANs and TVs...

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

Re:A few tips from a tech support guy...

[mikael_j]

Also, as others have pointed out, don't use 802.11b/g just because you think wireless is cool, use it if you have to, otherwise just stick to a regular wired network and save yourself the trouble. Besides, 1 Gbps ethernet or even regular 100 Mbps fast ethernet is so much more predicateble and reliable, even if there is no interference from other wireless networks..

/Mikael

Re:Sommoderators will moderate anything up, it see

[BeBoxer]

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.

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.

802.11n on 5GHz

[kherr]

My home network is currently configured using an Apple AirPort Extreme base station (AEBS) running 802.11n at 5GHz and a WRT54G running 802.11g at 2.4GHz.

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.

Simple Solution

[Pikoro]

This is easy. Pick up a Japanese wireless router. They come with channels 12, 13, and 14. Get yourself off of everyone else's frequencies and you'll be good to go.

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...

Re:Simple Solution

[bill_mcgonigle]

This is easy. Pick up a Japanese wireless router. They come with channels 12, 13, and 14. Get yourself off of everyone else's frequencies and you'll be good to go.

Who is allocated these frequencies in the US? The idea should work - I'm just curious who's getting stepped on.

Re:Simple Solution

[Detritus]

It's behavior like this that hurts open source software and hacker friendly hardware. Just because you can, doesn't mean that you should. Besides being a violation of federal law, it encourages the FCC to require tamper-resistance as a condition of type acceptance for more kinds of systems.

Re:Simple Solution

[Gothmolly]

How would anyone know? The neighbors, who will suddenly get interference on THEIR Channel 13? Have you ever tried complaining to the FCC about interference? Good luck:

"However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment does cause harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures:
Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna.
Increase the separation between the equipment and receiver.
Connect the equipment into a different outlet from that the receiver is connected.
Consult your local distributors or an experienced radio/TV technician for help.
Shielded interface cables must be used in order to comply with emission limits."

In other words, DIAF, call someone who cares.

Re:Simple Solution

[Detritus]

I'm licensed to use that spectrum, you aren't. If interference from illegally modified wi-fi hardware becomes enough of a problem, the FCC will smack you down.

Re:Simple Solution

[Detritus]

Amateur radio, television, fixed point-to-point microwave, electronic news gathering, and probably others.

Licensed services are given precedence over unlicensed services like wi-fi.

Re:Simple Solution

[jZnat]

Well, if anyone important (i.e. licensed) gets affected by it, they can just increase their signal and drown you out since they have the right to do so. That should give you the hint to change to a different frequency.

Re:Simple Solution

[bill_mcgonigle]

Well, if anyone important (i.e. licensed) gets affected by it, they can just increase their signal and drown you out since they have the right to do so. That should give you the hint to change to a different frequency.

Good point!

Re:Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

The military. The Navy, if I recall correctly.

This is a bad idea.

Re:Simple Solution

[Pikoro]

Appearantly people seem to think that I'm talking about some other channel 12/13/14.

Here is the list (mean freq):

Channel ID FCC ETSI France Japan
          1 2412 2412 - 2412
          2 2417 2417 - 2417
          3 2422 2422 - 2422
          4 2427 2427 - 2427
          5 2432 2432 - 2432
          6 2437 2437 - 2437
          7 2442 2442 - 2442
          8 2447 2447 - 2447
          9 2452 2452 - 2452
        10 2457 2457 2457 2457
        11 2462 2462 2462 2462
        12 - 2467 2467 2467
        13 - 2472 2472 2472
        14 - - - 2484

Sorry about the formatting...

Re:Simple Solution

[tlhIngan]

Well, if anyone important (i.e. licensed) gets affected by it, they can just increase their signal and drown you out since they have the right to do so. That should give you the hint to change to a different frequency.

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 interference.

Remember, primary users of a frequency have priority. They just have to complain to the FCC to sieze your equipment, and you end up with no equipment, and a nasty fine. Said equipment may include attached computers if your laptop was modified as well.

Honestly, you can probably get away with it. However, the consequences and damage could be quite severe, not just to yourself and your equipment, but to open source. After all, we may end up like what happened with the Athereos drivers - a binary HAL block with GPL'd wrappers.

