In reply to a post by shinerweb:

Anything nearby using a Video sender? (remote cameras / security systems).
Wireless Alarms? (Car alarms use the 2.4GHz band, but some home/business wireless alarms also utilise the same band).

Wireless doorbell system? Wireless Dumb waiter ?

Chris

In all honesty, it could be any of the above but, I do not have access to other premises to find out and, I suspect that the 'wrong' approach might cause even more bother.

In reply to a post by billford:

In reply to a post by colin020:

FWIW, the hotel is situated very close to a harbour. Is it possible that there may be some ship borne interference that is causing the problem?

Any way you can check if something new arrived in the harbour on Saturday and is still there?

Especially if it's sporting some odd-looking aerials, maybe.

Entirely possible. It is a very busy harbour that has a lot of fishing vessels, oil related traffic, passenger ferries, cruise liners etc. passing through on a daily basis.

Nightmare to 'investigate' that lot.

In reply to a post by colin020:

Entirely possible. It is a very busy harbour that has a lot of fishing vessels, oil related traffic, passenger ferries, cruise liners etc. passing through on a daily basis.

Nightmare to 'investigate' that lot.

Sounds more like a port than a harbour, but I see your point

Strangely just had the same problem. I run a village wifi system which feeds 12 houses. This morning all houses lost connection so I thought no problem switch to the backup mast, still no joy. I was just about to get the ladders out so I could get on the roof to change the Engenius antenna unit when I remembered this thread. I changed the channel from 1 to 4 and everything started working.

The system has run quite happily for four years so why this should suddenly happen is a complete mystery. I am just glad I read these forums.

WiFi 2.4Ghz is shared with so many devices that easy enough for problems to arise, or get channel clashes from other wifi networks

That raises the possibility that your problem and Colin's problem may be caused by an adjacent hotel, group of houses etc, have set up a similar Community WiFi system., if they are on FIXED WiFi Channels.

Compare such situations with the typical domestic set-up, with Channel Hopping to avoid such clashes.

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Or I wonder if it is a domestic installation where the user has somehow locked on to a fixed channel?

agkq62

Sorry to hear of your problem but, glad that it's not just me...

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Jun-14 10:42:43)

In reply to a post by eckiedoo:

Compare such situations with the typical domestic set-up, with Channel Hopping to avoid such clashes.

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Or I wonder if it is a domestic installation where the user has somehow locked on to a fixed channel?

Would channel hopping work with repeaters?

Also, if I cannot 'see' the interfering signal, would the router/repeaters be able to see it and jump channel?

Evening Colin

I don't know if the WAPs are capable of Channel Hopping; but logically, I suspect that they are semi-locked, requiring direct intervention by the person in charge, ie you, to specifically change each WAP.

============================

A hotel I stay at when down South "on business", with many more bedrooms than yours, is my main experience of such WiFi.

Last year when installed, it had three WAPs, all set to a single channel; and relatively poor coverage.

I suspect the poor coverage was because of likely widespread locations, over two distinct major blocks.

==============================

This year, there are 10 WAPs, 9 being apparently of one type.

They were set to three different channels, 3, 7, 11 with the tenth being addituional on one of those.

I do not know if those Channel allocations were geographically grouped, 3,3,3,7,7,7,11,11,11,...; or if the ran along the lines of 3, 7, 11,3, 7, 11 ...

===============================

Thinking about it and hopefully someone working on that type of installation may be able to answer the following.

I suspect, no matter how grouped, they are channel-fixed.

If you think of several guests using WiFi in a localised area, it could cause disruption if for some reason, that WAP jumped channel.

With several running, each with several guests using each one, there could be spectrum pandemonium.

=====================

Thinking further, I must observe that installation in more detail; and also pay more attention when at airports etc. (Should be there imn about 2 weeks.)



Anyone with direct experience of installing and setting up such systems?

Edited by deleted (Sun 08-Jun-14 18:35:52)

Bad systems are as follows. They put a router into a room, they then put a wireless repeated in another room, another wireless repeater in another room etc. They do not link they up with a cable and use all the same channel on every device. This is bad. It means every device is on the same channel causing huge cross-talk but also wirelessly repeating the signal will half the available bandwidth and multiple repetitions will worsen this more.

A good system will be as follows. All APs will connect to a main AP with a cable.
There will be 1 AP on channel 1, another on 6 and another on 11. This avoids cross talk. Using channels such as 2,3,4 and 5 is generally a bad move. This is because by default users nearby will have routers on AUTO which will choose channels 1, 6 or 11. Channel 3 overlaps with channel 1 and 6 so using 3 you would get interference from both channel 1 and channel 6 routers nearby on AUTO. This is why big deployments use 1 6 and 11 generally only.

Better systems will dynamically change... For instance
Aruba networks which is used across most university campuses and probably airports will dynamically adjust the setup. So 1 router will be on channel 1, another on 6, another on 11. If the router on channel 1 begins to get interference it will dynamically change channels to say channel 11. If then both routers on channel 11 can see one another the output power of the routers may be reduced to avoid crosstalk and/or if this reduces the coverage too much the original router on channel 11, which may not experience interference on channel 1 may switch to that channel now. So it's dynamically changing.

These networks also run 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz on the same SSID. In a typical home this causes issues as the 2.4 Ghz will always be much stronger signal than the 5Ghz. In a good network setup the 2.4 Ghz signal will have limited power output and the 5Ghz signal will have a much higher power output. This means that the 5Ghz signal will appear around the same strength / perhaps just slightly stronger most of the time and encourage devices to hop onto this.

In an airport or somewhere busy there will be lots of routers all on 1, 6 and 11. They will all be outputting very little and covering a small area. If one does get interference there's always another one nearby but the setup should dynamically change things. There's generally multiple APs in a dense area just to handle the sheer volume of users.

Bit of a pain but the only real way to get a perfect wireless network is to use good deployment which is extremely expensive.

The best way to do it on the cheap is to fix a router on channel 1, another on channel 6, another on channel 11. Then the next on 1, then 6, then 11 etc... Keep them close together and keep the output power down on each router. If say channel 1 does end up blocked out people will still be in coverage of another AP on 6 or 11 hopefully. It's unlikely that channel 1 will always remain blocked out too. By using the entire spectrum you can mitigate some of the potential issues.

Using channel 3 by definition isn't a great idea as it's in the middle of commonly used 1 and 6. You'd be better just using 1 or the other.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 09-Jun-14 00:38:37)