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Wireless Routers for Congested Areas?

Posted by Cliff on from the let's-add-to-the-RF-mashup dept.

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?"

4 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. N? by pdbaby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's no real way around it -- assuming you *have* to have wireless -- however there are a few options that might help. Using 802.11a or 802.11n should get you out of the frequencies that are in use by most other people. 802.11n isn't finalised yet, afaik, but plenty of people will sell you it (and it should work ok - as long as you stick to the same brand, anyway).

    A lot of people I know run cat5 cabling around their doors to get around this (works well if you're in a drafty house with gaps under the doors)

    --
    Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
    1. Re:N? by Jeff+DeMaagd · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

  2. A tip for resetting router/modem. by ForestGrump · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

    --
    Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
  3. Re:Anything that runs dd-wrt by CliffSpradlin · · Score: 1, Interesting

    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.