Looking for more (very) local wireless info.

[Jamon Camisso]

Colin McGregor wrote:
> I am looking to tweak settings of my wireless network and to do that I
> want more information about the nearby wireless networks.
> 
> My network at present is a 802.11g hub down in the basement, my laptop
> which gets shifted around the house (and as the weather gets better
> may make visits to the back yard). In addition there are occasional
> visitors to the network, like my brother's laptop. I have some 802.11g
> PCI desktop PC cards that I may bring into play. But as most of my
> work is done on a conventional (wired) desktop machine the wireless
> network is lightly used. Still, I would like things to perform as well
> as possible, without spending any additional money.
> 
> Even early on a Sunday morning a run of "Scan for Networks" under
> KWiFiManager will turn up 17 networks in my area, and I have seen over
> 50 networks in my area. Given that 802.11g has 11 channels available
> to it, 50+ networks means everyone's slice of those channels will be
> limited.
> 
> KWiFiManager tells me four things about the local networks, their
> name, what mode do they use, the signal strength and is WEP encryption
> turned on. This is all useful information but not enough for my
> tweeking purposes.
> 
> So, to start with, I want to find software that will tell me:
> 
> - Which channels are most heavily used (if say 90% of all the networks
> are on channel 1, I will happily set my network to  channel 11 :-) )?
> - What is the volume of traffic going over each channel (again I want
> to avoid the high traffic channels)?
> - How much 802.11b vs. 802.11g traffic is on a channel (802.11b and
> 802.11g can coexist on a channel, at the expense of 802.11g
> performance)?
> 
> In other words I want the tools that will let me make smart picks
> regarding how to get the best performance I can out of what I have.
> 
> Before anyone says something like "Why not just go to the new 802.11n
> stuff?", my answer is, I can not cost justify that (I would need to
> buy a new hub and network cards), given that my funds are very tight,
> and the wireless network is lightly used. Further, these same sorts of
> issues will no doubt show up in the 802.11n world sooner or later
> (802.11n has a larger number frequencies, few users (at least for now)
> and higher performance to start with).

Channels 6 and 11 are pretty cluttered I find. But Wifi is imprecise 
anyways, so you'll get interference from strong APs on channels 5 and 7 
if you're on 6. I don't find it really impacts things much, I have about 
the same number of networks available from where I live.

Check the amount of traffic using Kismet. You'll find that despite the 
fact that there might be 50 networks, maybe 10% of those are in active 
use (based solely on packet count). Pick a channel with the least amount 
of traffic and you're all set. Keep in mind that if there are 4 APs on 
channel 6 with strong signals versus 7 looks empty, it might be better 
to choose something that is a few channels away from 6 even if it has 
another AP or two on it.

With all that in mind, I can honestly say that the amount of time and 
effort put into tuning things might not be worth it for you as Wifi (at 
least with my simple consumer hardware) has proven to be nothing but 
reliable despite the large number of users (and cordless phones) in my area.

Jamon
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