Congested Wi-Fi

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haakuturi

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#141308 8-Mar-2014 09:40

Hi y'all.

I've recently (3 months ago now) moved house, and the new location has an amazing knotwork of WiFi networks. It's gotten to the point where any of my devices trying to connect via Wi-Fi have a really poor experience. For what it's worth, the network has:

1x laptop
3x Android devices - Nexus 4, Nexus 7 (2012) & moto g
1x PC - used to be connected via Wi-Fi but have changed to ethernet
1x Xbox 360
1x Xbox One

The wireless congestion looks like this:

The congestion gets so bad that my Android devices will actually refuse to connect to the network, citing "Temporarily avoiding poor connection".

My router is a Slingshot-supplied NetComm NB604n.

I've had a play through the router settings, but I don't fully understand about 3/4 of the Advanced wireless settings.

My initial attempts were to:

Set the Channel to auto
Enable OBSS Co-Existance

But I don't know if these have really helped at all.

Can anybody suggest ways to improve our wireless network?

johnr

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#1001150 8-Mar-2014 09:45

Get a wireless router that supports 5.8Ghz might help if the devices connecting to it support it

haakuturi

241 posts

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#1001151 8-Mar-2014 09:47

johnr: Get a wireless router that supports 5.8Ghz might help if the devices connecting to it support it

Any recommendations? I just had a quick look over at pricespy and there are a lot to choose from!

johnr

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#1001153 8-Mar-2014 09:52

Just go for a trusted brand name but 5.8 will not have the same coverage foot print as 2.4

Buzz Bumble

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#1001159 8-Mar-2014 10:17

haakuturi: Can anybody suggest ways to improve our wireless network?

Yep, do not use Wi-Fi - unfortunately not really an option when it comes to mobile phones and tablets. This problem is only going to get worse as more people use the rather limited space, houses are built closer together, and more pointless things (like fridges) have wi-fi gimmickry stuck in them in an attempt to attract buyers. :-(

haakuturi

241 posts

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#1001173 8-Mar-2014 10:44

johnr: Just go for a trusted brand name but 5.8 will not have the same coverage foot print as 2.4

Yeah, my devices don't support it :( Will probably just look at a router with stronger signals, and use ethernet as much as we can.

gibbo

30 posts

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#1001177 8-Mar-2014 10:49

Look for a unit that says dual band or dual radios. 2.4G and 5ghz (NZ uses two 5Ghz bands 5.15 and 5.47) Yes 5G finds it harder to get through walls etc, but doesn't die around water and microwave ovens like 2.4. if you get an AP with 2x 2 or 3x3 MIMO you'll find the range pretty good. Yes dual band APs are more expensive, but there is now 2 radios and 2 sets of antennas in them.

The 5G band has potentially 23 clear usable channels available as opposed to the 2.4band which has 3 usable channels, (1, 6, 11) that don't bleed into each other.

Most likely you'll need an external 5G 11N adapter for your Xbox 360. Looks like your phones will be fine. If a device says it supports 11a then it has a 5GHz radio in it.

When you set it up depending on the sophistication of the AP you may be able to advertise your SSID only on the 5GHz band, thus forcing devices to connect at 5Ghz. If the AP advertises the SSID on all bands then, or you still need to support some older devices, set your data rates to g/n only and disable 11b (b/g/n). In general any AP should be set as g/n only for 2.4 these days.

Brand mmm try Draytek, linksys as a starting point, Ubiquiti (getting more expensive) can't help you much more there as I generally do enterprise wifi solutions

sbiddle

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Biddle Corp

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#1001207 8-Mar-2014 11:34

Wireless is a complementary offering, it is not and never will be a replacement for cabled connections, regardless of whether you're talking about WiFi, 3G, or LTE.

2.4Ghz is now at the point where in built up CBD areas and in many urban areas it's a lost cause and should can't be relied upon as a reliable high speed connectivity option. 5Ghz is the best option if your hardware supports it.

By best piece of advice for many people is to try channel 13. NZ allows the use of 1-13, but many countries only allow 1-11 and 1,6 and 11 are the only 3 WiFi channels that should normally be used as they're non overlapping. Selecting 13 will often deliver better results, but the downside is that a significant % of devices on the market such as laptops will not be able to connect as they'll be set to only work on 1-11. Some allow setting 1-13 in driver settings.

I just can't wait till 802.11ad hits the market - the sooner we can move to a decent band for WiFi (802.11ad uses 60Ghz) the better it'll be for everybody. This will mean APs will only deliver coverage in the room they're located in (as 60Ghz is basically going to struggle to go through tissue paper!) but that's how it needs to be.

Quic Broadband

Move to New Zealand's best fibre broadband service (affiliate link). Free setup code: R587125ERQ6VE. Note that to use Quic Broadband you must be comfortable with configuring your own router.

RunningMan

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#1001220 8-Mar-2014 11:55

gibbo: Look for a unit that says dual band or dual radios. 2.4G and 5ghz

There's no point if the OP's client devices only support 2.4GHz.

Any going for a unit with a stronger signal won't necessarily help either - remember WiFi is a two way thing, it's not just about receiving a strong signal from the router, but the router getting a strong signal back from the client device.

In a congested area, you may be better trying different locations for your router - try to get it closer to the devices you want to use, and see if that makes a difference.

Buzz Bumble

332 posts

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#1001241 8-Mar-2014 12:34

sbiddle: Wireless is a complementary offering, it is not and never will be a replacement for cabled connections, regardless of whether you're talking about WiFi, 3G, or LTE.

There's plenty more to add to that list, including normal TV and radio, Bluetooth, "4G", etc., and I read somewhere last week about "5G".

Unfortunately Wi-Fi and wireless is the latest gimmick that "everyone" wants to have and every manufacture shovels into their products, which is what is causing this problem. The red herring of the government selling off the old TV frequencies isn't really going to help in the long run either.

Don't be surprise if you next purchase of Chesdale Cheese or Twisties is "wireless" as well. ;-)

webwat

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#1001261 8-Mar-2014 13:29

Turn on a wireless setting in the router called "RTS" (ready to send) and set the threshold to something like 1024. If the congestion is really bad you can also configure RTS on some of your devices. It slows down your potential thoughput but tells other stations to leave a space so that you arent all trying to send radio signals at the same time, which creates "collisions" and delays while all stations try to retransmit.

Time to find a new industry!

raytaylor

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#1001903 9-Mar-2014 21:25

haakuturi:
johnr: Just go for a trusted brand name but 5.8 will not have the same coverage foot print as 2.4

Yeah, my devices don't support it :( Will probably just look at a router with stronger signals, and use ethernet as much as we can.

-40 is too powerful a signal.
You really want the signal level to be down at -55 to -65

Ray Taylor

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richms

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#1001904 9-Mar-2014 21:30

There is huge varience between routers as to how much they will ignore other transmissions and just to send over the top of the noise that is there.

I found that having my accesspoint on a windowsill to get good coverage over the yard doubled the number of networks it could see and really screwed with the performance. Moved it back to the middle of the house where it only sees 6 and it works much better.

The big F-off antenna made things worse, the dinky 2dB works better.

However in saying that, I have a WDS bridge on ch13 with 40MHz wide channel between the house and the shed and I can get 80-90 megabit over it to the computers in the shed at almost any time I try, once I set both ends to greenfield and stopped associating clients to the same radio's so there is definatly room for quite a bit of thruput on the band still in urban areas.

Richard rich.ms

raytaylor

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#1001905 9-Mar-2014 21:34

One solution would be to enclose your house in a faraday cage. This is where you put chicken wire netting around the inside walls of your home. The netting "holes" or metal intervals need to be at a distance less than a 2.4ghz wave length to effectivley block out the interference.

Another solution is turn down the power level so your recieved signal is at -55, and then at the other end of the house, place another wifi router with its power level turned down.

On each of the routers, use a wind surfer antenna reflector to turn your omnidirectional antenna into a directional one. Or replace the omnidirectional antenna on your router with a mini desktop directional patch antenna.
This means it wont pick up the noise from other routers except in the direction you aim it. So if its at one corner of the house, aimed into the house, it wont pick up noise from the outside wall.

Here is a wind surfer antenna that you can cut out and make with tinfoil
http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwW26jNWAQE

Here is a patch antenna with a 60 degree beamwidth, instead of an omnidirectional 360 degree that transmits in all directions, but also picks up noise from all directions. So a 60 degree one will block out all the noise from outside of that beamwidth.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/networking-modems/wireless-networking/antennas/auction-703309648.htm

it says outdoor but you can use it indoors also.

Ray Taylor

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1101

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#1002042 10-Mar-2014 11:06

The 'congestion' is nothing unusual. Ive often seen alot worse & still had working wifi
The other wifi's are -30db down from yours, thats a huge difference so I doubt they are causing issues (assuming you are the red channel
at -40) . -3db down is 1/2 the power .
Whats the wifi like if you are in the same room as the router.

- that software analyser ONLY shows wifi, it wont show all the other 2.4Ghz devices: cordless phones, BT, video senders, garage openers etc etc
- unplug & turn off all cordless keyboards & mice (as a test)
- set the wifi channel manually. Try this 1st . Try 1, then 11 (from memory here)
- turn OFF ALL cordless phones. Try this 2nd
- get a better wifi router with external aerials. WirelessN . Try an 8db external Arial on it. - your router may just be a dud
- what range are you expecting from wifi. Be realistic, dont expect good signal through floors or through multiple rooms
If you want longer range try a homeplug extender that sends the signal via main to an access point at the other end of the house
- turn off your cordless phones (yes again)
- move the router, sometime makes all the difference . You'll need to experiment a bit . Dont put it on the floor or behind anything metal
- TURN OFF WIRELESS B on the router, Set it to G or N only.
- perhaps 1 device is cause all the issues ? turn off devices 1 by 1 to try see if its 1 user or 1 device causing problems . Be realistic with data throughput on wifi .
- How many wifi devices do you have, in total. Cheap routers can have issues with too many devices connected .
- make sure wifi has WPA2 security enabled (only)

- some sites NEVER have reliable wifi, just the nature of the beast.
Wifi is on a free for all frequency (2.4). Anyone & any device can use 2.4 for anything they want. It can only get worse.

richms

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#1002070 10-Mar-2014 11:57

Also that scan only shows networks that are available not showing anything about the use of them. If they are all idle then will not do much. If they are heavily active will affect heaps.

Richard rich.ms