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BSAIII
join:2007-06-16
Las Vegas, NV

BSAIII

Member

WiFi channel

Any upside/downside to changing it to 11? I see another router in the area using 6 now.

PoloDude
Premium Member
join:2006-03-29
Aiken, SC

PoloDude

Premium Member

No downside to it, may help. Ch1 is a good option too.

wmcbrine
join:2002-12-30
Laurel, MD

wmcbrine to BSAIII

Member

to BSAIII
Is there not an "Auto" setting? Let the router figure it out.

Interestingly, although supposedly you should only use 1, 6, or 11, on "Auto", one of my WAPs sometimes chooses 5. (And in fact, it always seemed to me that the 1/6/11 thing presumes not only that those will be the only channels in use, but that there will only be one WAP using each. That's certainly not the case here -- although typically everything is on one of the three, there are several on each, that I can detect from my neighbors. So, would two routers using channels 5 and 6 respectively not interfere less than two both using channel 6? Or what?)
hubrisnxs
join:2009-12-30
Fountain Valley, CA

hubrisnxs

Member

The Verizon In home agent, will auto select the best WiFI and auto change it for you after doing an InSSIDer-like analysis, and it will choose channels like 4 and 5 or 7 and 9.

www.verizon.com/connect

The 1, 6, and 11 rule works well with small amounts of neighbors and minimal interference. Area's that have a lot more neighbors or interferers would benefit by using the non standard wifi channels.
dfwguy
join:2013-10-24

dfwguy

Member

No, no they wouldn't. Using anything other than 1, 6, and 11 means that you'll pick up interference from everyone using the common numbers on both sides of it. The numbered channels are 5MHz wide, but each network uses 20MHz worth of bandwidth. Some basic math tells us that each needs 4 channels, plus one in between as a guard band.

bluepoint
join:2001-03-24

bluepoint

Member

said by dfwguy:

No, no they wouldn't. Using anything other than 1, 6, and 11 means that you'll pick up interference from everyone using the common numbers on both sides of it.

Base from my experience in a very congested area(50+ SSID's), choosing other channels aside from 1,6,11 had a better results @20MHz bandwidth. Most wireless router/AP I've seen when auto selection channel is enabled only chooses(rotates) channels 1,6,11. The best channel to find in a given environment is to test all channels then settle for the best channel assigning it statically.
Dissonance
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY

Dissonance

Member

My Rev. I Actiontec automatically chose channel 6 for me and I was getting ~25 Mbps throughput. I checked the networks in my area and I saw multiple networks on channel 6 so I switched to channel 9 and started getting ~80 Mbps.

BSAIII
join:2007-06-16
Las Vegas, NV

BSAIII

Member

Well, my Galaxy S5 shows 2 routers on chan 1 at -80 dBm. My chan 6 is -40. There is 1 other chan 6 at -90. No one on chan 11. I guess I am good.
hubrisnxs
join:2009-12-30
Fountain Valley, CA

hubrisnxs to dfwguy

Member

to dfwguy
DFWGUY, What do you think would happen in an apartment complex, where you have 20+ Units (sometimes those are as large as 100 + units) all using only 3 channels? 1, 6, and 11

I wonder why VZ's In home agent consistently recommends channel 4 and 7.

Even Verizon's telling you something.

Download and try it yourself. You may get 1, 6 and 11 but you'll on occasion get recommendations for other channels and for good reason.
PJL
join:2008-07-24
Long Beach, CA

PJL to dfwguy

Member

to dfwguy
said by dfwguy:

No, no they wouldn't. Using anything other than 1, 6, and 11 means that you'll pick up interference from everyone using the common numbers on both sides of it. The numbered channels are 5MHz wide, but each network uses 20MHz worth of bandwidth. Some basic math tells us that each needs 4 channels, plus one in between as a guard band.

If you select a channel that has many other device using it (like 1, 6 or 11), you're bouncing up against those signals at maximum center channel strength. Although there may be some side-lobe overlap with adjacent channels 1, 6 or 11, it will always be less than the center-frequency overlap encountered using the same channels.
dfwguy
join:2013-10-24

dfwguy

Member

This isn't an analog signal where there's one central frequency and a slope down from there. There are 64 carriers spread across the 20MHz used by 11n, so it's pretty close to a constant level all the way across. Picking a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 just guarantees that you'll pick up interference from 2 sets of networks.

ITALIAN926
join:2003-08-16

3 recommendations

ITALIAN926 to dfwguy

Member

to dfwguy
said by dfwguy:

No, no they wouldn't. Using anything other than 1, 6, and 11 means that you'll pick up interference from everyone using the common numbers on both sides of it. The numbered channels are 5MHz wide, but each network uses 20MHz worth of bandwidth. Some basic math tells us that each needs 4 channels, plus one in between as a guard band.

OK, could you please explain why the other channels are an option then? Since there is no possible benefit and all ?
jh2010
join:2009-09-03
Brooklyn, NY

jh2010

Member

You could use the individual channels if you only required lower bandwidth. They are probably left over from 802.11b(or below) and their lower bandwidth.
dfwguy
join:2013-10-24

dfwguy to ITALIAN926

Member

to ITALIAN926
Not all countries allow use of all channels in all situations, and it was even worse back in the early days.
Dissonance
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY

Dissonance to dfwguy

Member

to dfwguy
said by dfwguy:

Picking a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 just guarantees that you'll pick up interference from 2 sets of networks.

That's only if there are actually networks in the range. As I mentioned I went from a crowded channel 6 to an empty (on both sides) channel 9 and tripled my throughput.