Thursday, September 10, 2009

Wireless Interference

As wireless networks proliferate, wireless interference is becoming a bigger issue, especially for small business in a metropolitan area. The number one symptom is an intermittent connection. If your signal strength is already low, you may be receiving an interfering signal from a neighboring router. Two solutions are possible.

Some routers allow you to boost the power of the signal, for example the new 2-WIRE boxes from AT&T, which offers power settings from one to ten. Your other option is to scan the surrounding signals to determine if there is a free channel. Channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 simply overlap the main U.S. channels of 1, 6, and 11. Therefore it's really only beneficial to use the non-overlapping channels. Switch to 1, 6 or 11 and retest. Higher frequency channels may provide better resistance to interference.

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