OT: Possible wireless phone problem

[Richard Kreiss]

Many of you may already be aware of this but I thought this might help others.

Over the past few months I had noticed that the speed of my wireless devices connecting to the wireless router was dropping. I have a relatively new Linksys wireless router, which when I purchased it, my connection speed was in the range of 130 MPS. On occasion it would drop to 72 MPs. However during the past three months the connection speed was in the range of 10 MPs.

I rebooted my wireless router changed some of its settings and checked the various devices that were attached and still my connection speed was very slow.

The one thing I have not considered was an older 900 MHz wireless base station which was located near the wireless router. The base station had been in place for over eight years and had not apparently caused any problems with my wireless. When I unplugged the base station my connection speed went back to where it was originally.

It is obvious that this wireless phone base station was causing interference. This unit was at least 10 years old and I have a feeling that the electronics were starting to go. More than likely if I had a spectrum analyzer I probably could have found this cause of the interference much earlier.

So as a suggestion, when you find that the connection speed to your wireless router is much lower than anticipated, look at your wireless phone system as well as other wireless devices before assuming that your wireless router is failing .

I did replace the wireless phone base station with a wired phone. I added 3 new wireless extensions to my system as the base station will handle 6 extensions.

My current wireless phone base station is located in my kitchen far enough away from the wireless router which is on a different floor.

The only other thing affecting my band width are all of the devices which now connect wirelessly. I have VERIZON'S FIOS whose cable boxes connect to the wireless network. The other device which connect are the DVD players which offer Internet access to Netflix and other Internet programming sources. The Nest thermostat connects so that I can control it with an app from my smart phone.

As appliance manufacturers start to make their devices "smart" more and more bandwidth will be used. One of my neighbors recently install equipment to Internet enable his garage door opener. He has an app on his smart phone which allows him to see whether the garage door is open or closed and to control it..

Since it appears that everyone wants to Internet enable their products, I'm just wondering when we will start seeing ads for an Internet connected toilet. :)


Richard Kreiss