The most useful lesson however came in Kendrick's choice of a Wi-Fi channel. The LTE connection is now lightning fast in the building as expected. Is there anything more frustrating than being fully engaged with an episode on Netflix only to have the video start to buffer?

An excellent article there, When Wireless LANs Collide: How To Beat The Wireless Crowd, by Tim Higgins, addresses this issue head on. Exclusively.

Finally, SmallNetBuilder's Wireless FAQ: The Essentials includes this interesting tidbit regarding the range of Wi-Fi G networks vs. that of N networks: In general, 802.11n products will not increase your wireless LAN range, no matter what the companies trying to sell you their wares say. For example, the western neighbor may use channel 1, while the eastern neighbor is using channel 11 and the people above are using channel 6. If you ever used walkie-talkies as a kid, you know the importance of using a clear channel. How Microsoft will end Office's perpetual licensing, How to configure Wi-Fi channels for top network performance, Sponsored item title goes here as designed, 3 ways to add broadband to your mobile devices, 9 tips for speeding up your business Wi-Fi, James Kendrick wrote about his experience, When Wireless LANs Collide: How To Beat The Wireless Crowd, It Takes A Neighborhood To Fix Bad Wireless. If your Wi-Fi signal is being unreliable, there are a few ways you can get a stronger Wi-Fi connection in your apartment. No doubt this causes interference both on channels 6 and 11.

Kendrick had problem with a Samsung 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot that he has been using "... for over a year without issues". Wi-Fi channels are a very big deal to apartment dwellers who often have to dance around the channels used by their neighbors. Choosing an off-channel doesn't necessarily mean that it won't work. One approach, if your router has external removable antennas, is to replace them with a directional antenna so that the signal can be pointed in the direction you need it most.

Out in the boonies this would be great.

That is, if the router realized where the computing devices were and only sent strong signals in the direction(s) needed at the moment? Wouldn't it be great if the router was smart enough to do this on its own? You may also not appreciate this approach if you have keep moving the antenna as your needs change.

Copyright © 2020 Popular Science. The next strongest signal is on channel 9 (82%). The other side of the device is a Wi-Fi router. Only the hottest new trend in the plant world, of course! Just a few easy updates will give your apartment a fresh, new look – and it won’t cost…, As winter drags on, you might be spending more and more time in your apartment. Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen. Some routers have a default Wi-Fi channel, others try to make a smart decision in real time. It came as no surprise to this apartment dweller that, as Kendrick writes, all the "... common channels (1,6,11) were swamped.".

Follow These #Tips To Get A Stronger Connection![/tweetthis]. You should take steps to secure your signal, both to improve your speed and to protect your privacy. If all of the steps above don’t help to improve your connection, it may be time to find a new router. That said, Kendrick's problem was probably with an algorithm in his Samsung Mobile Hotspot. As noted above, Wi-Fi N does not increase the range or signal strength compared to G. Rukus increases both. A relative of mine then used this Rukus Wi-Fi G router for years to fill a house with Wi-Fi including many places in the house that were formerly dead spots.

If you really feel like the router is ruining your apartment’s decor, place a few photo frames around it, being sure to leave at least 3 inches around the router on all sides. If not, you can always buy your own router to use in your apartment.

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Outside his new building, everything was fine. Older equipment does not function as well, so call up your ISP and see if you qualify for a free upgrade.

No matter how you frame it, this is home. Whatever a receiver can't understand, ends up as "noise", which can reduce performance.

Don’t…, If you’ve been thinking of using plants for decoration in your apartment, may we suggest succulents? Many people that write about Wi-Fi live in houses, or so I suspect. When you are finding the optimal spot for your router, you should make sure to keep it away from the microwave or metal appliances. Clearly, this was a case of radio interference. The display is sorted by channel, normally, I sort by signal strength. Not a very neighbor-friendly approach. Half of the battle for Wi-Fi signal involves proper positioning of the router. But it may create a problem for other networks by adding to the noise level. A Bonnier Corporation Company. Higgins explains why: If you're using Channel 1 and your neighbor is using Channel 2, you're both putting plenty of power into each other's channel. Use one of them anyway, or use a channel that no one else is using? And, in an apartment builidng, the dynamic and directional nature of the signal from a Rukus device should be good both for the Rukus user and their neighbors. But if…. The channels that Kendrick referred to as "common", 1, 6 and 11, are popular because they are the most spaced out within the 2.4GHz band and thus their frequencies hardly overlap. This fails, of course, if you need the signal in two different directions at the same time.

The ultimate solution for apartment dwellers is to move from the crowded 2.4GHz band to the less-used 5GHz band. Now comes the fun part – figuring out what you need.

Wi-Fi network channels are subsets of the available radio frequencies. Below is a cropped screen shot from WirelessNetView taken on the laptop computer used to write this blog.

In the worst case scenario, two routers/access points may be needed. Atheros' Super-G was the first bandwidth-hogging "channel bonding" technique, and 802.11n has 40 MHz mode baked into the standard.

So aggravating! On a Windows machine, I recommend the free, portable, fast and simple Nirsoft WirelessNetView from Nir Sofer for learning the full technical details about detectable Wi-Fi networks. Kendrick opted for the latter, writing, "Once I changed it to a channel not being used in the building by other networks, my connectivity was assured. Join us as we talk about decor, renting tips, and your searching for your dream home. But if you also want it to be secure, then you’ll have to make sure your system is setup properly. Another article at SmallNetBuilder.com, It Takes A Neighborhood To Fix Bad Wireless, by Scott Deleeuw, makes the same point. Hurricane season surges on as Eta slams Nicaragua and Honduras, How scientists keep ancient shipwrecks from crumbling into dust, We’re getting better at treating COVID-19, Cloud storage is cheaper when you know how to share it, The secret to helping this resilient whale species lies in its genes, When it comes to airborne COVID-19 transmission, droplet size matters, How we created a portal to another world for our most mysterious cover yet, COVID-19 cases surge past a new peak in the US, Harley’s first electric bicycle stands out with its retro style, This standing desk is your work-from-home solution, Wood filters, hot rocks, and seven other ways to purify water in the wild, How to prepare for in-person voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your wireless speed is going to slow way down if other renters in your complex are piggybacking on your Wi-Fi signal.

The ideal location for your Wi-Fi router is on a higher shelf or table in the center of your apartment. In the new apartment, none of his computers would connect to the Wi-Fi network created by the Samsung device. Some routers supporting both 2.4GHz and 5GHz have a single radio so they transmit in only one of these ranges at any given time.

Update July 1, 2012: A discussion in the forums at SmallNetBuilder about choosing Wi-Fi channels points out that you can't tell how busy a particular channel is.

Each network will see the signal from the other as interference, which degrades performance.

All rights reserved. By positioning the router in the middle of your place, it has the ability to reach all corners of your rental much more easily.

Trying to chose the best available channel, amongst 1, 6 and 11, can be tricky in an apartment building. I hope these tips help you to get the best possible Wi-Fi signal in your apartment! But, if choosing an unused channel in a crowded Wi-Fi environment just makes things worse for everyone, how come it solved James Kendrick's problem?

In the new apartment, none of his computers would connect to the Wi-Fi network created by the Samsung device. Popular Science may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site. Using the same example, a router on channel 11 would be perfect on the west side of the apartment and one on channel 1 on the eastern side. Scott Deleeuw makes the same point in his article on Wi-Fi contention. By Michael Horowitz,

In other words, stick to 1, 6 and 11. What are succulents, you ask? Defensive Computing is for people who use computing devices for work, not play. I say this, because the specific issues faced by apartment dwellers in crowded cities are rarely addressed. |.

As noted earlier, his real problem may well have been with the algorithm in his router for dynamically choosing a channel. Michael Horowitz is an independent consultant who has long been focused on Defensive Computing. Find the Best Place for Your Router.

Check out this article from ForRent to find out how to maximize your Wi-Fi security. But, as Tim Higgins explained in an email to me. It beats me why neither a Mac nor Windows 7 bothers to display this important information about the networks they detect (not that I've seen it on the few Linux distros I've tried either). The display is flexible, columns can be resized, re-sequenced and sorted. If you’ve been looking around and wondering … how can I make this look better? One side of the Samsung device talks to the Internet via, in his case, Verizon's 4G network. As soon as he reconfigured it to use a fixed channel, the problem went away. The microwave will literally absorb the Wi-Fi signal every time you run it, as will any large metal appliances such as your oven or fridge.

Half of the battle for Wi-Fi signal involves proper positioning of the router. On the upside, their low end routers cost roughly the same as high end consumer models. [tweetthis]Having Problems With Your Current #Wifi Signal? That is, are the people you share channel 6 with, looking at one web page every 4 minutes or are they streaming a Netflix movie? The 2.4GHz band (see Why Everything Wireless Is 2.4 GHz) is divided into 11 channels in the U.S. (this differs by country). But doing so requires that both the router and the computing device support 5GHz. You may not know, however, that only three of those channels should be used.". In it, Higgins writes, "If you're using 2.4 GHz band equipment, you probably know that your access point has eleven channels that it can be set to.

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