Wifi coverage is becoming more and more prevalent. In a high-density urban setting like NYC, you're liable to find an open network just about anywhere you go.

Thing is, a lot of people don't bother to optimize their wireless networks. With the most popular WiFi routers having channel 6 as the default, that makes for a lot of interference.

The 802.11b/g protocol is setup to handle interference alright, but it zaps throughput like crazy with all that hand-shaking and error-recovery. 802.11g maxes out at 6.9 MB/sec in the ideal world. With all the noise in the real-world, you'd be lucky to get 70 percent. Add to that all the chatter on channel 6, and you're more than likely to get 20 to 30 % efficiency.

What to do?!?

Simple, just change your WiFi routers to a less crowded channel.

And how do you do that?

Easy. Just install the Airport Radar widget from Macwireless.com.



Most people use it for "wi-freeloading" , but since it displays the channel number of all detectable networks in a given location, it can do double duty as a quick way to find out the less congested channels.

Just change your router to a less crowded channel. You'd be amazed at the difference.

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