[Mad Vlad]

(Original post by SubAtomic)
I was given this information from talktalk technical help when my internet signal kept cutting, what qualifies you to say this is stupid?

A first class degree in which I studied wireless networking and wireless communications, as well as a significant amount of experience.

(Original post by mikeyd85)
Vlad is pretty good at IT related issues tbf.



Tis what Be* recommended I did when I had some network issues...

Interesting - why would ISPs recommend something which should be incorrect? Any ideas?

Because their support technicians are idiots and think that the 13 available wireless network channels are like TV channels - completely discrete. Far from it. The wikipedia article on the 802.11 spectrum explains this quite effectively:

A signal whose centre frequency is x occupies a 22MHz frequency band. Because the channels are spaced 5MHz apart, that means a signal on a particular channel will sit across a minimum of 5 channels. Because 802.11 is a shared media networking technology, it uses CSMA-CD to manage the sharing of the spectrum. So when a transmitter wants to send a message, it listens to see if anyone's transmitting before sending.

Channels 1, 6 and 11 do not overlap, so transmissions on each of these channels can be considered discrete and will not interfere with each other. For the sake of convenience, let's refer to Channels 1, 6 and 11 as A, B and C respectively. If you selected say channel 3, you'd be overlapping with channels 1, 2, 4 and 5. Channels 1, 2 and 3 belong to Channel A's frequency spectrum and Channels 4 and 5 belong to Channel B's frequency spectrum.

So, let's consider an example where we're trying to transmit on Channel 3, and there are two other people, Adam and Betty, one each on Channel A and Channel B. In order to transmit, we need for the airwaves to be clear of any carrier signals on the frequency band which our channel uses. Adam and Betty are on discrete channels - they can communicate at the same time as their channels do not interfere. If we joined A or B, we would only have to contend with 1 other person. Conversely, if we join channel 3, we overlap with both channels A and B, so if either Adam or Betty are transmitting, we cannot transmit. Scale this up to 3 people on channel A and 3 people on channel B, instead of contending with 3 other people, if we joined channel A or B, because we sit across both channels, we have to contend with 6 other people.

Does that help explain it?

[SubAtomic]

(Original post by Mad Vlad)
A first class degree in which I studied wireless networking and wireless communications, as well as a significant amount of experience.

Furry muff, just hacked my firefox so will give what you say a whirl and change the 3, 8, and 9 on my little piece of paper.

[mikeyd85]

(Original post by Mad Vlad)
Does that help explain it?

Yup, nice one!

[Airfairy]

To just update people (incase you care )

I followed some stuff on the VM forums that another member had figured out, changing loads of settings in advanced, and it seems to have worked quite well. So far so good. Only been a day though, but hopefully it will carry on.

If I had known all this about VM Superhubs then I would have reconsidered switching from BT and maybe looked at Sky. Their service is awful considering the amount of complaints they are getting.

Thanks loads for everyone's help, wasn't expecting so much! Thanks.

[RabbitCFH]

Here is a good tutorial how to improve your wi-fi signal: