Apartment living to get worse in 5 years as 6 GHz Wi-Fi nears ‘exhaustion’

Rapid growth in Wi-Fi use means the 6 GHz band’s carrying capacity may soon be exhausted, according to CableLabs, the nonprofit networking think tank run by cable television operators. The org made the claim above on Tuesday when it published initial results of a Wi-Fi network use analysis it conducted that simulated traffic …

[Joe W]

Just....

.... make them turn down the power.

We all would benefit if we set up our WiFi to cover our own place, and not more. Seriously. I do not need to see all WiFi-Networks in the whole f'ing building from my place. If we all turn down the transmission power of the AP by 15% things will improve for everybody. I also know that y'all will have the tendency to slowly creep up with the power of your own network, so all others will do that as well....

[Richard 12]

Re: Just....

Phased array antenna make a huge difference, and those are already in use.

Did their simulation include the effect of 4x4 MIMO antenna?

The base stations don't simply broadcast anymore, they use beamforming to "aim" at the receiving devices. It's perfectly feasible for them to "learn" (and continually update) the apartment extents and so adjust power and beamforming.

Cooperating with the nearest ones is also entirely feasible - WiFi is time multiplexed, so avoid aiming at the same place at the same time as the nearest neighbours.

Perhaps a setup phase could include "walk around your apartment carrying your phone", so it can create an initial model of the space you want to cover.

[Rich 2]

Re: Just....

Having worked on a 4G mobile MIMO system, I can say that it is very expensive and complex to implement and needs considerable grunt to make it work. And the timing constraints are ludicrous!

Obviously WiFi isn’t 4G but I’m not sure MIMO is currently feasible for domestic WiFi. I’m pretty sure it isn’t but happy to be corrected.

[Lee D]

Re: Just....

An analogy I use often when trying to explain to non-techy bosses why we can't just "buy stronger wifi":

You're in a crowded room at a party. You want to talk to the guy at the end of the room. You try yelling. But it's not enough. So you yell louder.

The people around you are all doing the same. And because you're yelling, they have to yell to be heard. Soon, everyone is yelling at the maximum volume possible (or allowed by law) and before you know it, EVERYONE's communications are hampered.

Whereas modern managed wifi does exactly the opposite. You want to talk to the guy at the other end of the room. You can't, because it's too noisy. So the wifi management system comes in and tells everyone "Shut up, Jeff needs to speak now, then it's your turn George" as well as "If we all take turns properly, there's no need to yell", as well as "If we only talk as loud as we need to, everything will be quieter and you'll still be heard".

Which is, pretty much, why managed wifi (rather than a bunch of unregulated consumer devices all screaming uncoordinated at max volume trying to get their customer to be heard over everyone else) works so much better and why it prefers a greenfield and everything to be the same manufacturer - so that the boxes HAVE TO LISTEN to the commands of the management system.

It's also why I tell people to throw their "wifi boosters" in the bin and just cable their house. They all start out okay... until your neighbour gets one too. Then you wonder why it's not working, so you try "shouting louder" by buying more and more boxes, and not realising that they are not only making the problem worse and worse, but that they are repeaters... they are listening for the people yelling and then yelling THE SAME THING AGAIN to try to relay the messages around.

And then they wonder why their wifi speeds drop across the board and it's really hard to communicate 30 feet across a house.

Tell everyone to shut up.

Only let a few people speak at a time.

Only let them use an appropriate volume.

Don't let them just repeat everything the other guy said.

Remove anyone who doesn't comply.

Same for managing wifi as managing a classroom.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Re: Just....

On 5GHz, nobody round here seems to have cottoned on to channels 149–165. Everyone is clustered around channel 40, shouting over each other, and I'm relaxing way over there, having nice, clear conversations in a quiet side room. For now, at least.

[Korev]

Re: Just....

I live near enough to an airport to get booted off these channels

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Re: Just....

If you're talking about dynamic frequency selection (DFS) due to radar interference, these channels are not subject to DFS (except maybe in Bahrain...) and so this should not be happening. Should only apply to channels 52–144.

[Korev]

Re: Just....

A good point, I automatically assumed you were talking about DFS channels

In this bit of Europe those channels are banned though.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Just....

Here too, and a lot of equipment doesn't cope well when the router changes channles as a result of DFS so we have to choose from the two or stick with 2.4 GHz…

[Snake]

Re: clustered

Most likely because I would believe that most routers come configured to channel 40, or defer to channel 40 if you turn on "Automatic". Which, as typical with, well, Asian-developed systems, really aren't "Automatic" at all (I have an (older) Japanese luxury car as well as a Japanese 4-zone home mini-split HVAC system. *Both* "Automatic" modes are absolutely worthless! "Automatic" to them means "I'll just stay at the minimum settings no matter what temperature it is"). My old DLink router's "Automatic" channel mode was just as useless, actually preferring and selecting channel 9 on 2.4gHz pretty much no matter how crowded the channel was. That's when I learned, "Forget 'Automatic' on any system marked as such".

Most people PnP, do the minimal setup required, and chug away. Also, since most people don't do a Wi-Fi scan of their area they have no idea, nor much of a care, how congested the airwaves are - they figure that the router's "Automatic" will sort it out for them. Big mistake.

[PRR]

Re: clustered

> Asian-developed systems, really aren't "Automatic" at all ...I have an (older) Japanese luxury car ....."Automatic" modes are absolutely worthless! "Automatic" to them means "I'll just stay at the minimum settings no matter what..."

OTOH, my 2022 Toyota has "Automatic" on the cabin heat/cool fan, and the darn thing is magic. When the engine is cold it hardly blows. When the engine gets some warmth it blows hard. When the cabin comes near the set temp it throttles-back for quietness.

That's the ONLY "smart" thing about the car which really works. The "automatic transmission" lugs and surges as the "cruise control" teases it. The "automatic" wipers are sluggish, the "automatic" lights hardly ever blind anybody to anger. Today the navigation was "loading my settings"... for an hour.

[David 132]

Re: clustered

When the engine is cold it hardly blows. When the engine gets some warmth it blows hard.