Re:Simple Solution

[Gothmolly]

Prove it. When you can get anything but an 800 number, or a form letter from the FCC, call me. I've personally dealt with this sort of thing - neighbor's HAM was so powerful, I picked up his conversations in the wire to my speakers.

Re:Simple Solution

[ReTay]

That is probibly because your cheap speakers were the problem.
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 manner most hams will go over the top to help someone that their transmittions are affecting. I personally have bought bandpass filters and installed them for people around me that could hear me broadcast.

Re:Simple Solution

[really?]

Hey, you. Don't be letting the cat out of the bag like that. I live in a condo with about 30 kismet visible APs. Luckily I have my old gear from Japan, so all my stuff is on channel 14. I am basically interference free.
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.

Re:Simple Solution

[Andy Dodd]

Not much use if channels 12, 13, and 14 are allocated in the same way as 1-11 are.

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 avoidance algorithm doesn't work as well if not all participants are able to see the headers of potentially conflicting transmissions.

Re:Simple Solution

[Andy Dodd]

Guess what.

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, there's a good chance the FCC WOULD come down on you.

That said, MOST hams will try to rectify such interference situations if approached about them politely. I know a number of hams who have installed EMI filtering on their neighbors' equipment on their own dime to rectify such situations. Sadly, it's not required for a ham to do this and some won't. A few bad apples can give any group a bad image. :(

Pool your resources

[Will2k_is_here]

Have a chat with your neighbours. You can all invest in a faster connection and a faster router and you can reduce those hundreds of routers down to a few. Hell, just use a few access points, feed the whole area into a single router.

Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bandwagon jumpers are not welcome among real Mac users. Keep your filthy PC fingers to yourself.

If these are the sort of filthy freaks you Mac users are then no problem. I wouldn't touch her with a syringe of penicillin and someone else's dick.

Channels are important

[dieKatze88]

Try using a tool like NetStumbler to figure out what the least used channel is. I bet you money its not 6.

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 it on channel 1 or 2.

I use 10, it doesn't interfere with my telephones, my microwave, or my neighbors router. (He still doesn't understand why his connection drops every time I cook a pizza though.)

DD-WRT, Stumbler, P2P

[RedBear]

Several people have already mentioned flashing the Linksys with the latest DD-WRT firmware, and I second that. But, I would like to point out an obscure problem that will strike you if anyone at your location is using P2P software like any BitTorrent client (Azureus, uTorrent, etc.) What happens is that the routers aren't designed to handle dozens or hundreds of short-term transient IP connections which occur with these applications. The connection cache on the router gets filled up sometimes within just a few hours and then CRASH!!! The important thing here is that this will also happen with the DD-WRT firmware unless you find and follow the instructions to change a couple of obscure network settings. The first time I tried using a WRT54g with the DD-WRT firmware I gave up after a few days because the router was so flaky I had to reboot it every couple of days. Once I found these settings I tried it again and it's been working for weeks now with no problem.

I have to assume that out of 6 male college students on a fast connection, at least one will be heavily using bittorrent or some other P2P apps that will definitely trigger this problem, and it may well be the only reason that you have to reboot your router all the time. Here are some links, first to the uTorrent FAQ page where I first found a reference to the issue, and then to a page on the DD-WRT site talking in detail about this issue. Both pages have instructions for correcting the settings with the DD-WRT firmware.

uTorrent FAQ
DD-WRT: Router Slowdown

One of the nicest features these open firmwares give you is access to increasing the transmit power of the router's antenna. By just increasing mine by about 25% above normal I was able to get four bars throughout my apartment where I used to sometime lose the connection entirely. If the reason you have two wireless routers is because the one router can't cover the whole apartment, this will solve that issue.

Others have asked already why you need two wireless routers. Besides spreading the signal out I can't really imagine any reason if you're all going through one cable modem. If both routers are set up on the same channel (most default to channel 6) then they will be interfering with each other much more than any outside routers are. Heaven forbid if both routers are set up with fully identical information and you are trying to use the other router as if it were a range extender. That would probably cause additional problems as both routers would be competing to log in the same wireless card at the same time. In any case, just ditch the other router unless you know what you're doing and have a specific reason to be operating two routers in the same area. To have any chance of not interfering with each other you'd have to put one on channel 1 and the other on channel 11.

