The Battle Between Wireless and Cordless Phones

Well, the battle continues..

If you have been experiencing problems with your phone and wireless internet (or wireless in general), then it MAY NOT be your line filter (although this is one likely cause).

Firstly I will begin this by explaining what causes this problem.

Most Wireless Standards operate on the following Specifications 802.11b/g and less commonly the faster and supposedly more reliable 802.11n standard.

These Wireless standards both operate at a frequency of 2.4GHz. Which is roughly the same as 9 out of 10 cordless phones operating in New Zealand. And, even if you dont have a Cordless phone that interferes and you live close enough to your neighbours; they might.

The Neighbours Cordless Phone? Your Kidding? 
Unfortunately we are not. This shouldnt however 'drop' your wireless connection entirely, but could reduce the wireless throughput (volume) / performance for the duration of your neighbours gasbagging.

There is really two simple solutions and one POSSIBLE solution; we opted for Option 2.

Possible Solution:
(1) Adjust the Channel of your Access Point to be at its Highest or Lowest setting. I find higest usually works best to minimize the interference; however dependant on the actual operating frequency of your Cordless phone.

Solutions (if the problem was caused by the above):
(1) Replace your 2.4GHz Cordless Phone(s) with 5.8GHz Cordless Phone(s)
(2) Throw out wireless, go back to a Traditional UTP Network. Costs a bit more to setup, and generally requires technicians to come out and install Cables, Switches, Jackpoints at your premesis, but provides a thousand fold better connection in terms of reliability (there when you need it, not affected by Phones, Weather, etc) AND performance (up to 1GBit on a standard CAT6 connection) than ANY wireless standards could ever promise.

I have done a few Wireless excercises lately; and as much as they seem to promise, they just dont live up to their expectations with the random signals that go flying around our atmosphere from all sorts of wireless and mobile devices; let alone weather.

Recomendations for Networking:
If you own your own property and can justify an expense of $1,000 min (depending on how fast, and how many jackpoints you require and any other network hardware you might need to suite your requirements), then I would recomend investing in a 1GBit CAT6 network; we can hide the switch hardware and put jackpoints around your house where computers and/or entertainment equipment is to be connected.

If you are renting, then unfortunately you would need to speak to your landlord about this investment due to the work that would need to be done on your property; otherwise Wirless is your best option unfortunately. Just upgrade your phone before hand and you should be fine (but bear in mind this is not the only source of interference your wireless network might be exposed to).

Why was it working OK Last Week?
Well, technically, it wasnt (if you got any phone calls last week anyway); but the channel interference was so minimal you didnt notice anything more than perhaps a sligh scratching on your phone line.

Note: If you are hearing more of a digital sound (you will know it from scratching) then this could mean your DSL and Phone is unfiltered or that there is a faulty filter around somewhere. It could be more 'DSL' issues you are having with your phone than Frequency Interference, so get that sorted out first :).

Anyway, I hope this helps some people.

Windows 7... A Toast to Microsoft.

Although I am not quite over the fact that they sold me on half of my Client Workstations for Vista, I had to buy into the hype for Windows 7 and have a go.

Remarkably, the results are not as un-satisfying as I originally thought.

Traditionally, Microsoft has had a long line of Winners and Losers, two of these Losers being ME and Vista (with vista to shortly find the waste basket of many offices like ME and Microsoft keen to rid themselves of that embarrasment, again like ME). So many Millions, if not Billions would have been spend upgrading to Microsoft Vista now within a short matter of time, they have to do it all again with Windows 7.

Although I cannot say much about their business ethic, stopping short of ever apologizing for an obviously bad product, I have to say they have done well for a 'First Release' of Windows 7, although the 'First' release is debatable.

Many, including myself, see it as 'Vista' but with out all the problems. So essentially, it appears they have taken their Vista Product, fixed many of the problems, renamed it (to avoid the stigma the vista name was building) and resold it as a new Operating System. My suspicions are that this is actually second release, like Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) which was a very stable Operating System for its time.

I have to commend the improved interface, usability and feel to the operating system. It certainly does live up to the expectation of 'Faster Performance' and 'Stability' when compared to Vista. I would say, although its not quite at Windows XP Performance and Stability levels, its definately close and should not take Microsoft long to get it right.

I cant wait, because to be honest, I loved the whole Vista thing; just hated the problems. Windows 7 seems to be just what I was looking for, but I will be waiting another 6 to 12 months for more updates before I upgrade any more PCs as there are still the odd noted and inconvenient, but not major, issues.

Good Luck Microsoft and I will be following your Windows 7 announcements closely now that you have somewhat restored my faith in Microsoft Operating Systems.

Welcome to our New Blog

Welcome to our New Blog hosted at Googles BlogSpot.

Rather than fussing with the details of administering our own hosted blog, we decided to leave that to one of the many many companies (google being one of our favourites) that have invented this wheel over and over again.

Thanks to Google for this great tool, and the so many others they bring the public free of charge. Google puts the open in open standards, being the foundation of the internet technologies that we should all strive to achieve.

I love Google :)...