Wireless "hogging"

[humphreybc]

Hi,

We live in Dunedin, New Zealand in a flat. We don't have internet at our flat, but our friends gave us the password to their wireless internet up on the hill above us... we normally get about 10-30% signal strength sitting beside the window. It's usable to surf the net and check emails, and that's about it.

My flatmates can't get it working on their computers for some reason, and they think that because my laptop works so well with it that I am "stealing" all the wireless signals that come our direction. I tried to explain that it doesn't work like that, but I'm not sure of the science behind it. I think my laptop just has a more powerful reciever.

As far as I know, wireless is broadcast evenly in all directions, and is broadcast evenly to all computers, correct?

[Arquis]

I'm just guessing here, but it may be related to your type of wireless card. 802.11g are different from 802.11n in range, for example.
Apart from that, mighty Wikipedia says:

"(...) wireless networking signals are subject to a wide variety of interference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference_%28communication%29), as well as complex propagation effects (such as multipath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multipath), or especially in this case Rician fading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rician_fading)) that are beyond the control of the network administrator. Among the most insidious problems that can affect the stability and reliability of a wireless LAN are microwave ovens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven)[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN#cite_note-7) and analog wireless transmitters such as baby monitors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_monitor).[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN#cite_note-8) In the case of typical networks, modulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modulation) is achieved by complicated forms of phase-shift keying (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-shift_keying) (PSK) or quadrature amplitude modulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrature_amplitude_modulation) (QAM), making interference and propagation effects all the more disturbing. As a result, important network resources such as servers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_%28computing%29) are rarely connected wirelessly."

I would still go for the first idea, as you are in the same room. Probably you just have better gear? :/

[ubunatu]

Great little topic.
And Nice work--thank you for sharing- for me this makes perfect sense though.

[starcannon]

You used up all the internets on purpose!

Lol.

[3rdalbum]

See if your flatmates can pick it up if they are running an Ubuntu live CD. If they can, then get them to switch :-)

[Xbehave]

science
Older hardware has worse anteneas and less transmition power, so may be unable to reach. For example my crappy laptop can't send signals very far at all, this is true if my brothers supper new laptop is connected or not.


party analogy
The incoming signal strength cannot be stolen (it would be like stealing the sound from a speaker by listening to it), the outbound signal could be (if you shout louder they might not get heard), however there are allowances for this in the protocol (ever so often you shut up to give them a chance) and it will have no effect when your not saying anything (although you will occasionally have to shout "still here", if your connected).

[pwnst*r]

See if your flatmates can pick it up if they are running an Ubuntu live CD. If they can, then get them to switch :-)

except it has nothing to do with the OS. way to deceive your friends the Ubuntu way!

[Grenage]

You can make a kick-*** cantenna for a few bucks!

[bkratz]

Hi,

We live in Dunedin, New Zealand in a flat. We don't have internet at our flat, but our friends gave us the password to their wireless internet up on the hill above us... we normally get about 10-30% signal strength sitting beside the window. It's usable to surf the net and check emails, and that's about it.

My flatmates can't get it working on their computers for some reason, and they think that because my laptop works so well with it that I am "stealing" all the wireless signals that come our direction. I tried to explain that it doesn't work like that, but I'm not sure of the science behind it. I think my laptop just has a more powerful reciever.

As far as I know, wireless is broadcast evenly in all directions, and is broadcast evenly to all computers, correct?



Looks like a real opportunity to have a little fun (experimenting with antennas) like in this link

http://technetz.com/index.php/2008/05/03/how-to-make-wifi-signal-booster-diy/

Well I think it would be fun!

[pwnst*r]

You can make a kick-*** cantenna for a few bucks!

this^!

http://www.turnpoint.net/wireless/cantennahowto.html

i've made one before with GREAT results. note that you have to have a card that can accept a pigtail.