Wireless Interface

Wireless Interference

WLANs can suffer from interference from many sources. The radio waves travel through space, but they must pass through whatever matter exists inside the coverage area, including walls, floors, and ceilings. Passing through matter causes the signal to be partially absorbed, which reduces signal strength and the size of the coverage area. 

Matter can also reflect and scatter the waves, particularly if there is a lot of metal in the materials, which can cause dead spots (areas in which the WLAN simply does not work), and a smaller coverage area. Additionally, wireless communication is impacted by other radio waves in the same frequency range.

 The effect is the same as trying to listen to a radio station when you’re taking a long road trip. You might get a good clear signal for a while, but eventually you drive far enough from the radio station’s antenna that the signal is weak, and it is hard to hear the station.

 Eventually, you get close enough to the next city’s radio station that uses the same frequency range, and you cannot hear either station well because of the interference.

With WLANs, the interference may simply mean that the data only occasionally makes it through the air, requiring lots of retransmissions, and resulting in poor efficiency. One key measurement for interference is the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). This calculation measures the WLAN signal as compared to the other undesired signals (noise) in the same space. The higher the SNR, the better the WLAN devices can send data successfully.