I find this crazy. Surely the neighbours wifi isn't causing this much of an issue.

I have 2 of these multi channel routers in range of me - neighbours on both side. I still get a perfect wifi connection in between the two.

Wifi router devices are regulated and generally don't cause issues. Other things such as baby monitors, wireless AV transmitters, wireless doorbells, cordless phones etc can be much much worse than a wifi network and these devices aren't detected during a scan. They still use the same frequency. They can essentially clog a network up which sounds like your problem.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 25-Mar-12 16:50:59)

There's an assumption here that it's a neighbour, and a related assumption earlier re directional aerials vs high gain aerials.

A high gain aerial is by definition a directional aerial, that's how they get gain relative to omnidirectional.

It is in principle possible, albeit not all that likely, that another WiFi user who isn't particularly close to PhilWebSpace is using a high gain (directional) aerial for some reason not clear to us here, and Phil is innocently in its line of fire.

A wander round the neighbourhood with InSSIDer or equivalent running might help clarify whether this is or isn't the case. Not sure where it leads though.

forgot to say...

"these [2.4GHz but not WiFi] devices aren't detected during a scan"

Good old NetStumbler didn't detect them directly, but if I remember rightly you could infer their presence by looking at the combination of received signal level and received SNR. IE a decent signal level but poor SNR may well mean there's a non-WiFi device in the picture.

Something like a microwave would be intermittent and should be relatively local in its effects.

On the other hand a 2.4GHz videosender is quite possibly left on for extended periods (maybe 24x7 sometimes?) and may have a directional aerial with moderate gain, so if the videosender is moved, its interference moves too. Been there seen that.

I second this move

This morning, I've tried to connect, and nothing--the computer simply fails to associate with my access point. Firing up InSSIDer reveals that the offending Belkin, or its owner, seems to have increased the transmit power and is now significantly stronger than my own router, meaning I can't connect to my wi-fi unless I'm physically in the same room as it. In every other room, it's swamped by this neighbouring network.

Does anyone have any tips on how to combat this sort of interference?

Knock on the door and complain. If it were music, you would.

Why not swap to 5ghz? Lots more channel space

Also, 5GHz doesn't travel through walls very well, so you'll rarely see anyone else.

I would also just use Home plugs as well maybe stick a 2nd Wireless AP on the end of the home plug to increase your wireless coverage. I have a similar issue in my dads house he has the broadband feed go into an upstairs bedroom but the wireless signal does not make it out of the room to well. What i did was put a 2nd AP downstairs with the same SSID and password then connected it up with ethernet (as he had it running down to the front room) This solved the wireless issue.

Hopefully you used a different channel so the two of them didn't interfere with each other.

Has anyone noted the posting dates on this thread? I doubt the OP is even watching.