On the third hand, could you please explain that principle to my wife, who, upon getting into our ICE-powered car on a cold morning, will always crank the AC temperature up to MAX, despite my patient explanation that until there is heat in the system, it doesn't matter what temperature she asks for above ambient, she's not getting it?

(And before I am accused of propagating Les Dawson-like "take my wife" humour, I'll point out that she's a former electronic design engineer who really, really should know better.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: clustered

"she's a former electronic design engineer who really, really should know better."

Think carefully about the subject of that sentence, your years in marital servitude and... "Now you're learning."

[An_Old_Dog]

Volkswagen Safari Heater

The heater in the Volkswagen Safari (aka "The Thing") was gasoline-fired, so its output was independent of the engine's temperature.

(Icon for, "They just don't make 'em like that any more.")

[MachDiamond]

Re: Volkswagen Safari Heater

"The heater in the Volkswagen Safari (aka "The Thing") was gasoline-fired, so its output was independent of the engine's temperature."

That would have been dead useful in my old VW van when I'd go up to the mountains in the winter.

[Adam JC]

Re: clustered

Fun fact, my 2013 Audi Q3 has an auxilliary heater which produces heat even when the engine in stone-cold. It's not 'melt your face off' levels of heat, but it is more than enough to de-ice the windscreen on a frosty morning.

I never even realised I had it until I was faffing around in the menu's of the built-in MMI, wiring in a new Android-auto/Carplay type box!

[Andrew Scott]

Re: clustered

thought that was Henny Youngman.

[An_Old_Dog]

Your Car is Loading Your Settings ...

... from The Cloud, over whatever unencrypted WiFi channel it can find, if any!

[Roland6]

Re: Just....

From my analysis of a small sample of domestic ISP routers such as those offered by the majors, they don’t support/enable the configuration of anything other than a small set of channels - the BT/EE smart hub effectively reduced the entire 5ghz band to just four non-overlapping channels, avoiding all the channels which had usage caveats…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just....

Hmm, in our region these channels are SRD (only 25mW instead of 200mW) so very short range and in most cases not implemented in hardware.

And the upper channels borderline useful here. We are,depending on wind conditions, in the approach lane of the local airport. Every time there is a plane coming in with the right angle, the DFS will block this channel.

[bigtimehustler]

Re: Just....

How does, only let them speak one at a time work when one person wants to game, one wants to video call? You can't ask either to wait your turn, both need to be ASAP

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just....

But it's not a constant transmission, everything is just bursts of packets, even 'realtime' stuff.

[An_Old_Dog]

Serious Gamers

... use fiber to the desktop, or wired Ethernet as a poorer-quality alternative. Wireless for FPS gaming is right out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just....

The people around you are all doing the same. And because you're yelling, they have to yell to be heard. Soon, everyone is yelling at the maximum volume possible (or allowed by law) and before you know it, EVERYONE's communications are hampered.

Sounds like 21st century political discourse in a nut shell.

[David Hicklin]

Re: Just....

Your analogy also applies to an open plan office.

Below a certain noise threshold people can talk to people close to them* at normal levels. However as the noise goes up people automatically start talking louder to make themselves heard and after that the noise just explodes exponentially until the office is a sea of noise.

Eventually some manager/boss person will hit the power reset button by yelling even louder over the of top of everyone to keep the noise down.

* exponentially worse if group(s) of people are standing together having a discussion amongst themselves

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: Just....

But you get some places, and the MiL is a classic, so much rebar in the walls that even the router on full strength can only get into the room next door. down the hallway to the other bedroom is a no go. Either a booster in between or Ethernet over mains and another AP

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Re: Just....

Please don't use ethernet over mains. It spews stuff all over the spectrum, massively fecking with amateur radio reception. It's a horrible technology. On a similar note, I'm really looking forward to the VDSL switch-off, which will likely give me a couple of S-points less noise on the low bands.

[Irongut]

Re: Just....

I've been trying to get people to stop using ethernet over mains since it was invented. I'm afraid it is a lost cause.

They just don't give a shit how disruptive ther behaviour is to others as long as they can get their cat pics.

[bazza]

Re: Just....

It's not really the consumer's fault. The devices are supposed to conform to regs that say they should have a gap in their transmission spectrum to leave the amateur band alone. Thing is, the required gap is different in different territories. The manufacturers tend ship them set up for the USA, which doesn't work in Europe. The regulators don't act to enforce the regs, or aren't empowered to. Which is not the consumer's fault...

I recall reading that Ofcom were being sued in the UK for the lack of enforcement...

We shouldn't forget that Ethernet UTP is itself not perfect. It's only twisted pair, much like a phone line.

Fibre is the way to go.

[Rycat]

Re: Just....

And even if the amateur bands are notches out, it screws up all the rest of HF, the broadcast bands, maritime bands, CB, etc.

[Roland6]

Re: Just....

> Fibre is the way to go.

Yes pre-terminated (glass) fibre is surprisingly cheap, although you do need to wade through a large variety of fibre sizes, terminations profiles and connectors; something we can guarantee Joe Public will not have the patience to go through.

However, plastic fibre is just as good over the distances involved in domestic situations and is much easier to cut and terminate “in the field”, only issue is that it has a vanishingly small market presence and so is expensive…

[Charlie Clark]

Re: Just....

Sorry, bar major rewiring there's no option here for the cellar or the garden. But I only have it on when these places are being actively used.

[Roland6]

Re: Just....

There were well documented issues with the early devices, suspect there are still YouTube videos around showing how bad things were.

Not had problems, in the UK, with using the Homeplug AV 600Mbps and better equipment.

Only caveat is to interconnect.on a single ring, if traffic is going via the fuse box, performance is massively reduced; so if you are star cabling, Homeplug AV is probably not a good idea.

[YetAnotherXyzzy]

Re: Just....

A former employer had us in a rented building with foot thick adobe brick walls. No way was Wi-Fi going to go beyond a single room there. That employer was awful in many ways, but they set up the network well, with Ethernet to a modest AP in each room. All those visible cables probably sound like they would be an eyesore, but they were run neatly and sensibly and didn't look awful. Problem solved.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Just....

