why is this...

[ORLY?]

so im getting 2 bars from my network located in another house. but theres quite a bit of studdering and it hasnt been up to par lately. sometimes it seems like dial-up.

so today i connect to someone elses network (just testing) also with 2 bars, but its much faster and theres almost no studdering.

so how can 2 networks with the same number of bars be so different? its not the internet service. my personal network comes from optimum online. (DSL isnt even available in my area). im sure this person doesnt have T1. and my network adapter and router are both the same brand (linksys).


i wonder if theres anything i can tinker with. maybe this person also has SRX/MIMO. it says linksys as the name of the network. what do the pros think of this. im pretty sure theres gotta be a way(s) to get more speed out of this network. sometimes my network is faster at 2 bars than others. i think thats the key. it must have something to do with that. but what could cause that. i mean, if it was faster/slower at certian times, wouldnt the bars decrease?

or perhaps its just bc its a scale from 1-5. my 2 bars may be at the verge of 1 bar at times. and at the very verge of 3 bars at other times. and maybe that may make up the difference. anyway, id like to hear from the experts.

[M/Q]

You are investing too much into the vendor's or MS's signal indicator. They are always overly optimistic and have no real use. A freeware application like NetStumbler or others is much more indicative of actual circumstances.

Next there are a whole bucket full of reasons why one network maybe working better than another. This forum and others have countless threads asking this same question. I wish I could put something in the water or air that would allow people to realize that radio/RF communications are not anywhere as reliable and predictable as wired. AKA cell phone versus good old fashioned POTS line.

First off if you are using WZC and you are linking with a network using an SSID of Linksys, I would hate to predict how many other Linksys wireless devices that are in the default condition that are not showing up in WZC. Please read the sticky on WZC to get an idea as to what this really means. Other issues are outside interferences, physical interferences, multipath interferences, different vendor/brand of equipment not playing nice. The list goes on, and one has to realize that this is a very youthful technology and it is advancing before it solidifies the existing technology.

MIMO and or SRX is neat and it works great if you have both ends of the link made by the same vendor. I happen to believe Tom's Networking and not Linksys when it comes to the fact that SRX equipment does not help non MIMO equipment and links. Tom's Networking has published data on it, if you are interested. In fact Tom's Networking is one of the best web sites for just about any kind of information about wireless.

Sorry for being rather vague, but unless you have specifics, completed a thorough site survey and RF spectrum analysis, it is very hard to be more concrete.