...and hotels for that matter, that advertise free high-speed wireless Internet access. You often get what you pay for, which is not in fact actual high-speed Internet access, but rather, simply a connection that might pass a packet or two, one way or another, when it can be bothered to get around to it.

We're on the fourth floor of a condo that has a wireless router in the lobby. In the afternoon, when everyone is out on the beach, it works fine. In the evening, when they're all home, checking email, browsing for dive sites, browsing for the latest news on the playoffs, browsing for pr0n, etc., it's...not. I can make no connection, and the wireless widget tells me that I have a low signal.

Now I'm not an expert on the 802 protocol, but I'm guessing that this is what's happening.

The signal strength is a minor factor. When it tells me it's getting a weak signal, what's really happening is that it's having trouble getting packets through, and interpreting that as a weak signal. When everyone is on line at once, those with the actual strongest signal (i.e., those nearest the lobby, which doesn't include those on the fourth fargin' floor) are grabbing all the opportunities to send/receive packets before my (relatively) weak signal can even get its boots on. The place needs more bandwidth, but doesn't realize it, or doesn't care. When there's plenty of available bandwidth, my "signal strength" is fine, because there's no competition.

For those who are wireless gurus, is that the deal?

Rand

Is it a satellite signal to the router? I have found that with our satellite internet modem that when a lot of people get on the shared bandwidth goes to near zero because the pipe just gets saturated.

If you are at a remote resort this is probably what is happening.

Dennis

A lot of routers will adjust power levels to the nearest connection.
The deal is 802.11B only has 10 or 11 channels it can squat on,
so, interference is a real problem. What these routers may be doing is reducing power down to the rate needed to support the
current connection. So someone near the router on the first floor
has a great connection. meanwhile you don't see much
at all upstairs.

When they are gone offline the router turns up it's power looking
for connections farther away.

I have this very problem in my apartment. We took this place to save on internet access, but it sucks about 40% of the time. We've had 3 different bouts where the system was so slow, dial-up was a better bet. The last time they couldn't figure out why NOBODY could get on-line, for 4 days. Many of our neighbors are college students who moved here for the free access.

During that last down time, they tried to tell me it was my computer or OS. When I told them we were running 3 different machines, (2 laptops and a file server) from 3 different companies, running three different OS, they came and fixed their local server / router. Suddenly it was their problem. What anon says is true. The problem here is that on all 3 occasions, it tried running ALL the service through 1 channel.

I'm going back to RR, and Vonage. I can make the move and spend an extra $12 per month with the current specials.