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A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

arstechnica.com

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Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#201

Post by MertsA »

Eiriksmal wrote: post #155
willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

Wow, that article taught me that our office is probably using the wrong setup for optimal VoIP performance. When I started, I bought us an Asus RT-N66U to replace the ancient 802.11g router that was powering the 5 computers, 4 smartphones, 3 ethernet VoIP phones and 1 printer. Fast forward two years and now we have 12 computers on wifi using soft phones, 3 engineering rigs on ethernet, 11 smart phones, and that lonel…

The solution is don't do VoIP on WiFi. You mentioned the 3 ethernet VoIP phones, do those have issues? Also, unless you're running third party firmware on your Asus router, you're going to start dropping VoIP packets whenever anything maxes out your connection. The packet loss actually isn't really a problem, the problem is that when you max out your connection, whatever cable modem you're using is going to start filling up a massively oversized buffer instead of dropping packets and any new packets go to the back of that buffer and take hundreds of milliseconds before the packet even leaves your building.

The fix if you're stuck dealing with crappy equipment that has massively oversized buffers is to throttle the connection in another device downstream of the modem to slightly under what the modem will throttle you to and then in addition to that you can also implement QoS so that your VoIP traffic is put into a different queue and give that queue a higher priority.

This is all predicated on the assumption that your ISP is actually providing what they say they are 100% of the time. If you pay for 5 Mbps upstream, set the QoS to 4.5 Mbps and your ISP delivers 4 Mbps 10% of the time then for that 10% of the time your equipment will be sending too fast and you'll go back to filling up that oversized buffer just like before.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#202

Post by jedberg »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #191
willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

At my townhouse there are times that 2.4 GHz network dies completely in main floor. Usually its evenings, sometimes feels its periodic. Latency sky rockets even when I am 1 meter from the router. What are the practical ways to find interference? The tools I have is openwrt router and a macbook. I normally use 5GHz anyway, but wireless music device is still 2.4GHz which is incredibly annoying once it dies.

It's almost certainly a microwave or cordless phone. I still forget sometimes and knock out my own wireless with a microwave.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#203

Post by JBReefer »

sathackr wrote: post #179
swiley wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They had to use directional antennae mounted mounted at eye level down each aisle of the factory. Did they ever mention the permanent, cumulative damage concentrated 2.4ghz RF does to the human eye?

Care to cite a credible source for this claim?

I have a counter claim: near face high powered WIFI router, 20/10 vision.

Non-ionising radiation is safe to fairly high levels.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#204

Post by kopijahe »

willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

In topic of building a multi-AP but with same SSID wifi network: Do I choose the same channel too or not?

I have a wifi networks on a building built with brick and mortar, so I need more APs to cover the entire premise, there gonna be some overlaps in the coverage here and there...

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#205

Post by hunter2_ »

kopijahe wrote: post #204
willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

In topic of building a multi-AP but with same SSID wifi network: Do I choose the same channel too or not? I have a wifi networks on a building built with brick and mortar, so I need more APs to cover the entire premise, there gonna be some overlaps in the coverage here and there...

No, set every AP to use the quietest channel. Using something like Wifi Analyzer on a phone positioned where the AP will be but with the AP off, see what's got the least going on... any loud APs on the same channel whether they're yours or not would be detrimental. Also completely avoid overlap. On 2.4 GHz that means 1, 6, 11.

Also, if there will be so many APs that they will share channels, you want the APs physically isolated from each other even if that means a little more isolation between AP and client than you'd otherwise have. For example, in a hotel or dorm put an AP in every third room instead of all in the hallway, so they don't hear each other.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#206

Post by sathackr »

JBReefer wrote: post #203
sathackr wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to cite a credible source for this claim?

I have a counter claim: near face high powered WIFI router, 20/10 vision. Non-ionising radiation is safe to fairly high levels.

Agreed. The primary concern is tissue heating that cannot be sufficiently dissipated. This is nearly impossible at "wifi" power levels(Below 1 watt) without carefully contrived situations -- such as placing your eyeball(which is the least-equipped organ to dissipate heat) at the exact focal point of a specially designed parabolic dish.

I have been safely working around thousands of watts of RF power for 20+ years and have maintained my 20/15 vision.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#207

Post by dzhiurgis »

jedberg wrote: post #202
dzhiurgis wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my townhouse there are times that 2.4 GHz network dies completely in main floor. Usually its evenings, sometimes feels its periodic. Latency sky rockets even when I am 1 meter from the router. What are the practical ways to find interference? The tools I have is openwrt router and a macbook. I normally use 5GHz anyway, but wireless music device is still 2.4GHz which is incredibly annoying once it dies.

It's almost certainly a microwave or cordless phone. I still forget sometimes and knock out my own wireless with a microwave.

It's definitely not mine. The effect is crazy tho. I wanna at least find a way to find the source/direction of it.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#208

Post by jlgaddis »

dfox wrote: post #137
Pxtl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may simply be the DHCP that's the problem - the step it's hanging on is always "requesting IP address". I've tried fixed IPs and that hasn't helped. Part of the problem is that even though I bought a designated access point device instead of a generalist wifi router (and I suspect it's the same device with marginally different firmware), the configuration process to make this stuff work is completely opaque. I hav…

Setting all APs in one network to same ESSID is exactly wbat you should do and for half-reasonable APs that works well. Big name brand vendors will sell you APs that support some proprietary coordination mechanism between them (usually with central "wireless network controller" as separate device), but that is not required for roaming to work. Such solutions (apart from centralized management) are mostly to keep your…

> ... is exactly wbat you should do ...

... as long as they're on the same layer 2 network.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#209

Post by nisa »

Groxx wrote: post #147
willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

Any idea why we do not have public, encrypted wifi? Seems like it should be easy / trivial to fix, and protects people from passive listeners.

Not OP, but there are some ideas like EAP-UNAUTH-TLS but it's not well (at all?) supported. Some details: https://lists.eff.org/pipermail/tech/2012-December/000333.ht...

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#210

Post by rsync »

willidiots wrote: post #26
koolba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which router do you recommend? Is the 5G band consistently worse than the default (i.e. constant connection drops) or is that just my experience?

An unfortunate side effect of being in the industry is that I constantly have a surplus of enterprise-grade hardware at home. It's been a while since I looked at consumer hardware. Apple's Airports were solid, but have been discontinued. I've used both of the OnHubs and both were performant / stable. I've heard generally good things about Google's new Wi-Fi pucks, and Netgear's nighthawk series. 5G is the better of t…

"An unfortunate side effect of being in the industry is that I constantly have a surplus of enterprise-grade hardware at home."

Great. Which do you like best ?

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