[metaxis78]

Although not ideal, 5GHz has significant wall reflection/reduced penetration. If you're in a dense, urban, noisy environment, you should still be able to achieve decent MCS on 5GHz in your home.

6GHz will add more spectrum with these characteristics, which will helpfully alleviate future performance concerns pretty thoroughly.

[drewg123]

The problem I'm facing is that my friend is a streamer, and she can only reliably stream with a wired connection. When trying to use Wifi, she has frequent breakups of her stream. Using https://packetlosstest.com/, we see that frequently many packets are delayed several hundred MS.

The only thing which has seemed to help is reducing the 5Ghz channel width and forcing the AP to use one of the lesser occupied 5Ghz channels. This is what has made me think that interference is the problem. A channel scan shows well over 100 APs..

EDIT: Are there AP features or tuning which will influence how well, and/or how quick it can react to interference?

I've been hoping that the 6GHz band will improve things for her when 6Ghz APs become available. I was going to build her an AP using an Intel AX210, however I realized that the AX210 does not support AP mode so that plan won't work.

[labawi]

Have you considered bringing an AP closer to the client? Especially on 5GHz a good line-of-sight / line-of-reflection is very helpful, and some extra 10-20dB of signal should compensate for a lot of interference.

OFDM MU-MIMO AX 20000+ 1000$ routers with 20 antennas work better, but in an inconvenient location, when the noise floor is high, it has no chance to compete with a decent 2-antenna ac (or even n) AP with good signal propagation (same room vs. behind a wall somewhere).

And it would be helpful if you can agree with your neighbors to use narrow channels (less competition and unintended interference), decrease radiation power (less distortion => better signal) and if supported, increase minimum bitrate (faster communication => less jamming). Also, lower transmission power and faster SSID broadcasts help induce roaming, for when you have multiple APs.

[scrps]

Building a performant wifi network is a serious pain. Building material, channel congestion, network load, AP placement, other sources of RFI, etc all cause issues.

Your best bet is look for APs that support 802.11r or v (also check that clients support it though most modern cards do) which allows seamless roaming between APs then replace the existing AP with 2 or 3 APs. If you want a cheaper solution you can try for a DIY site survey to try to find the best placement and channel for the existing AP.

[metaxis78]

There are client priority features in wifi, but your device may not support them. If her antenna has line of sight to the BS then it's not likely to be interference but something else, like traffic congestion.

I'm not sure what hardware/chipset you're using, but if it's consumer grade, that might be a big part of the problem. Competently executed prosumer/soho like the amplifi/unifi line or google wifi may make a huge difference.

However, ethernet may just be the best option, especially for streaming.

[willcipriano]

In my view: If the packets absolutely positively have to get there on time, ethernet is the only option.

WiFi has uses but constantly streaming large volumes of data without hiccups isn't one of them.

[metaxis78]

With wifi, you need to make accommodations as well. It's not just Magic Internet Waves. I've had no problem video conferencing on wifi, but I make sure to have reasonable line of sight to my AP. I also chose a model with a simplistic and streamlined design so that it didn't look awful placed prominently in my space.

[gnu8]

> well over 100 APs..

With that many neighbors I am not sure if there is much that can be done. You can take steps on your network, but getting everyone else to cooperate is a different story. Even if they are willing, how many would be able to manage their channel allocations and transmit power?

[stefan_]

The problem with 5GHz is that some 60% of the spectrum is locked behind 1/10 min DFS for ill-conceived radar coexistence, so all the APs usually bunch in the few channels that don't require that.

[Reason077]

I just suck it up and take the DFS hit, which seems to be about +30 seconds of additional router reboot time. The interference-free 80 Mhz channels are absolutely worth it!

If my router could remember the DFS state between reboots it would be even better, though.

[drewg123]

This is actually super helpful. Next time I'm there, I'll see if her router supports DFS!

[dboreham]

If the AP supports DFS channels at all.

[stefan_]

It cuts both ways - when 5GHz was new, there were lots of client devices that didn't support the DFS channels at all (even if as stations they don't need to do DFS).

So still today AP vendors are cautious to use them because of the potential for support calls from people with older mobile devices that "don't show the AP at all".

[dboreham]

This can even happen on 2.4GHz with the extra channel allowed in Japan. Stations and AP can disagree about whether they're in Japan.

[stefan_]

2.4GHz channels are another of the many many regrettable paper cut things with WiFi. I have a 2.4 only gadget that the manufacturer ships with the narrowest regulatory settings so they can sell one SKU and it can't use channel 12 that is available almost everywhere but the US.