How do I detect 2.4Ghz phone interference?

[ryhenry]

How do I detect 2.4Ghz phone interference on a airopeek scan or AP debug/log? What do I look for?

[vleonard]

I use the Airnet Site Survey for interference. Look for high signal strength with low Signal quality/low overall link quality. You can also look for high noise levels. You have to have an AP that you can associate with and then change the channel a couple of times to check on other channels. Using 1,6 and 11 should do it since those phones and camera blast a pretty wide signal.

Usually 2.4 phones are not IP so airopeek will not see them.

[johnruffing]

A Cisco employee recently told me about a $100(US) spectrum analyzer that connects to your USB port. Since a spectrum analyzer is looking at the actual analog RF energy (Layer 1?) it can help you find various forms of NON-IP/NON-Ethernet/NON-802.11 devices such as 2.4Ghz cordless phones, microwave ovens, etc.

Here is where you can find it:

http://www.metageek.net/

John

[scottmac]

Generally speaking, the captured frame screen will identify corrupted frames as you scroll through. Though not all corrupted frames are caused by interference, most are.

Something like NetStumbler (www.netstumbler.com) or, better yet, Kismet (*nix only) should give you a good reading of local utilization and interfering signals.

Kismet will even identify (in some cases) the nature of the interference.

I also use CommView from TamoSoft (www.tamosoft.com). It's a fairly full-featured wireless "sniffer"-type program, and comparitively speaking, inexpensive (~US$500, with some deals available, and a crippled demo also available). I like it; it has quite a few features for the price, it works well, and supports a pretty good variety of wireless NICs (Atheros chipset preferred, I believe).

Check 'em out and let us know if it fits the need.

Good Luck

Scott

[ryhenry]

Thanks for the feedback guys!