Once I received a call from a woman quite agitated that her computer had inexplicably lost its connection to the internet two days earlier. When I arrived she showed me her wireless access point with its little antennas sitting in the front room of the house. I went to work testing it using my own laptop and quickly ascertained that her internet connection was working very well; there was a good strong wireless signal with the identifier (SSID) named “Motorola” or something like that.
I suggested the problem might be her computer so I asked if we could look at that next. She conducted me across the living room, past the dining room, through the kitchen, out the back door, across the garden, into the casita, down a hall and finally to a rear bedroom where her laptop computer was located. Sure enough, her laptop was not able to establish a wireless internet connection to the “Motorola” signal in the far-off front room. Moreover, when I looked at the wireless network connection profiles on that laptop I could tell that it had never ever been connected to her “Motorola” router.
So I explained that the wireless transmitter in the front of her house was simply too far away to provide a usable signal. We were perhaps 40 meters distant from the access point and separated by eight or more thick masonry walls; and that exceeds the ability of a 28- milliwatt Wi-fi. The woman exploded, “It used’ta work just fine before you got here! You obviously don’t know anything about computers!” I recognized this as one of those situations when you just have to politely excuse yourself and move on, so I was soon back out on the street.
Before I left, one thing I had noticed about this person’s laptop was that while it had never been connected to her own “Motorola” signal, it had previously been logged onto another wireless access point named “Smith” (not the real name). I could tell for sure that “Smith” had been there sometime in the past and “Smith” was no longer broadcasting today. Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I walked around the block to the next street that was back-to-back with the casita where I had been. A maid was out sweeping the sidewalk so I asked her where the Smiths lived. She responded: “They moved out two days ago.”
Alert readers will now realize the belligerent woman on the other street had been unwittingly poaching her neighbor’s wireless internet signal, and when the Smiths left the neighborhood so did her wireless internet. I had to chuckle when I realized this meant that woman had been paying several hundred pesos every month for internet access in the front room of the house, but she had never once connected to it. Nobody tell her, okay?
The point to this story is to remind users that Wi-fi is a short-range connectivity technology. Wireless transmitters are intentionally low-powered to avoid interfering with neighboring systems, while client devices (smart phones, tablets, etc.) are low powered to conserve battery life. For the best possible Wi-fi connection you should always try to have a clear line of sight between your device and the wireless access point, and that means not having any walls between you and the base station to which you connect.
Charles Miller is a freelance computer consultant with more than 20 years IT experience and a Texan with a lifetime love for Mexico. The opinions expressed are his own. He may be contacted through his web site at SMAguru.com.