Home Wifi Networks - popular now in Cairo but can also bring problems.

Hot spots are common now throughout Cairo, at most coffee shops and other outlets, including my favorite watering hole the ACE Club. And home wireless networks are becoming numerous, which can bring some problems from your neighbors, or visa versa.

I was first in our building to have a wireless home network but now I count signals from 9 others. I noticed a while back my computer on first floor shgnal was reduced to "very low" or 27% signal strength. I used to be able to connect in my basement which is two concrete floors down. This could have been for a few reasons including maybe my ancient Netgear DG834G router was aging. This router has been a rock solid performer the whole time I have had it. I also noticed when I installed Ubuntu Linux Distro OS,(BTW I love this Ubuntu and will try and ween kids away from Windows) there where several other wireless signals and one in particular was 100% signal strength while mine was 27%. There was only one concrete floor between router and computer. Obviously I was suffering some interference.

I googled around and noticed some comments about interference among various wireless radio signals and something to do with router channels. So I googled more and found a program I could run to sniff the other various signals and determine what channels they were on. Program is called Network Stumbler and is free and can be found at this link.

I downloaded on my daughters wifi connected computer in next bedroom and found nine other signals and one with the very strong signal. And I noted I was on channel 11 and so where 5 others in the strong signal range. I then accessed my router and changed my channel to number 1 which no one else was using. This helped as increased the signal on downstairs computer from 27% to 45%. So this exercise can be worthwhile to check your home wifi for any possible interference and try to minimize as much as one can.

However, I am still not satisfied as if I want to use the lap top in garden the signal is too low. So, being a bit of experimenter have ordered a new router with the new N series setup. I googled this quite a bit and had seen a Netgear N series Rangemax at Radio Shack for 687 LE but reviews on this router were not good. So I opted for a Linksys WRT150 N series, (good reviews from users) ordered from Sistrum online. (I mentioned this company in previous post). I appreciate that since I will not be using N series adapters on the wireless connected computers I cannot expect the maximum range or speeds but hoping for 3 fold increase in any event. When I receive and test the new router I will update this post.