Hello,

I have a HAP ac3 on a location which is working perfectly fine. On some occasions I have special events where AV teams install temporary equipment. When that happens, the 2GHz Wi-Fi becomes very unstable or won't allow connections anymore. This is confirmed by all my connected devices. When the event is over, the Wifi magically returns to normal.

I suspect the AV staff might be using some wireless (microphones or to broadcast video) which interferes with WiFi.

I appreciate this is nothing to do with the router but can anybody think of a workaround? I never thought of testing 5Ghz, which is normally hidden as less reliable (I need reliability and range and NOT speed).

Would changing channel help?

Thanks for any input you might have!
Tony

2.4GHz must be more or less the most congested frequency range world-wide...
Also consider DECT phone, bluetooth, microwave ovens, wireless dongles, garage openers, etc. They all interfere with 2.4GHz wifi.
COuld also be they set up their own local wifi network. If it overlaps with yours, good luck then ...

When this happens, change frequency and see if it becomes better.
Use frequency scan function on your device to detect wifi channels being used.
If you have access to it, use a true frequency scanner to see which frequency bands are being used in general so you can avoid those.

5GHz is (and always has been) the solution to this but as you indicate, range will be less. Reliability should not be a concern, it's on par (given range restrictions).
Same concept applies here: make sure to use a channel which is free of other radios.
But as I understand, your 2.4GHz is not working either right now in case of events so same situation.

Other thing you may consider: use wifiwave2 package on AC3 (if non-LTE version).
It makes a TON of difference on that device.

Also: make sure you use 20MHz channel (not 20/40/...) ... Total Tx power is limited and with less wide frequency band used, the energy is "more concentrated" ... i.e. signal strength will be higher (3dB compared to 20/40MHz and 6dB comapred to 20/40/80MHz), making also signal/interference ratio higher accordingly and data transfer more reliable.

Consideration is exactly the same in both 2.4GHz band and 5GHz band. In 5GHz band it's likely that interference will be less (so SINR will be better) ... so using 20MHz-only channels will increase coverage (which is mostly defined by degrading SINR). Very often people use maximum channel withs and in this case 5GHz coverage falls behind 2.4GHz coverage even more due to possibility of using 80MHz or even 160MHz channels.

Thanks for all your inputs. Yes, I am using 20Mhz channels already.

The issue I have is that once the WiFi disappears, that means that I am in the middle of an important event and the last thing I want to do is to start playing with network settings

Would a regular WiFi scanner on Windows potentially show where the issue is? I will definitely try 5Ghz next time.

I'll google the wifiwave2 thing to learn more.
Thank you!

Regular wifi scanner will only show wifi signals.
Not all the other things operating at the same frequency.

Gotcha thanks.

At least today I was able to find a strong WiFi broadcasting on channel 2 which was preventing me from using channels 1 and 6. We changed the setting in someone else's router so next time I have an event I can try a different channel.

Thanks for your help so far.

If you know the event has lots of 2.4 equipment, you'll be going for a game of wack-a-mole.

Best to avoid and prepare yourself already for 5GHz.
My take on it ...