Have WLAN problems? I did - and solved them - WOOOHOOO!

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:06 pm

Gotta share this.

I have just built a new home. When it came to electricity the question was whether to add LAN lines and plugs to every room or not. The "expert" I was I bragged "who needs LAN wires in the age of WLAN?"

I couldn't have erred more. At least here in Germany, a WLAN access point or router must not use more than 100 mW broadcasting power. That means that especially inside a regular apartment with lots of walls, devices and wires transmission distance can be really low.

That's not the worst though.

Again, here in Germany, WLAN device have to use a rather small frequency spectrum that is shared by mobile home phones, remote controls, and what not. Each of these can jam the WLAN connection, and oh man, they did for me!

Like to play Battlefield 2? I do. Imagine a real time 3D shooter game where you get this infamous "There is a problem with your connection" message every 30 seconds, together with a 3-5 second freeze. This can for e.g. mean that you just cross a ford in a jeep when you get zapped, and when you're back online again, find your jeep drowned in deep water and find yourself back just in time to see your virtual self being blown into pieces. Or it can mean that you're dive bombing and when back, find you have been the bomb yourself. Think of yourself aligning your chopper for a rocket salvo on a tank convoy, and when you're out of limbo again, your chopper lies upside down on the ground, going BOOM! a second later.

Oh, I loved it, cough.

Finally I decided that I had to have a regular wired network. Bad thing was that I had put the (one and only) phone connector in the far corner of the rather spacious living room, with no way to hide the cable somewhere. So I settled with the thought of buying a 15-20m Ethernet cable, guiding the cable along the wall, drilling a hole through the wall to the room where my computer is set up, and thus establish a good ole physical LAN connection.

Now I am regular reader of the online publication of a big German weekly news magazine - and guess what: Right today they had an article about an adapter kit that plugs into your house's electrical wiring and allows you to network computers, routers, modems etc. etc.

Went to shop, bargained a little, saved some money, got stuff home, plugged it in, set it up, puzzled around a while 'till I had my Ethernet card connect to the router, and voilÃ : Hasslefree highspeed networking!

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!

The kit I am using is from Devolo which they said in the article was the best. It's not exactly cheap, but highly recommended for everybody who has problems similar to mine.

Pun · Post by **Pun** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:19 pm

Wireless lan sucks for gaming. Bad idea in the first place.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 4:34 pm

At 54 MBit/sec, it doesn't suck for gaming per se. Only because of the problems I have outlined above.

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 9:40 pm

yeah, 100mW at the distances you're talking about...thats like farting into a tropical storm.

will_kill · Post by **will_kill** » Wed Nov 09, 2005 11:35 pm

punisher wrote:Wireless lan sucks for gaming. Bad idea in the first place.

I thought the whole idea for LAN was to reduce the amount of ping in the first place...why would they use something that will increase it?

@ MD..."farting into a tropical storm" (I swear, some of you missed your calling as comedy writers)

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 2:54 am

Does WLAN increase ping? I didn't notice anything like that.

WarAdvocat · Post by **WarAdvocat** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 6:57 am

It adds a small but measurable delay, yes.

Worse, though, is the lossy nature of the connection.

will_kill · Post by **will_kill** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:39 am

MD-2389 wrote:yeah, 100mW at the distances you're talking about...thats like farting into a tropical storm.

ahh, I just caught that

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 7:32 pm

I am about to build.

Every room is getting CAT6, TV antenna, FM antenna, and phone socket - all one a single panel. Cost is minimal to install at build time. Compare that to retrofitting it to a house with a flat roof and no crawl space!

MD-2389 · Post by **MD-2389** » Thu Nov 10, 2005 10:16 pm

Diedel, you probably could've gotten a better connect by using the Pringles or Coffee Can "cantenna" method. I've heard reports of atleast 3dB boosts (for those that aren't into telecomm, 3dB is the same as half power). I'd do your homework on now long a cable to make, because SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) is a real ★■◆●.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 5:31 am

Mobius,

I have TV and radio connectors in every room. It would have been nothing to add network wires and plugs ...

/me was too stupid.

MD,

thin Ethernet cables can be up to 100m long. And the solution over my regular electric lines works perfect.

BUBBALOU · Post by **BUBBALOU** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 7:06 am

cat 5 is 100 meters max length ( as per IEEE specs) can be longer but.. well we know what that can do. yeah!

In my brothers house we had 16 drops to do. he had the money.... so each drop I used bundled cable and terminated using pandiut connectors also pulled a Cat3 cable with each one for telephone lines

DCrazy · Post by **DCrazy** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 10:11 am

Cantennas (cantennae?) are in violation of FCC regs because they amplify the signal and can therefore cause harmful interference to surrounding devices. I can only imagine that such things are illegal in Germany as well in light of their far stricter broadcasting regulations.

Nosferatu · Post by **Nosferatu** » Fri Nov 11, 2005 4:40 pm

DCrazy wrote:Cantennas (cantennae?) are in violation of FCC regs because they amplify the signal and can therefore cause harmful interference to surrounding devices. I can only imagine that such things are illegal in Germany as well in light of their far stricter broadcasting regulations.

Ive heard that one before and I have also heard it refuted. Could you please site FCC regulation IDs?

Mikael · Post by **Mikael** » Sat Nov 12, 2005 12:51 pm

WarAdvocat wrote:Worse, though, is the lossy nature of the connection.

Would you care to elaborate? If the ping is more or less the same and the data arrives intact (which it does!), what other problems can be noted by the end user? Well, I guess the connection could be unstable, but that's rarely a problem with good equipment.

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Sun Nov 13, 2005 7:08 am

Mikael wrote:
WarAdvocat wrote:Worse, though, is the lossy nature of the connection.
Would you care to elaborate? If the ping is more or less the same and the data arrives intact (which it does!), what other problems can be noted by the end user? Well, I guess the connection could be unstable, but that's rarely a problem with good equipment.

Read my first post for reasons of a WLAN connection being instable/lossy.

Mikael · Post by **Mikael** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:46 am

Diedel wrote:Read my first post for reasons of a WLAN connection being instable/lossy.

Sure it wasn't just the equipment? Maybe there are differences between equipment sold in Sweden and Germany? I have used WLAN exclusively since July. I have a Linksys WLAN router that covers a 200 square meter house, providing network connection to three computers. I think I've lost the internet connection 2-3 times in these months and it came back by itself or after a restart of the modem (yes, the wireless network seemed fine).

BTW, if I'm not mistaken the IEEE 802.11 standard specifies 2.4GHz for WLANs. This is hardly any different in Germany.

Well, it's good that you finally got a working network, though!

Diedel · Post by **Diedel** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:59 am

Mikael,

the problem was that some other device in my house periodically briefly interrupted the WLAN connection - none of a problem when surfing, but impossible to play over the inet that way.

Mikael · Post by **Mikael** » Mon Nov 14, 2005 11:48 am

Diedel wrote:Mikael,

the problem was that some other device in my house periodically briefly interrupted the WLAN connection - none of a problem when surfing, but impossible to play over the inet that way.

Ohh, sorry. I didn't catch that you had pin-pointed the problem to other equipment.