My neighbors recently added WiFi. Mine is slowing WAY down!

[dbhosttexas]

In my neighborhood, several of my long time neighbors have retired, sold out and moved out. The new families being far more tech savvy, well they brought THEIR 802.11n with them... This poses me with a problem.

They are sucking up the airwaves, making the connection REALLY slow.

No clue what the game consoles are connecting at, but my Windows 7 box is connecting at a mere 58mbps.

I have insured I am only looking at WPA2 and leaving WEP out entirely, not sure what else I can or should do to speed this up.

When I open the Wireless network panel to view available networks I see.

BigTexasLAN Secured 5 bars (My network)
Linksys unsecured 5 bars. I suspect that is the new next door neighbor.
Linksys_Guest unsecured 5 bars. I figure the new neighbor hasn't bothered doing anything to lock his router or WiFi down...
Linksys54321 Secured 4 bars
GamersParadise Secured 4 bars.
Classified Secured 4 bars.
Classified_Guest Secured 4 bars.
Netgear unsecured 3 bars,
BelkinRouter unsecured 3 bars
Mman secured 2 bars. (I am guessing this belongs to the new guy Mike across the street).

I have browsed the unsecured networks, and the least loaded network appears to have 6 devices.

Assuming everyone around me is using the default radio settings, I figure everything is on the same channel for the WiFi. Guessing that this would be something like a CB Radio with 5 guys trying to talk at once, am I on the right track thinking I need to switch the router to a different channel, find an open channel to get my speed back?

I need to figure this out. It is impacting my Wife's "Farmville" and she is letting me know ALL about it...

 

[dbhosttexas]

Ooops. Mods, please move to the Wireless Networking forum. I am guessing this is Off Topic...

 

[eibgrad]

Yes. Your wifi router is like any other radio, such as a walkie-talkie. Only two wireless stations can be communicating at the same time on the same freq/channel. All others must wait their turn. And when you have that many wif routers vying for the same freq/channel, collisions increase and throughput dwindles.

You need to find a different or less congested freq (e.g., 5GHz) or channel. You could also try different placement of the router, perhaps more in the center of the home where your router might be more shielded.

(or maybe we should all return to using lead paint )

 

[dbhosttexas]

I was thinking about mounting a tin foil hat on the house, but figured the HOA might complain

All kidding aside, I came across something called inSSIDer that looks like it will help me ID the channels my neighbors are using. That should help me pick an unused frequency range....

I don't own anything with WiFi 5ghz coverage aside from the router. So far my clients are...

Wii (802.11g)
Windows 7 workstation with Asus USB-N13 (2.4ghz 802.11n)
PS3 (no freaking clue, not my box, my BILs, and it spends most of its time turned off.)
2 HTC Inspire 4g phones (2.4ghz 802.11n).
1 iPhone5, same deal as the PS3.
HP all in one WiFi printer. (2.4ghz 802.11n)
Asus netbook. No clue, but I suspect it is using either wireless G, or 2.4ghz n at best...