> adobe brick walls.

Was there an ever increasing monthly subscription to continue using them?

[YetAnotherXyzzy]

Re: Just....

Ha, typical landlord behavior around these parts is to observe if the leasee's business is going well, and if so, extort him at next lease renewal. You could view that as an ever increasing subscription, yes.

[David 132]

Re: Just....

I am currently helping a friend with some home remodeling. His 1960s house has, in place of modern paper-backed drywall/plasterboard [delete as applicable depending on which side of the Pond you are on], something analogous but using a fine metal mesh (think chicken-wire with a ~2mm aperture) as structural backing. How he gets any wifi signal whatsoever, I don't know. The previous owner of the house had run CAT5 throughout; I am beginning to see why.

[CountCadaver]

Re: Just....

Sounds like expanded mesh, the sort you often see applied to help with adhesion when rendering. Sounds like someone was an outdoor tradie doing a homer for a mate or something....

[David 132]

Re: Just....

Yeah, I've seen - and used - that stuff on interior corners when plastering them, but having every square inch of the wall covered in it was a new one for me. The previous owner of the house was, um, eccentric - very paranoid about security, to the extent of fitting a keypad-equipped deadbolt lock on an interior door leading to the bedrooms. Let's overlook that the door in question is a flimsy 1.5"-thick interior panel one that could be punched through by a toddler.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Just....

"Let's overlook that the door in question is a flimsy 1.5"-thick interior panel one that could be punched through by a toddler."

You also have to realize that once inside with outside doors closed, the noise from kicking open that interior door won't be noticed by anybody outside. The locks that drive me bonkers when I'm working at homes are the ones that relock after a few minutes.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Just....

"All those visible cables probably sound like they would be an eyesore, but they were run neatly and sensibly and didn't look awful. Problem solved."

It depends on the office. I spent a weekend surface mounting a load of CAT5 in the engineering office of the rocket shop after the new router came in. We could care less as it meant not having everybody getting bogged down on the Wi-Fi. The office was a an old military building so a bit of wire wasn't going to change the aesthetics one way or the other. Everybody's speeds went up, everybody happy.

[Roland6]

Re: Just....

There is a modern office block in London, embedded within it is an original Victorian building, complete with 2ft thick stone walls. Each room had to have its own AP, getting the cable in was fun, given the way the building had been wired, using Ethernet over mains wasn’t an option, and there was insufficient duct space; those were expensive APs to install…

[the spectacularly refined chap]

Re: Just....

If only it was so simple. The issue is that if you want a strong, reliable signal throughout an area that means you will get a weaker, less reliable but still usable signal outside it. That's without considering the effects of distance between the devices, i.e. you may not be able to see your neighbour's access point but you can see his laptop that is connected to it.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Just....

You mean you haven't built a Faraday cage into your house?! It's the privacy-enhancing, polite thing to do, though you'll need a landline or VOIP setup.

(Helicopter icon due to missing tinfoil hat icon.)

[MachDiamond]

Re: Just....

"You mean you haven't built a Faraday cage into your house?! "

Now I'm thinking that when I do some work on the south side of my house that will require doing some refacing of the exterior wall, maybe I should add some screening. It won't impact anything I've got going at the house, but it would attenuate signals to/from that side. Probably too expensive given all of the things that need doing unless I find the screen for free.

[YetAnotherXyzzy]

Re: Just....

I discovered by accident the advantages of turning down the power. A former home was served (I used the term loosely) by an electrical utility that would regularly have multi-hour unscheduled blackouts, so it behooved me to maximize the runtime I could get out of my UPS. (I also had to obtain backup power generation, but that's another matter). By simply backing off the power that my AP was blasting out, I got a lot more runtime, and was a good neighbor to boot.

[Roland6]

Re: Just....

A few years back, I was able to “player” with a customer site which had 6 Draytek APs, which had been installed with out-of-the-box defaults, it took a few hours of playing with settings (power and roaming) before I could walk an iPad round the building and it correctly switched between APs as I changed rooms.

The irritation was that I remember using an Aruba system over a decade previously which did all this and more automatically and even Cisco’s wireless management system of the time did a reasonable job of making a functional network out of a building full of out-of-the-box APs.

[david 12]

Re: Just....

It doesn't matter what my neighbors are doing -- when I had 6 users in the house, each with phone, ipad, desktop computer and whatever, the system didn't work. I put in wires for the desktops, some of the family moved out, and the network works now.

[David 132]

Re: Just....

>and the network works now.

So you're saying it was a wireless notwork?

[MachDiamond]

Re: Just....

"So you're saying it was a wireless notwork?"

Good term. With so many local new home builds not having any pre-wire for networking, I expect there will be more incidents of domestic strife as everybody in the house is trying to "Netflix 'n Chill" independently and watching a buffering icon more than the movie.

[Roland6]

Re: Just....

This is where you have to watch the ISP routers, especially the 4G variants, they tend to be more limited in the number of WiFi/Lan connected devices (hence why they are starting to make this a sales feature).

For example my EE router supports a maximum of 32 devices per SSID (*), which with 4 users plus Xbox, printer etc doesn’t give much capacity, plus with a g/n router doesn’t give each device much usable bandwidth. Getting the heavy users ie. Desktops and printers off the WiFi made a huge difference, Enabling the 4 iPad’s to hold concurrent HD Zoom sessions, plus the desktops/laptops running Zoom and Teams over cable.

(*) You can run up to 4 SSIDs, only issue is they are all on the same channel, so you still have bandwidth limitations.

[LybsterRoy]

Re: Just....

I like your idea but hw does it balance allowing the signal to pass through your internal walls but not experience the whole world?

Maybe a better solution would be to Bacofoil the external walls just leaving the windows for the signal to escape by,

[Martin an gof]

Re: Just....

