Scribbled by Matt of JustCallMatt.net.

I find myself sitting in a Starbucks in between clients on a chilly
day in Chi-Town… I had just completed a residential Wireless LAN
installation consisting of an Airport Extreme Base Station and Airport
Express Adapter to stream to the client’s home stereo, a brand new 14″ iBook
(gift from the client to her husband), and a Dell Inspirion 600m laptop. The
home was already Cat-5 Wired, so I had some flexibility for placing the
Airport Extreme. Coverage ended up being pretty decent. I was waiting for
another client down the street to get home so I could troubleshoot some
Wireless and DSL issues they were having.

I do a lot of Wireless LAN setups and reconfigs. Each one is
different, with different nuances and issues. I’m learning more and more
with each installation I perform. I’m rapidly concluding that 802.11x
technology (specifically 11b and 11g) has become a victim of its own
success. For those of you who have fired up NetStumbler in a densely
populated area, you know what I mean… too many Wireless Routers and APs
with the default settings running. In a city as tightly packed as Chicago,
it’s not uncommon to pick up a dozen or more APs from any given spot.

Security implications aside, one of the negative outcomes is devices
interfering with each other, causing dropped connections, WLAN adapter and
OS confusion, etc. First thing I do before I setup a new WLAN is a quick
survey with NetStumbler, see what other devices are within range,
specifically what channels are being used, so I can setup the new device on
a channel least likely to cause or get interference. How I miss the days
where my WLAN was the only one on the block!