Wi-Fi Ranges

So, I was at the local sandwich shop last night, and I noticed I was able to
pick up a signal from a local T-Mobile hotspot, which I have an account
with. It was only one bar out of five. But I was able to connect to it and
surf the web without any problems.

I then looked up the hotspots in the area, and I saw that the closest one
was a Fed-Ex/Kinkos about 2-3 blocks away. Measuring it on the map, I
estimate it to be at least 800 feet from where I was.

Is that normal for wi-fi routers to have such a large range? That seems a
bit far to be picking up a wi-fi signal. The router was a little uphill from
me, though not a very steep hill.

Thanks,

Neil

 

For those type of deployments, they set it up it work within the
building. So it will likely get out into the parking lot also.
That's all the need to care about.

Will it go farther? Sure. Will it be a reliable link? Most likely
not. I installed a Linksys WRT54G and it was usable over a thousand
feet away which surprised me.

A true case of "You mileage, err...footage may very".

 

Doing testing with a couple of Cisco APs and high gain omnidirectional
aerials we've had them working over several hundred meters , and even
further with directional ones but that's on open ground. In a built up
environment it's unusal to get anywhere near that.

It's possible there was another hot spot not shown on your map

 

No, the chances of there being another hotspot are very slim, as there's
only a few types of business that have T-Mobile (Starbucks, Kinkos, some
hotels and airports -- that's about it). This wasn't a random hotspot. It
was a T-Mobile hotspot, and there are only a discreet set of them.

As for open ground, though, the place where I was down the street (to the
south) and a little west of where the hotspot was. In between (the northwest
corner of the intersection where I was at) was open. Thus, between me and
the hotspot, there were no buildings. I'm sure that was it.

 

Neil wrote: *** and top-posted. Fixed ***

Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material. I fixed this one. See the following links:

--
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>
<http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html>
<http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html>
<http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/> (taming google)
<http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/> (newusers)

 

Somewhere on teh intarweb "Dr Zoidberg" typed:

The world record for unamplified WiFi using off-the-shelf Linksys APs and
very large omnidirectional antennas is, I believe, over 280 kms.
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

"another academic failure.... trying to prove that your smart"
'blanking', nz.comp, 20 Dec 2007.

 

In ~misfit~ typed on Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:38:41 +1300:

The record using a home made directional antenna at a hackers convention
in Las Vegas a couple of years ago was 51 miles. Although I never
learned if they were on top of a mountain or not. I bet they were.

 

details: http://www.wifiworldrecord.com/

 

I don't understand. What do you mean??....

 

That's cool. But I doubt the local kinko's had any sophisticated antennae.
Still, I think the fact that there were no buildings between us and there
was a little downhill helped. I think the fact that there was a slight
breeze from the direction of the Kinko's to where I was helped as well.*

Neil
*Before someone jumps in here: yes, that was a joke.

 

Somewhere on teh intarweb "danny burstein" typed:

That's old hat. It was broken in Venezula the next year. The one you linked
to was 200km, the Venezuelan record is 279km using just a pair of Linksys
WRT54G's.

+Update+

That was in '06. I've just Googled the guy who did it (Ermanno Pietrosemoli)
and find that my info is old, his record got broken, so he set a new one in
June this year. 382km, or 238 miles for you late adopters.
--
TTFN,

Shaun.

"another academic failure.... trying to prove that your smart"
'blanking', nz.comp, 20 Dec 2007.

"your so predictable misfit"
'blanking', nz.comp, 21 Dec 2007.

 

It is conventional in most newsgroups to post your reply at the bottom of
the previous, this is called bottom posting. You have been putting your
reply at the top, which is known as top-posting. Top-posting is the
convention in emails because if you are replying to an email then the
recipient should have a grasp on what went before. When posting to
newsgroups others may not have seen your original post so its useful to have
the previous text available and visible first.
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.

Sadly, I haven't fixed this one. Its worth having a read of the links that
CBFalconer provided.

 

http://www.eslared.org.ve/articulos/Long Distance WiFi Trial.pdf

 

It is quite possible one of these other businesses had put a
repeater on their roof so they could enjoy using their
account inside without having to pay for on-site service.

The only way you could more reliably know for certain is to
take a wifi locator, signal strength meter back down there
and canvas the area looking for more spots not on maps.

It is certainly possible for signals to go 800 feet outside,
line of sight, but more surprising if you're inside the
sandwich shop, even moreso to maintain connection with a
laptop and do that in a shop where there might be a kitchen
with microwaves.

 

And it's entirely predictable that some wanker will whinge about it.

 

And how do you know that for sure? It's not all that hard to spoof a
hotspot. Use the same SSID, capture the HTTP traffic and fake the login
handling. Then use the stolen information to hack the real service.

 

In Bill Kearney typed on Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:28:15 -0500:

You sound like you have lots of experience doing this Bill. And what
reason would that be for?

 

In LR typed on Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:39:37 +0000:

Amazing! And here I am trying to get my sister on my network just 800
feet away. LOL

 

So, Neil
I think you were very successful getting responses for a stupid
question, and stretching it out by your responses.

For a troll you did very well.

I take it you don't have any friends to hang out with during winter
break from school.

 

That's certainly a valid question for an inquiring mind.


curly Bill responded with

And *I* think that you take perfectly valid questions to be trolling.