Comment by Brian_K_White
Comment by Brian_K_White 2 days ago
You control your environment by not adding yourself to the dicks creating the bad environment. Everything else is just rationalizing for your own maximum convenience.
There is no such problem as "you have to shout enough so the others hear that you're there". There's no such thing, by at least 2 different vectors. 1, They hear everyone just fine, weak and strong, all at the same time. 2, It doesn't matter even if they didn't, because you obviously hear them if you're getting clobbered by them, and so your router can channel hop around them even if they don't channel hop around you.
While indeed you shouldn't fix noise by shouting louder, your justification isn't quite right.
1. It's the AP that has to decide to change channel, and if you live somewhere with channel contention, from its perspective all channels will be busy. At that point, if your channel appears the quietest (either by being the least noisy or by your clients not being active), then the AP will decide to clobber your channel. Their WiFi devices may also not hear you and won't back off to give your airtime, even though you hear theirs and give them airtime.
2. Having your AP change channel (note: channel hopping is something else entirely, which isn't used for WiFi) wouldn't help when all channels are busy. As long as your usage appears quiet, other APs will keep moving on top of you during their channel optimization.
For residential, the only solution is to use technology that cannot propagate to neighbors. 5/6GHz and many APs, and good thick walls (mmm, reinforced concrete). WiFi channels is a solution to make a few bits of equipment coexist in the same space, but is of limited use when it comes to segregating your space from that of your neighbors. Especially if you want good performance, as there's very few wide channels available.