Causes Of Wireless Network Interference And How To Avoid Them

There are several obvious and never so obvious causes for wireless interference. This article should help you identify the cause of interference on the wireless network and determine what to complete about them.

Obvious Causes

Obviously any solid object will almost certainly cause some difficulty for radio signal. Typically objects such as plaster, drywall and wood have little influence on wireless radio signals. On the other hand objects for example metal, concrete and glass could have a huge effect in your wireless signal. The human body that is made mostly of water can interfere greatly using a wireless signal. The absolute worst destination to put in a wireless router is an area that's filled with metal objects for example a kitchen or laundry room. Strangely enough some wireless modems which might be installed included in the house during construction are surrounded by metal objects and are usually rendered useless.

An interesting fact to make note of may be the angle where a router and its access point are placed with regards to a wall may also create a massive difference. To a router and access point placed at a 90 degree angle to some 6 inch thick wall that wall will show up to be 6 inches thick. Change the angle to 45 degrees which same wall will show up being a foot thick. This is why moving an access point a few feet in one direction and other can make this kind of big difference.

The general guideline would be to place your access point as close to the center of your house as possible and invite for individuals a number of walls as possible between access point and your wireless devices.

Not So Obvious Causes

There is also another varieties of wireless interference that are not so obvious. If you live in the apartment building and they are in the middle of neighbors who also provide wireless devices of their apartments there is a good possibility their wireless signals can be interfering with yours. An easy fix for this is usually to adjust the channel your wireless router is on. Wireless-G routers typically have 11 channels you'll be able to select from. Most of these channels overlap with adjacent channels if your neighbor is utilizing channel 6 it's best to go with channel 1 or channel 11 on your own wireless router. A lots of new wireless N routers and a few G routers have an auto-switching feature which automatically detects the channel that's most open and switches to that particular.

A Wireless-G router basically thrives on the 2 main.4 GHZ frequency band. Unfortunately plenty of your other wireless devices also occupy that frequency band. Microwave ovens, baby monitors, garage door openers and cordless phones also are powered by both the.4 GHZ frequency band and so are able to causing a lot of interference difficulty with your wireless router. It's best to keep the access point as well as your wireless devices no less than six to ten feet from they.

As wireless technology grows more mature interference is starting to become less of your problem. We now have Wireless-N routers which enable us to use the 5 GHZ frequency band and get away from many of these interference issues altogether. Most Wireless-N routers and several Wireless-G routers use something called MIMO which sends and receives multiple signals immediately and virtually floods the whole area which has a wireless signal. This provides multiple paths for that wireless signal to check out which makes it less prone to interference.

If your wireless signal seems to work fine in certain areas of your home and not in others prehaps you are experiencing interference issues. Make sure to check not only decreasing and visible causes of interference though the not so obvious an invisible causes as well.

Hopefully these statements have given you some understanding of wireless interference, how to prevent it and what to do about it.