[time-nuts] wifi with time sync

Bill Hawkins bill.iaxs at pobox.com
Sun Jan 15 00:51:42 EST 2017


 
I haven't read the entire thread, but this may be relevant. If not, you
know where to find the delete key.

I live in a life care community - one of 450 people in 300 apartments on
3 floors. When I moved in a year ago, I could get Internet from the
house cable, and they provided the modem. I bought wired and wireless
802.11n dual band routers for two apartments, a two bedroom for us and
an alcove for my shop. There was plenty of noise from other such
routers, but no problem within an apartment. I couldn't use a wireless
keyboard, though. The cursor wandered around with the noise.

Last month, a company experienced in wiring hotels for wireless put DSL
to RJ-45 and 11n wireless access points in each apartment on the second
floor, adding 100 transmitters to the mix. DSL with existing phone
wiring was far cheaper than running new cable. The intent was to provide
universal public Wi-Fi for the children of the residents.

They might as well have installed 100 jammers. There were complaints of
unusable cordless phones (most in the 2.4 GHz range) and lost Wi-Fi
connections that simply reverted to the default IP address range and
failed to reconnect.

I got a home copy (this is my home) of InSSIDer software and surveyed
the halls at 2.4 GHz with a Windows 7 laptop (you need a larger screen
to see the signal distribution) I could see 10 to 20 of the new access
points, as well as the occasional excursion to -10 dbm (top of scale) as
nearby routers and printers kicked in. Great stuff.

There are environments where time sync with Wi-Fi hasn't got a chance.

Jim Lux was looking for a COTS solution to time sync, and this might
work in a controlled environment.

Don't even think about consumer radio clocks that sync from unknown
Wi-Fi environments.

Bill Hawkins (John Hawkins son)
bill.iaxs at pobox.com




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