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Wifi Analyzer for Android helps you pick the best channel for your Wi-Fi network
Still, most routers and access points come with a pre-set default (that appears to be 11, at least for the routers around me). When you have several routers broadcasting on the same channel, this can lead to some interference and a performance hit. If you live somewhere fairly isolated and your Wi-Fi signal is the only one in range, you've got nothing to worry about.
On the other hand, if you're trying to survive in a dense urban jungle, surrounded by paper-thin walls and lots of Wi-Fi-using neighbors, you may gain a bit of a performance boost by switching your access point's channel to a less congested one.
Wifi Analyzer is an Android application that helps you figure out exactly what that channel is. The screenshot to the right shows how channels 9 and 10 are occupied by a couple of wireless network fighting over the same frequency, while my network (the red one) lives comfortably on channel 1.
Wifi analyzer offers several views, including a simple "channel rating" screen with no graph, if you just want to quickly figure out what's the best channel for you. A beautiful app, and free. QR code is after the jump.
Comments
6
Subscribe to commentsemmzeeDec 16th 2010 3:47PM
Anyone know of a free & simple program like this for those of us who don't have Android devices? (Ie, for Windows)
alistairclarkeDec 16th 2010 4:07PM
@emmzee - InSSIDer should do the job. Check it out at http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/download.
stephen.galbinceaDec 16th 2010 8:05PM
@emmzee I like WiFi Monster for Windows Mobile - shows very detailed information, even if AP's are sharing SSID's you can see their BSSID (Mac Addresses), etc.
emmzeeDec 16th 2010 4:22PM
@alistairclarke Thanks I'll try it out later today :)
iGateDec 19th 2010 6:05AM
anything similar for mac or iphone?
DrunkMickDec 19th 2010 10:20PM
@Erez Zukerman: Indeed there are 11 channels to use, but there are really only 3 channels that do not overlap with others (1, 6 and 11).
Here's a diagram showing the spread in 2.4Ghz land - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/2.4_GHz_Wi-Fi_channels_(802.11b,g_WLAN).svg
Reason I bring it up is you can actually *decrease* your Wifi performance by choosing a overlapping channel.