Cell Phone Towers VS Wireless Internet

Cell Phone Towers Vs. Wireless Internet:

I have a client that I was wanting to make wireless. His mom lives next door (50 feet away) and she has High Speed DSL. He has Dial-Up Internet at his house which is technically the same as his moms house. He had them built side by side and wired as one complete house when it was originally built. She has half of it with her own kitchen, bathroom, laundry room, and bedrooms, and he has the other half with all the same ammenities.

When first approched with this scenario, I thought it would be a piece of cake. His moms modem was located directly by a window which pointed to his house.... 50 feet away. No concrete walls, or even flourescent lighting to make any Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). This should be no problem!

I gathered up the information I needed for the quote. Purchased a Linksys Wireless N Router, and a DLink Wireless N Desktop PCI card. Scheduled a time to go out and hook it all up. When I arrived it was an easy configuration to get the wireless router working. The installation of the PCI Desktop card hung up a little while trying to install the total software package, so I stopped it and restored back to before I tried installing it... then only installed the driver and let the Windows Wireless Configuration utility take control from there. .... No Signal Detected!

Sadly I had forgotten to grab my laptop, so I unhooked his desktop system and took it to the laundry room which was the closest point to her router from within his house... only got 1 Bar! After a little bit of research I found that he had a huge Cell Phone tower only about 300 foot away from his house. I could almost throw a stone and hit it!

Well, I know that most cordless phones work on the 2.4Ghz frequency, and it just so happens that almost every router also works on that frequency. So I went to Staples and bought a Dual Band Wireless N Router from Netgear. This router allowed me to choose the frequency that it broadcasted on from a 2.4Ghz range up to the 5GHz range. So I configured it correctly.. set it up on the 5.1Ghz range, and then tried it again... only 2 bars now! Slight improvement, but still not enough. I was getting 2 bars from the laundry room... but still no signal back in his office!

I went back to staples and saw another device called the Netgear Powerline. This plugs up to an electric outlet by your router, and then run a cable from the router to this little PowerLine box, and then you go to an outlet by the other computer and connect another Powerline box to the desktop computer. This transfers the ethernet power over the electric lines and is supposed to work up to a 5000 sq ft home as long as the electric is all on one meter. I called the client, and luckily he had wired his house and his moms house together when he built it. I grabbed this and a Linksys Wireless G Range Extender. They did not have a Wireless N Range Extender yet, so this would cause me to go back down to a 2.4ghz range and a Wireless G speed. This was a last resort. I hoped that the powerline would work instead.

Drove back to the clients house (30 minute trip from staples) and tried the power line first. It worked great ... in the living room.. but not in his office. Both homes are only about 4,000 sq ft total... it should have worked!

I had to resort to putting the first router back in (Wireless N but a 2.4Ghz frequency) and the Wireless G Range Extender, to make it extend to his office. He still only got 3 bars with the extender, but it kept a constant connection to google at 25ms response time. We shut every door in his house and it still kept a good connection. At least the problem was solved, but it took several hours, and about $300 of experimenting with parts before we found the right solution.

This was a learning experience to say the least. I now know to check the surrounding areas for a cell phone tower when working with Wireless networks. I also learned about the cool device called the Netgear Powerline. Hope this helps someone!