WiFi gets clobbered by baby-monitors, not other WiFi

By Cory Doctorow at 6:17 pm Monday, May 11

Ofcom, the UK equivalent to the FCC, has a new report that identifies baby monitors and other wireless devices as serious interferers with urban WiFi. I've got WiFi and a baby-monitor in my tiny London flat and I can't say I've ever noticed the issue -- on the other hand, my spark-gap generator seems to really do some interesting stuff to the network.

"There is a view that some domestic users generate excessive amounts of Wi-Fi traffic, denying access to other users," claims the report from wireless specialists, Mass Consutling. "Our research suggests that this is not the case, rather the affected parties are almost certainly seeing interference from non-Wi-Fi devices such as microwave ovens, Audio Video senders, security cameras or baby monitors."

"The greatest concentration of different radio types tends to occur in urban centres, so interference tends to increase with population density.

"However, interference also occurs in low population density areas. It only requires a single device, such as an analogue video sender, to severely affect Wi-Fi services within a short range, such that a single large building or cluster of houses can experience difficulties with using a single Wi-Fi channel."

Baby monitors killing urban Wi-Fi (via /.)