Typical cavity insulation in a modern house is foil-backed on both sides and in my experience, even if it isn't actually taped properly, it's pretty good at blocking WiFi. I had an AP (2.4GHz only) in an insulated shed, expecting to be able to get a signal in most of the garden. No chance. Move more than about 5 or 6m away from the shed and the signal as good as disappeared. This stuff is also used for insulated roofs so you can pretty much enclose a house in foil without trying.

As for windows, many are these days coated on at least one pane with a layer of metal to reflect heat, so called "low-e" glass. This is also good at blocking WiFi. I have an AP (2.4 + 5) right next to the French doors out of the lounge. With the doors closed, WiFi reaches maybe 5 to 7m into the garden. Open the doors and the signal reaches maybe twice as far.

Conversely, indoors, our 150sqm (ish) house (one and a half storeys) with all-block walls downstairs and stud upstairs, is covered more than adequately with two APs, and should one of them go down, coverage isn't awful with the remaining one. However, everything which can be wired, is wired. Basically only phones, a work iPad and one laptop regularly on the WiFi.

M.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Just....

"Typical cavity insulation in a modern house is foil-backed on both sides

That will depend a load on local building codes and if they are adhered to.

[steviebuk]

Re: Just....

True but hardly anyone knows how to do that who's not in IT and some routers its probably not possible. Like the dicks at Virgin love to not allow you to change DNS at the router level because they want to encourage people to use Virgin's DNS (so they can sell ads).

[MachDiamond]

Re: Just....

""Seriously. I do not need to see all WiFi-Networks in the whole f'ing building from my place."

I'm in my own home with vacant land around me and can see loads of access points down the road.

It doesn't really impact me as nearly all of my office stuff is hardwired so it's just when I'm doing updates on the phone that I use WiFi at all. It's on my summer project list to run some CAT5 to the garage as I'm doing more work out there and need a "shop" computer. I notice that new home in the area have no prewire for anything. Since there's no POTS anymore, they aren't putting that in, but also no coax for TV or CAT5 home runs. There's no AV lines to accommodate home theatre set ups either. I suppose it doesn't matter since the homes are built poorly as well. Paying off the inspectors must be really cheap these days over doing the job properly.

[Number6]

This is why I try to used wired Ethernet for as much as possible. You can even get USB<>Ethernet adapters that work with Android phones if it gets bad enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm waiting for USB<>BNC to come out for my mobile. None of the modern fads for me!

[that one in the corner]

I can see the appeal: who needs 'phone stands when you can just click in to the fat, orange and inflexible ether cable!

Get the pipe-bending right and you can have a loop come off the wall and hang the 'phone at just the right height to go hands free whilst live messaging during "Come Dancing" (no "Strictly" 'round these parts, me'boy).

[richardcox13]

I'm waiting for USB<>BNC to come out for my mobile. None of the modern fads for me!

Still too new. Where's the adapter for drop cable to vampire tap?

(Who needs more than unswitched 10Mb/s?)

[A Non e-mouse]

ARCNET for the win!

[David 132]

I hope you're not lording it over those of us using Acorn Econet?

[MyffyW]

Can I be the first to ask for a token-ring adapter for my smartphone? With the proper IBM type 1 plug on it and those thick, fiendishly inflexible black cables?

Failing that I'd like an AUI ethernet adapter. I loved those things because they came in such cute old-fashioned little cardboard boxes.

[MyffyW]

actually, just recalled the AUI do-hickies they were called "transceivers"

[Dagg]

But just make sure you don't lose that token...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wish my android fit into the acoustic coupler.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wish my android fit into the acoustic coupler.

Funny your mentioning that.

A good few years ago before VoLTE was recently mandated here, indeed even before 3G was shown the door I was wondering whether I could make a voice call between two mobile (cell) phones with with v.34 or v.32 modems connected to the phones' audio at each end to set up a point to point slip or ppp connection between the systems connected to modems. Sort of perverse M2M system.

In the end I think the way modern voice calls work it seems there isn't have enough capacity even to support v.22 reliably or probably faxes.

I imagine you could have an android app that chirps in the vocal range in conversation with its peer on another phone to exchange packets and build a network stack atop that.

The idea being to take any intermediate system like tailscale out of the equation but arguably the telco is still in the loop. :)

[phuzz]

USB-BNC cables do exist! However, they seem to be for either audio or surveillance cameras :(

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone make a USB adapter that implements RFC 1149? I've got a message I want to send to long distance Clara...

[Korev]

Yes, but you have to communicate in Pigeon English...

[PRR]

> implements RFC 1149? I've got a message I want to send to long distance Clara...

"IPoAC has been successfully implemented, but for only nine packets of data, with a packet loss ratio of 55% (due to operator error), and a response time ranging from 3,000 seconds (50 min) to over 6,000 seconds (100 min). Thus, this technology suffers from extremely high latency."

That's even worse than here at the far corner of Maine.

[Anonymous Coward]

None of the modern fads for me!

I'm waiting for USB<>BNC to come out for my mobile. None of the modern fads for me!

10Base5; ethernet with attitude. USB to Vampire tap. ;)

Didn't IBM Token ring use shielded twisted pair?

[ITMA]

"This is why I try to used wired Ethernet for as much as possible"

Precisely!

People have become almost brainwashed into thinking WiFi IS the internet and the ONLY way to connect devices to a network.

They forget that WiFi solves ONE and ONLY ONE problem - not being able to connect a device to your network using a physical network cable (or if posh a length of proper optical fibre). It comes with a whole raft of its own problems.

There is even that old BT "unbreakable WiFi" add: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pkokABBg3w

The reality is that most of the time it is NOT your internet playing up, its the WiFi connection to your own internal network. Stop using WiFi for everything.

[Korev]

> This is why I try to used wired Ethernet for as much as possible.

Me too.

> You can even get USB<>Ethernet adapters that work with Android phones if it gets bad enough.

I was surprised that my Ipad Pro 4 would talk to my QNAP SFP+ Thunderbolt adaptor. IIRC I was getting >9Gb from Speedtest with it.

[simpfeld]

Ethernet when you can, Wi-Fi when you have to

Ethernet when you can, Wi-Fi when you have to

My Phone and tablet need WiFi. My TV doesn't, it's not moving about.