Applying the DD-WRT firmware may seem kind of scary since there are all those notes about how you can brick your router, but it's really no big deal. Just print out all the installation instructions beforehand along with the instructions for recovering from a bad flash. Before you do the flash DISABLE your wireless card entirely so that it will be impossible to even attempt the firmware update over a wireless connection. That is really the main thing that causes bricked routers. If you avoid doing that and follow the instructions about first only applying the MINI version of the firmware to the WRT54g, you will be fine and you will end up with a much more useful router.

Now, if anyone there has a Mac they can download iStumbler or MacStumbler (I don't recommend the Mac Kismet unless you know how to remove kernel extensions from the command line in safe mode). Run one of those for about 10-20 minutes and it will give you a pretty clear picture of how many routers are nearby and what channels they are using. Pick a channel for your router t

Re:ATTN: SWITCHEURS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, people switching to Apple is horrible! I'd hate for them to make more profit and gain a larger userbase. I mean, I know they're a business and all that, but I doubt they want more people buying their products! Perish the thought! Wouldn't it be sweet if you were the ONLY mac user? Bet your gear would be superawesome, and the support would be great!

Re:Wireless Sucks

[mikkelm]

Hey, could you come over and microsegment my gigabit network with coax?

Maybe it's something else

[Anonymous Coward]

I had similar problems, which went away when I moved the AP. It turned out that my refrigerator was standing on the other side of the (thin) wall I attached the AP to, and the metal case caused a lot of interference. Metal surfaces near to the AP are a big problem.

The basic symptom was that connections worked, with about 10% missed beacons, until someone started an actual data transfer, at which point nearly all beacons were mangled, causing the stations to attempt to find a better AP and reassociate. Also, ping times were pretty high, usually around 100ms (so this is an easy way to test).

If that doesn't help, check whether your AP/Router has automatic channel selection. My AP hops around between channels all day, depending on which neighbours have their wireless active at the time.

spectrum overcrowded

[flok]

Maybe just maybe there are (too many) others using the same channel as you. Consider buying a Wi-Spy and check out which channels have the least transmissions. Please note that each channel is not just one channel in width but has the width of a couple of channels.

mb

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple: Mobile broadband. Get one account in which all your roommates log onto. Split the monthly fee amongst you all. It shouldn't be too expensive; especially divided by six roommates.

Madison

[hansamurai]

I went to school at Madison and when I was there, no one bothered connecting wirelessly unless they were a guest at our house or something. It's so congested there and if you look for wireless networks you'll usually see at least five open ones, which is great for leaching but bad for everything else. We always just ran Cat5 all around the house, sometimes even as long as 100ft and going up two floors. Messy, but hey, we were in college-town. I'd say, run wired when you can, buy some cheap cables online at a site like monoprice if you're going to go this route. Otherwise, follow the suggestion of everyone else in this topic.

And don't split the cost of the (new?) equipment with your roommates. Buy it for yourself and when you move out, keep it. Then you'll have the best stuff on the block no matter where you live.

bend like a reed in the wind

[tritab]

Instead of following some of the other advice being posted suggesting to try to overpower your neighbors, why not go with the flow and allow your machine to auto-magically connect to one of the twenty networks in your area? If you wanted to be more formal, you could also form an informal coop and share.

Sorry for the cheesey Dune quote, I couldn't resist.

god damn it

[Anonymous Coward]

just go to best buy and buy one you stupid faggot.

Signal Isolation Technology

[tverbeek]

If you're in that noisy an environment, your best bet is to use signal isolation technology. What it does is provide a focused signal path between nodes on your local network, generally confining your traffic to that path (so it doesn't interfere with your neighbors') and deflecting all but the strongest interference from outside signals. It's marketed under several names and it's available in different specs, but the generic term for it is "wire".

Easy - Use a wired connection.

[pla]

Wireless has its uses. I will not deny that.

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).

Share a connection

[tuxisthefuture]

What I don't understand is that every house in a street buys their own Internet connection and router equipment. Why not consider a communal connection where you can afford to have a faster connection because everyone in your building is paying a small amount into it. The cost savings could also pay for some good routers and even cabling so people can have sockets in their dwelling. Add on a proxy filtering server and the connection is kid safe. Backup server for all residents work etc...

