What's required to make wireless reliable?

[Otto Haliburton]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: redhat-install-list-bounces at redhat.com [mailto:redhat-install-list-
> bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Mark Knecht
> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2005 1:54 PM
> To: Getting started with Red Hat Linux
> Subject: What's required to make wireless reliable?
> 
> Hi,
>    While we've had wireless workign for 2-3 months it's never been as
> reliable a connection as I'd like. We get lots of audio dropouts when
> streaming ogg files, etc. I'm wondering what sort of signal strengths
> are required to really keep it working? Here are a couple of scans
> that are representative of what we see:
> 
> [root at dragonfly root]#  iwlist wlan0 scanning
> Warning: Driver for device wlan0 has been compiled with version 17
> of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 16.
> Some things may be broken...
> 
> wlan0     Scan completed :
>           Cell 01 - Address: 00:09:5B:XX:YY:ZZ
>                     ESSID:""
>                     Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
>                     Mode:Managed
>                     Frequency:2.462GHz
>                     Quality:0/100  Signal level:-56 dBm  Noise level:-256
> dBm
>                     Encryption key:on
>                     Bit Rate:1Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:2Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:11Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:6Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:12Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:24Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:36Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:8.5Mb/s
>                     Extra:bcn_int=100
>                     Extra:atim=0
> 
> [root at dragonfly root]#  iwlist wlan0 scanning
> Warning: Driver for device wlan0 has been compiled with version 17
> of Wireless Extension, while this program is using version 16.
> Some things may be broken...
> 
> wlan0     Scan completed :
>           Cell 01 - Address: 00:09:5B:XX:YY:ZZ
>                     ESSID:""
>                     Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
>                     Mode:Managed
>                     Frequency:2.462GHz
>                     Quality:0/100  Signal level:-54 dBm  Noise level:-256
> dBm
>                     Encryption key:on
>                     Bit Rate:1Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:2Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:11Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:6Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:12Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:24Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:36Mb/s
>                     Extra:bcn_int=100
>                     Extra:atim=0
>           Cell 02 - Address: 00:09:5B:XX:YY:ZZ
>                     ESSID:""
>                     Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
>                     Mode:Managed
>                     Frequency:2.462GHz
>                     Quality:0/100  Signal level:-71 dBm  Noise level:-256
> dBm
>                     Encryption key:on
>                     Bit Rate:1Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:2Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:5.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:11Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:6Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:12Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:24Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:36Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:47Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:32.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:37Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:32.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:37.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:3Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:53.5Mb/s
>                     Bit Rate:60.5Mb/s
>                     Extra:bcn_int=100
>                     Extra:atim=0
> 
> 
> For those of you using wireless what sort of signal strength do you
> see for your connections and are those connections really reliable?
> With these levels it generally takes 5 minutes for the PC to establish
> a connection with the router in the morning and we get dropouts all
> day long.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> Mark
> 
I'm not sure what your problem is but in general, a wireless transmitter has
a range of about 300 feet and since all of your wireless stuff is within
that range since you are in your house, I don't think your problem is with
the strength of signal unless... If all of your computers, I seem to
remember your have 3 are dropping the signal then you might have a faulty
router, otherwise you have something that is interfering, which happens.
The thing to do is move the router to a different location and see if it
improves.