As more and more people buy laptops, some of the most common questions we hear involve wireless networking. I know when we moved into our house we didn’t want long network cables connecting all the rooms, so we bought a wireless router.
We’ve all seen those commercials about Internet-ready wireless laptops and they look great. No wires to plug in or trip over, and the ability to be mobile and connect from any room in the house. What’s not to like about it? But there are some practical concerns to having a wireless network as well.
Wireless Internet routers use the same 2.4 Ghz radio wave range as most cordless phones. If you’ve used one of those phones you know that there are places in the house where reception isn’t all that great. The same thing can happen with wireless networks. Walls, overhead lights, baby monitors and electrical wiring are examples of things that can cause interference. Even the water in pine needles has been proven to cause problems. Anything that causes interference will slow down your wireless connection and could be enough to drop you offline.
You will want to take all these into account when deciding where you want to set up your wireless router. Linksys has some tips to help you decide where to set everything up.
And it’s not just things inside your house that could be causing interference. As wireless and cordless devices improve and have more range it could actually be your neighbor’s cordless phone interfering with your connection.
While wireless networking is great when it works correctly, it can be frustrating when it doesn’t. If you’d like to learn more, and get help from other Dell customers, Dell has a forum that is dedicated to helping with wireless, Internet and networking problems.
I’ll be posting more information on the different types of wireless cards as well as tips for troubleshooting and securing your wireless network. Let me know what’s on your mind when it comes to wireless networking and I’ll be glad to try and work it in.
June 23rd, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I`ve read some very helpful information on the forum for pesky wireless problems.
June 24th, 2008 at 5:55 am
I hope that Dell decides to offer the new D-Link DIR-628 router. http://tinyurl.com/6egxow
MSRP on the 5Ghz capable unit is $119 but Best Buy will supposedly sell them for $79.
June 24th, 2008 at 7:20 am
@jervis961
Thanks for that link. I’m thinking about doing a follow up discussing N-band and that may be helpful. We use wireless N at home and have burned through a couple of routers in the past two years so maybe we’ll take a look at the 5Ghz ones next time. Although I’m hoping the next one won’t be needed for a while.
June 24th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I’ve been wanting one but have no need until I buy my next notebook. I currently don’t have any N cards in my systems.
June 26th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Is there any option to change the frequency of router so it does not get disturbed by neighbor’s telephone or so on… The problem could be more for the people who live in apartments, and everybody has his own cordless phone and wireless router.
June 26th, 2008 at 9:06 am
@Rohit
To the best of my knowledge there isn’t a router with that option. You can change the channels on routers to try to find one that has a cleaner signal. Normally routers have channels 1 through 11 available, and I believe most default to channel 6. I would recommend first trying channel 11 to see if that would help and if not then channel 1.
A router with dual frequency functionality would be interesting but probably would be too expensive to be feasible on the market.