Re:Sommoderators will moderate anything up, it see

[NeilTheStupidHead]

Completely. I have a cheap D-Link router that I can set to 'auto-scan' and it invariably chooses channel 1 or 11, never anything in the middle.

Practical End-host Residential Multihoming (PERM)

[jt2190]

I'm amazed that nobody has mentioned the Practical End-host collaborative Residential Multihoming framework (PERM). From the site:

802.11 networks have spread rapidly in the residential area, and it is common for neighbors to receive signals from each other's home wireless networks. PERM allows residents to leverage such an opportunity to improve their last-mile Internet connectivity, at no additional cost, by pooling their Internet accesses together. PERM is practical in that it does not rely on support from the network infrastructure in terms of advanced naming scheme or proxy, the remote host in terms of new transport protocols, or the end-user in terms of explicit application feedback or configuration. Instead, PERM employs automated on-line analysis of the user's networking behaviors, and exploits the identified patterns to achieve high-performance scheduling at the flow level. PERM is also highly usable for normal residential users. It preserves a user's privacy and security, and mitigates the free-riding problem. We have implemented PERM for Linux clients and the open-source Linksys wireless router.

I just ran the wireless network for 593 people...

[jafo]

The one thing I noticed at PyCon, where we had up to 340 people connected at one time, was that I never had to help a single person get connected who was using 802.11a. Literally not a single person. I had to help plenty of people running 802.11b/g. While 802.11a has worse propagation, it's probably worth at least trying to see how coverage is. It's definitely not true that 802.11a won't penetrate walls, because at one point we were using WDS to go from one conference room through a few walls and down a hallway to provide the back-haul for an 802.11b+g AP that was covering the bar (and lobby and restaurant, but mostly the bar :-)

One other thing to try is pushing your RTS way down. I explain more about what this does in my article on the networking at PyCon (http://www.tummy.com/Community/Articles/pycon2007 -network/), but it can really help. It's a client-side setting.

In our case, we had 24 APs in a relatively small area, serving up to 340 people at a time, so lots of people *CAN* co-exist on a wireless network at the same time, but we designed the whole network, something your neighbors may not be interested in doing. Though, if they're getting as bad service as you are, they may welcome the help in fine-tuning things.

The first thing though: Make sure you aren't running on channel 6. If you have two APs, I'd set one up for 1 and one for 11, both with the same ESSID and both on the same network. I'd use low-gain antennas, and put trivial WEP keys on them to keep other people from bringing down the upstream connection with file sharing, worms, or viruses.

Sean

Tinfoil wallpaper?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a thought...

Not just firmware

[maggard]

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 to improve your antenna. For nothing-$40 you can significantly improve transmission & reception. Websites like www.freeantenna.org list easy-to-make reflectors, or you can purchase replacement antenna(s) with better characteristics then the stock ones.

Of course improving the local environment can have an immediate & significant effect.

The signal is transmitted from your router in an omni directional plane, roughly pancake-shaped. Therefore getting everything on somewhat the same level is useful, such as on the same floor of the building.

Removing obstructions like metal sheeting (filing cabinets, refrigerators, nearby ductwork) will help, as well as avoiding transmitting through dense material like concrete/masonry walls, packed bookshelves. Simply putting a router up on a shelf can occasionally make a huge difference.

As nearly every other poster has noted, picking the right channel helps tremendously. Use 1, 6, or 11, whichever is least congested. Keep in mind this can change as your neighbor gets home and turns on their equipment so re-survey regularly.

Then there is not using WiFi. If wireless is just a way to avoid cabling a place then consider on of the Ethernet-over-electrical-lines. Basically shortwave using your household wiring as an antenna it offers good speeds at high reliability. Adapters are about $40 each & if you're already tethered to an electrical outlet then this is a natural fit.

Finally, as everyone is promoting their favorite flavor of firmware, let me suggest Tomato. It isn't burdened with every feature possible; instead it is fast, easy to configure, has great reporting, and most importantly, is extremely reliable (unlike some other distribs). If your goal is just "a better router" and not lots of other services then it's a great choice.

p2p?