I have seen a TV right next to an ISP router on WiFi, I even offered to give that person an ethernet cable, it offended me so much.

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: Ethernet when you can, Wi-Fi when you have to

Due to the walls here and poor signal, a few EEro units. What is near to the Eero - TV, Squeezebox, Console, is wired into that Eero leaving the wireless alone except where the device needs it

[Old Used Programmer]

Re: Ethernet when you can, Wi-Fi when you have to

Not only do I use wired Ethernet whenever I can, but when I travel I take a couple of Cat-6 cables with me because every once in a while you still run into a hotel that has an RJ-45 jack.

[Lee D]

Buy a little docking charger.

One little USB-C cable to charge your phone, a place for it to sit, and while you're there you can connect to a monitor (e.g. Samsung DeX), keyboard, mouse, SD card, USB ports or... yes... Ethernet in the one cable.

They are dirt cheap now. One cable for everything and just replace your charger with a little dock instead.

I am literally typing this via Samsung DeX.

[Xalran]

I agree.

The only equipments allowed on Wifi at home are the mobile phones and the tablet. All the rest goes through switches connected with Cat5, Cat6 cables or fiber (Obviously the fiber is the FTTH link).

[Anonymous Coward]

Run wires

It's an apartment building, tightly packed.

You don't need more spectrum you fools, you just need to use appropriate technology.

The one thing the world COULD use is thinner ethernet cable, conceding that. Not impossible and the Chinese company that gets it to market first will make a killing..

[that one in the corner]

Re: Run wires

You can easily go thinner if you give up gigabit speeds to every single connection: 10/100 Mbps only needs half the cores. And if you aren't cascading switches onto that piece of cable, 100Mbps can be perfectly usable (your UltraHD with extra wibbly bits 90 inch TV set is not mobile and if you can install that then try to complain about the ghastly costs of hiding full size ether cable run to the fibre box then you get no sympathy here).

But don't go flat. Flat cables get so flat and droopy by not bothering with the twisting, which is not a good idea after a few centimetres.

[David 132]

Re: Run wires

Life pro tip: not all things that are flat and droopy can be fixed by twisting them; am I right, fellow middle-aged guys?

[Wellyboot]

Re: Run wires

28awg (0.08mm)* cables are already out there, with PoE (802.3bt) at 90w there isn't much room for improvement.

At 28awg I'd be careful about heat dissipation when increasing the cable count in bundles as these have near three times the resistance of common 24awg.

Having said that, the average home should be fine with their much shorter cable count and average run length.

*24awg (0.2mm)

[Michael]

Re: Run wires

It's called fibre. It can be run internally in your home. Is super thin. Unfortunately the costs of termination and hardware becomes prohibitive.

[Korev]

Re: Run wires

The upside is that the >=10Gb switches are much cheaper

[David 132]

Re: Run wires

For any readers in the Portland Oregon region - Surplus Gizmos is always awash with cheap fiber, switches, and SFP modules, not to mention surplus electronic equipment of the most esoteric sort (the fact that it's a mile down the road from several Intel manufacturing plants, an ASML site, and a half-dozen other semiconductor companies, is a clue). It's a veritable Aladdin's cave for the tech geek. I mention it because a good friend of mine works there.

[Zarno]

Re: Run wires

Quabbin Wire makes DataMax Mini 6, which is under 5mm diameter.

Can handle PoE, and is pretty good stuff.

Designed for datacenter trunking/patching in racks, but can be used for backhaul.

The thing I dislike is the end connectors are difficult to find, and it doesn't play well with punch-blocks.

Linky to their spec sheet

_{No affiliation directly, they just happen to be known in my industry.}

[Richard 12]

Re: Run wires

Never put stranded cable in an IDC.

It doesn't work.

They're for crimping into an RJ45 plug.

Great for patchbays, especially in multiple colours.

[Zarno]

Re: Run wires

Yep, hence the "doesn't play well with", which I guess I should have worded as "is completely incompatible with".

[Anonymous Coward]

And Gamers...

> and gamers might not get off a shot in time to win.

Gamers, concerned enough about their framerate to buy a 480Hz monitor and a $2000 graphics card, yet not concerned enough to run a cable to their router.

Is it plausible?

Will all twelve units be watching high-def video while the person in the next room tries to do a video conference? will this apply to every apartment in the building, at the same time?

I dunno, I don't live in a large apartment building with small apartments, but it doesn't feel quite right. What's the experience of others? If you live in such a building, have you noticed lots of wifi congestion that's affected what you're trying to do?

[that one in the corner]

Re: And Gamers...

Well, I do recall an episode of The Gadget Show (think it was that - I hope so, otherwise that makes this even worse) where a Twitch gamer proudly broadcast to the nation that he had dual WiFi repeater boxes to keep his large rig, camera and boom microphone connected.

And to prove it, you could see both sets of antennae, one box positioned on the LHS of his desk, the other on the RHS, neatly arranged to the sides of the extra size monitor.

[Lee D]

Re: And Gamers...

Most "gamers" I play against seem to have atrocious pings, often because of poorly-managed machines (so many services running, including "Killer" networking junk), or using terrible Wifi, or their machine is just churning all the time even though it vastly outspecs mine.

I get 7 or 8 ping and most people online (a random selection of dozens of people playing on a London server over the course of an evening) have twice that or sometimes as much as 5-10 times that.

If you game over Wifi, you need QoS and "wireless fair sharing" (Draytek's brand for actually using the wifi intelligently regardless of how clever the wifi card in the laptop thinks it's being) minimum.

I still see people with 100+ ping occasionally, and I thought we killed that when we went from modem to DSL.

And, yes, unmanaged Wifi will drastically affect gaming. I had to deploy all kinds of new tech, router settings and QoS to stop my ping spiking like mad whenever the ex- went on Facebook on her phone.

[doublelayer]

Re: And Gamers...

"What's the experience of others? If you live in such a building, have you noticed lots of wifi congestion that's affected what you're trying to do?"

