Interference monitoring and control of wireless local area network (WLAN). – E. E. Williams, I. O. Akpan and D. E. Asuquo
ABSTRACT
More and more enterprises today are discovering the benefits of mobility through wireless networking. Accessing the network wirelessly from nearly any convenient location within the enterprise provides users with better flexibility and productivity. As a result, Information Technology (IT) decision makers have moved away from the implementation of location-specific wireless access to delivering comprehensive mobility through enterprise-wide wireless implementation. The proliferation of WLANs (Wireless Local Area Networks) has coincided with the evolution of wireless networking standards, which have progressed significantly since the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) introduced the original 802.11b standard in the late 1990s. The frequencies used by IEEE 802.11b are open to the public for use in many different devices. The common consumer wireless LAN frequencies fall around 2.4 GHz which is the same frequency used by newer cordless phones, Bluetooth devices, microwave ovens, and other wireless gears. Interferences occur when other sources of Radio Frequency (RF) are using the same frequencies as the wireless router and this occur primarily in two ways: Adjacent Channel Interference and Co-channel Interference. This research examines WLANs at specific locations in Uyo City of Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria, using CommView for Wi-Fi network monitoring tool. It was discovered that interference resulted primarily from channel overlap (i.e. Channel Interference). To this effect, control measures such as channel surfing, reconfiguration of network layout and upgrade to 802.11a standard are proposed with the use of channel blanket technology.