[webax]

I am just guessing here, but I think your problem has more to do with p2p file sharing then the number of wireless networks in your area. I am typing this about 5 minutes walk from a university, and I can pick up at least a dozen wireless networks from the basement. This router also goes down *a lot* but it always coincides with someone opening BT or some other file sharing program on their computer. I've had to educate the people in the house how to set your max connections low etc. but even still if more than one person decides they want to download something at the same time the router just dies. There are two cheap solutions to this: buy a router and get Linux on it, or go wired. I went with wired, since in my opinion it takes less time to staple gun the hell out of a rented house than to purchase, flash, configure a router :) I have yet to find a consumer wireless router that would stand up to multiple wireless clients running un-throttled p2p applications.

Interference

[pseudosero]

I have constant wireless problems, but the two or occasionally three other wireless networks I can see are extremely weak signals and aren't even connectable. I've moved the WAP all over the place, and have found that the basement, on the floor, is the best place for a consistant signal throughout the first and second paper-thin stories above.

Here's the kicker: There's constant terrible interference. IT affects cell phone reception too. It tends towards the back of the house.

If I look out the back window I can notice a microwave tower. So I drive towards it and it's about 5 blocks away. I continue driving and there's a power substation another couple 45-MPH-seconds down the road. No clue if any of this is affecting me but I'm not ruling it out.

I have given up many times, but I'm fairly certain that by guarding the router from interference it can provide a better signal to the house above. It's a netgear rangemax and I alternate it between being upside down and right side up. It has a bunch of randomly flashing lights and, upside down, reminds me of a gas stovetop.

Put your routers in the basements!

[BrakesForElves]

I had the same issue last fall. Solved it 90% by talking with the neighbors. We all stuck our access points in the middles of our basements (keeping the signals mostly going upstairs instead of sideways), we set up channels 1, 6, 11, 1, 6, 11 from door to door. We also set up WEP keys the same way, 0101010101, 0606060606, 1111111111, 0101010101 (and so on). We weren't all that worried about security, we just wanted to keep our damned connections straight. The biggest change came from putting the AP's downstairs.

Re:Wireless Sucks

[mikkelm]

Haha, dipshit? I think you need to take a long hard look at the economics, practicalities and realities of networking, instead of trying to expand your epenis by praising "retro" solutions.

Idjits

[jo42]

Get wired.

Drop kick the wireless cr*p and run some real wires around.

Cable companies reset connections every 3 hr

[aquarian]

A lot of cable companies reset your connection every three hours anyway, so some kind of reliable auto-reboot system (like a lamp timer) might make things easier. At least you won't have to get up from your chair!

Make sure the cable signal is good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a similar problem with my connection - had to reset daily, sometimes couldn't get a connection at all... turns out it was because of old coax running to the house, that wasn't up to the internet connection's demands. On the second service call the provider ran new cable to the house (and removed a filter from one of the movie channels) and that reduced the interference from the tv signal, and the new cable boosted the strength up to par, and I haven't had a problem since. I knew it wasn't router interference from another router because, believe it or not, I can't see anybody else's WAP from my apt. I live in a pretty rural area.

Re:Wireless Sucks

[Wavicle]

Let's see what's a REALLY BIG downside to coax... Oh wait, I remember, it's that everyone HAS TO SHARE the same connection. Yeah, you know all those ethernet switches that cost practically nothing, guarantee no collisions and allow everyone to communicate full duplex (do you even remember what a collision is or half duplex is anymore)? Well, coax doesn't have those.

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 coax will be lost in management nightmares. UTP is cheaper now, when I bought my first home networking gear (12+ years ago) UTP was way beyond what I could afford (cheap 8 port hubs went for several hundred dollars at the time). My first network was coax. When I switched to UTP, I never looked back. UTP is only affordable now because of the economy of scale.

I remember the good ol' days (~15 years ago) when I worked in an office that had a network in 3 coax home run segments with an optically isolated repeater on one of the runs because the feet really add up quick when you have to wind it to each office. Every time one of the segments went down the guy running the network would go to each persons office, poke his head in and ask "did you disconnect your T connector?" We asked people to hold off building their CD images until late at night because if any ONE person started a build (which meant pulling assets from one server) the entire network became nearly unusable for EVERYBODY because all the servers were on one segment. We didn't have internet at this time; only large corporations, universities and netcom users had internet back then.

Gosh, I'm so sorry UTP won the war. We could employ twice as many network technicians if we would have stayed on coax.