I have, but that was mostly on the 2.4 GHz band. Terrible congestion on all the channels. Fortunately, after disabling that, 5 GHz has been fine and I've had no need to go to 6 GHz, which only some of my devices would support anyway. There are probably people who are packed more tightly than I have been, and 5 GHz could be more congested for them.

One possible explanation is that I do a proper check of the available bands before selecting one. If I'm able to find a clear one because people are trusting to automatic selectors that don't work, then they may be getting more congestion than I see on the popular defaults. Compared to the way the study did it, I also don't set a massive band, going with the smallest option which has never been a problem. Mostly, that is the default, meaning they may have estimated more congestion than really exists by assuming that many more people will opt to use several channels at once when that is a relatively rare choice.

[Roland6]

Re: And Gamers...

The art I found is to: avoid the default band used by ISP routers, especially those from the majors, fix your channel allocation, so it doesn’t loose connectivity as it scans for a new clear channel; disable “b” support and anything not capable of transmitting at more than 10Mbps, ie. Force the use of modern signalling which is less susceptible to transmission issues; accept a small amount of error/retransmission and so use an overlapping channel; have your “base” channel within the US permitted channel range, so that devices can find your network.

Obviously tools like Farproc WiFi Analyzer are a great help in making the selections.

[Pascal Monett]

Fiber

Fiber to the appartment, then a small personal WiFi setup.

One WiFi router for an entire building is nonsense anyway. Access contention must be horrible.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fiber

> One WiFi router for an entire building is nonsense anyway.

I was flabbregasted.

> and made sure adjacent units didn’t use the same channel.

... but it turns out in the article that they're using one wifi router in each apartment, rather than one for the building. There's a *lot* of spectrum contention with that setup, and the protocols could help alleviate much of it (wifi pings every 20ms? why not every 2000ms? New devices don't need to be identified that frequently.)

What you describe is what I see in South America and Asia: fiber to the apartment, and a router by the front door, by the TV.

[hypnos]

Re: Fiber

In Europe as well! I live in Romania and have wired my 75sqm apartment with CAT6. Gigabit fiber to the entrance and 3xMesh TP-LINK boxes chained by wire. Otherwise you cannot get mobile signal at the far edges of the apartment where the kids lark.

[Korev]

Re: Fiber

The same in Switzerland. I have fibre into my sitting room into my firewall and then a mix of fibre and copper on my side.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fiber

Why not closer to the center of the apartment?

- increase signal to all areas of your home

- decrease signal outside of your home, helping to resolve the contention issue

- additionally allow you to decrease wifi power levels, increasing your privacy by not exposing your wireless network to your neighbors or others

It might take trenching a 2cm trench from the front door across the floor to a center wall (do you have a concrete floor?) and up the wall close to the ceiling. Put a router on a little shelf, profit $$$ with signal (and decreased expense $$ and signal contention in mesh repeaters). It's a fiber link, though (and power for the router?), so trenching and smoothing over with concrete should be straight-forward and easy, and nearly break-proof. right?..

[doublelayer]

Re: Fiber

That would help significantly, but most of the time, the people building these do not bother to do that. They often get the cable into some convenient part of the wall and stop there. If that convenient exit point happens to be central, so much the better, but there's no proof it will go that way. I've seen designs that have the incoming line quite near the door, maximizing conflicts between units in the building, and I've also seen them on the outside wall, maximizing power lost to covering the outside of the building. It's harder to convince residents to get a long ethernet cable and make the port more central when their landlord has chosen not to. I have had the pleasure to live in a building where there was intra-unit cabling, meaning that I could choose between three wall ports to put APs on or connect physically to, but that was not universal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fiber

Assume that apartment is long and thin with solid (stone/concrete ?) walls and potentially kinked.

As 75sqm is only 7.5x10m which is footprint of my house, where a single ISP router against an outer wall happily covers ground and first floor for HD Zoom et al streaming on four concurrent devices (lockdown daily usage).

[MachDiamond]

Re: Fiber

"Otherwise you cannot get mobile signal at the far edges of the apartment where the kids lark."

Sounds like the lunatics running the asylum. Why is it a priority to make sure the kids can lurk along the perimeters?

[ilmari]

Re: Fiber

Normal is 100ms, but more importantly it would be great if every device actually picked X+-20ms randomly so that they don't accidentally synchronize and step over eachother repeatedly for longer periods of time.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Fiber

> One WiFi router for an entire building is nonsense anyway

Who is suggesting that?

From linked article:

>> We included every 6 GHz Wi-Fi access point and active client device (e.g., smartphones, laptops, tablets, TVs and other connected devices)

No mention of one router per building.

[doublelayer]

Re: Fiber

Do you know any building that has a single router per building? Nowhere I've ever seen. It's all as you describe: wires to each unit, then one or more access points for that unit's occupants. In fact, that's the problem, and you could theoretically [ducks] I said theoretically, improve the contention problem by having only one WiFi network for the building that everyone connected to.

The problem the article describes is that, when you have a bunch of APs, set up by every occupant independently, you have a lot of possibility for congestion because my AP may be quite close physically to my neighbors' ones. For example, when unit layouts are standardized, my incoming network wire is probably only three meters from those of the apartments above and below me, and most people will install their AP right where that line ends rather than extending it elsewhere. That brings multiple APs closer than they need to be, and if their bands conflict, which would usually be because they're badly configured, that will produce bad results for everyone.

Back to that theoretical thing, if you spaced out APs to avoid congestion, then you could avoid a lot of the problem by maximizing capacity, which for the 6 GHz band is huge. Eventually, you could saturate that entire thing, but most of the time, that would work fine. I don't suggest you do it, as I want my own, private network and would not want to spend all my time on a building-wide network, but offices already use that setup and, most of the time, it works more efficiently than individuals' haphazard configuration.

[that one in the corner]

Government sponsored faraday cages

Shield all the apartments from each other; run your 'phone calls over the WiFi as well (or send the persistent 'phone user to stand outside, with the smokers).

Linus Tool Tips tried carbon-infested paint, which is good for moody teenagers, but small mesh chicken wire in the plasterboard would be an interesting change to building regs,

(On the downside, slum landlords will be charging extra for the water soaked plasterboard)

[Richard 12]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

Multilayer foil insulation is already very common and cheap, under $7 per m².

Loads of stick-built use it as the vapor barrier, so it's already stuck together with aluminium tape.

I wonder what type of construction they modelled?

[Jan 0]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

However, the tapes are insulated from each other by a layer of adhesive and they're not earthed:(

Just because it looks like a Faraday Cage, doesn't mean it is a Faraday Cage.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

We looked into this for $MULTI_NATIONAL_ISP.

At WiFi frequencies, foil-backed foam insulation gives you >60dB of shielding. Sticking adjacent slabs together with 4" builders' aluminium tape matches that if you do it on both sides.

You don't need a galvanic connection between the separate foils, the capacitance of the 50mm overlap is sufficient.

Neither does it need an earth connection - if you open up an old phone you'll see various shielding cans over sensitive bits. Nokia et al didn't include them just for fun.

[hohumladida]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

You will be wishing for earthing in a thunderstorm!

[Jan 0]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

We looked into this for $MULTI_NATIONAL_ISP.

I was being pedantic. A Faraday Cage is earthed, Shielding can still be effective wtithout an earth: if not, I'm sure that 'planes would still be using sextants!

[Martin an gof]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

Faraday cages don't need an earth, do they?

M.

Edit, apologies, should have read on; someone's already made that point :-)

[hohumladida]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

Yes they do if you want 100% shielding and don't want the inside of of the cage inducing an electric field with you in it.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Government sponsored faraday cages

"However, the tapes are insulated from each other by a layer of adhesive and they're not earthed:("

Given the quality of workmanship these days, there will be gaps as well.

[DS999]

Internet could/should be included in the rent

It is like electricity now, it is something everyone needs in today's world. If the building management paid for a very high speed connection for the building they could contract out someone to install/maintain APs in a planned and intelligent manner, instead of letting tenants buy random routers on their own, plus boosters for those who are falsely convinced they need a three router mesh to cover their 750 sq ft two bedroom apartment, then crank up the power "just in case" and drown each other out.

For something smaller like a 12 plex it probably doesn't make sense but for a 12 story building like the one they're modeling? Absolutely. They'd also get a better deal splitting commercial service to the whole building rather than each individual person buying their own. The average person would probably love to be relieved of the bother of having to call someone if their internet is down, dealing with their router, etc.

There are plenty of easy ways to manage it these days that are built into even consumer routers where everyone gets their own login/password plus maybe an alternate one for their guests, each apartment could be on its own VLAN for security, etc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

Student accommodation already does this, as the students aren't expected to stay long and the digs are often rented out as a hotel during the summer months.

However, in residential blocks the management costs are already ludicrous, and many building managers appear at first glance to be making fraudulent demands on the tenants - as it's very hard to challenge.

I don't think many would trust them.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

Electric in the rent?

Whenever we've rented, gas, electric, phone, water - they were (and still are) all the responsibility of the occupant, from bedsit upwards.

Only when living in student dorms and flats have any of those been rolled in (and even the suppliers would be thankful, as the churn rate is high).

[IGotOut]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

Electric in the rent is usually when each room doesn't have a separate meter, so usually found in buildings that are niw HMOs, rather than purpose built.

[DS999]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

I didn't mean electric was included in the rent, I meant tenants expect an apartment to have electric service and water service. It is typically separately billed (since cost from the utility depends on usage) and theoretically they could do the same for internet - but internet cost generally does NOT depend on usage so it isn't clear whether it would be worth the bother to track.

I've rented apartments where the electric was included and where it isn't. Never rented where the water wasn't included.

Since everyone (at least in first world countries) needs internet, why not provision it for the building including wifi and build it into the rent. Advertise it as a feature, every apartment has gigabit internet and wifi.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

"Since everyone (at least in first world countries) needs internet, why not provision it for the building including wifi and build it into the rent."

Likely there would be too much liability for the landlord. If a user has their own contract for internet, it can be terminated for being naughty and it's easier to trace an IP address back to that account.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

"Whenever we've rented, gas, electric, phone, water - they were (and still are) all the responsibility of the occupant, from bedsit upwards."

In the US, some utilities are required to be in the name of the property owner depending on the city/state. It gives the utility much more leverage if the bill doesn't get paid. When I was renting apartments, water and rubbish was paid, but gas and electric was always my responsibility. In the case of dorms and other short term rentals, I doubt a utility would take the chance so it's up to the landlord to monitor usage and have contractual limitations before additional fees are tacked on.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Internet could/should be included in the rent

"but for a 12 story building like the one they're modeling? Absolutely. They'd also get a better deal splitting commercial service to the whole building rather than each individual person buying their own."

The landlord could then be the provider and mark up whatever it's costing them. Renters really like that sort of thing.

[Flak]

There is Wifi and then there is Wifi! You want the second kind.

1) Home hub Wifi, with all access points unaware of each other, shouting over each other and on default settings. Clients drop off the Wifi as soon as they leave the coverage of their home hub. There is often some sub-par public Wifi in corridors (and possibly even lifts), interfering with (and being impacted by) home hubs in apartments. This is like trying to have a conversation in a noisy pub with the music blaring.

2) Radio planned and properly designed Wifi, with APs connected to a controller. Clients can roam between APs across the whole building, it is possible to have private wireless networks configured and connected to in-apartment LAN ports. Much more efficient design and more akin to a corporate office setup. This assumes a single Wifi and broadband provider across the whole building. A far superior solution compared to 1.

Yes, have and use LAN ports also, but most client devices don't have physical ports anymore and the convenience of Wifi is compelling for most day to day use.

If I was staying in an apartment building, this difference could well be the deal maker or breaker!

[Big_Boomer]

The cause of the problem is poor design of WiFi Access Points. I live in a typical, crowded, English housing estate (subdivision for the Americans) and I can see the WiFi routers for my 6 nearest neighbours on most of my devices. However all of our AP's have decided to use the same channels when there are at least 3 possibilities each at 2.4 and 5Ghz. So, I manually changed mine to an empty channel, and guess what?.... Yes, the automatically managed APs changed to follow mine. Two of them didn't so I assume that they were manually set. Even having only 4 on the same channel has improved throughput so I have left it there for now. Living in an Appt block must be a nightmare. At least 6Ghz signals won't carry as far as 5Ghz. I have CAT6 cabled all of my devices that are easy to cable (PC's, TV, set-top-box) because they don't move, but tablets and phones and such are via WiFi.

[Neil Barnes]

twelve-story residential building that hosts a dozen apartments

Eww. That's gross...

All right, all right, I'm going...

[ilmari]

Pointless - WiFi eats everything

Problem: There are only 4 non-overlapping WiFi channels

Solution: 5GHz WiFi with 20+ channels!

WiFi: Hold my beer while I tie 16 channels together for more cat videos

Problem: There's s only one WiFi channel

There's no point adding more spectrum, WiFi expands and eats everything, your neighbours will jam entire spectrum again regardless how much spectrum is given to WiFi.

[PRR]

144 apartments in one building? How do people live that way? (I did, once.) Here is 2 dogs 2 people and 300 feet to the nearest neighbor. I can see his WiFi but not connect unless I stand in the woods between our houses.

However the cheap "free!" WiFi box from Spectrum (Sagemcom F@st 5260) gets laggy from just phones, laptops, and a Kindle.

[O'Reg Inalsin]

Would lining the walls, floors, and ceilings with tinfoil help?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where Does That Spectrum Come From?

It turns out that the "new" 6 GHz spectrum is actually still in use by licensed users. In North America they are usually utilities running telemetry backhaul from SCADA master sites.

So my question to you is: would you rather have electricity, natural gas, and water, or would you rather watch cat videos in high def? Here in the US, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) basically shrugged at all the complaints from an alphabet soup of agencies that currently use these bands for point to point terrestrial communications. I can't even guess at what they say behind closed doors in the Commission meetings. I'm probably better off not knowing because it's very likely something that is not only stupid, but wrong.

The problem is that 6 GHz is an excellent band for terrestrial microwave connections. The technology doesn't exist yet for higher bands where they can cram more bandwidth into a device. But 6 GHz is nice because it doesn't fade much in the rain (compared to 11 and 23 GHz). It may not be fast by the standards of most IT network kids, but it's reliable.

Remember, boys and girls, this is infrastructure. It doesn't have to fast. But it shouldn't have to depend on other resources. This way, your power utility won't be left hanging if the phone company gets hacked and falls on the floor. They can still get critical traffic from remote stations via their microwave --or they could until the FCC decided that cat videos were more important.

This stupidity knows no bounds.

[Anonymous Coward]

Leading from the rear

I was thinking here in a fairly dense suburban area that there is surprisingly little wifi. The area is slightly on the geriatric side, does have FTTP or at least as no cost option (with 24 month contract) but I am guessing all the neighbours are battling it out on the 5GHz band while we're are stuck on 2.4GHz. Our older phones, tablets and routers are all 2.4GHz.

Ironically we are probably getting better bandwidth and latency using the older tech.

(Funnily enough I can see our neighbour's washing machine and vacuum cleaner. I suspect if I configured an open AP the poor things would connect to it. ;)

[ITMA]

Re: Leading from the rear

A pertinent questions is:

- What the hell do a washing machine and vacuum cleaner need WiFi for?

I can understand if the vacuum cleaner is one of those robotic ones. But if not..... But a bloody washing machine???

[Locomotion69]

Re: Leading from the rear

My dishwasher has WiFi, so I can remotely start it (never used, I fill it and press "Start" before closure) or have it alert me when the dishes are ready (not interested)

Disabled it instead.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Leading from the rear

"I can understand if the vacuum cleaner is one of those robotic ones. "

I don't see why. Program it with Bluetooth and let it do it's thing. There's no reason to check on it from the other side of the planet while on holiday. Even if you were going to turn it off while gone, it's not going to run up a fancy bill by continuing on its usual schedule. What's scary is your Roomba having a camera and the whole puck being accessible from the internet.

I get the reason for a wireless fridge with a camera inside, but it's one more thing to break that will likely cause the whole fridge to go TU and buying another carton of milk when you didn't really need it won't be the end of the world. I keep a shopping list for various stores on my phone and try to be diligent about keeping it up to date. There's some really good ones. Mine has a strike out list of items that can be a tickler for me to check if staples are getting low. I can then tap the button and it's on the list if I need more. Press and hold and that item goes away if it was a one time buy for a special dish. My hardware store list has "check oops" to remind me to look at the mis-mixed paints shelf. It's an awesome place to get paint at a deep discount for projects where I'm not all that bothered about an exact match.

[Solviva]

Isn't this a use case where 60 GHz would shine? It's attenuated by almost everything so no issues with noisy neighbours, the only downside is you'll need a AP in every room and as such new builds should be designed with a comms cabinet in each flat that features CAT6/7 to every room*.

That's the spec anyway, cue the builders seeing it and translating to ah this telephone wire we've got oodles of should be good enough, looks similar, made of metal, twisted...

[The other JJ]

Never let builders or even electricians install a network. At best give them the cable and tell them explicitly where to run it. I've twice been called in to diagnose the network in a new build (one office, one residential) where the electricians thought it was like telephones and daisy-chained one Cat5 around every socket.

[spireite]

Apartments and 6 gig

I just moved into an apartment.

2.4ghz is show and a WiFi analyser shows my neighbours, above and sideways in the same cluster of channels.

5ghz was much better, and 6 even better again. Not many on 6.

[Roland6]

No evidence of real world testing

It seems this was wholly a simulation, no real world analysis of actual RF transmissions.

Whilst I get simulating a 12 storey apartment building might be difficult, there should be plenty of real world data from offices.

I’m aware of one London office with 3 basement floors and 12 above ground storeys and 13 storey atrium that since circa 2008 had over a thousand people using the 2.5/5ghz WiFi whilst navigating the building, after a switch to more fluid working within the space.