To WiFi users.
Do you reduce your router’s WiFi Transmit Power to the bare minimum as required by you?
- Do you just keep it at the default 100%
- Did you not know you could reduce it (until now)
- Are you not able to control “your” WiFi router because it’s the ISP provided router and they didn’t give you the password?
- Do you actually require the 100% !?
I have two Wireless Access Points (WAP) and a separate router/ firewall. The WAPs are meshed, meaning as a WiFi connected device moves through my house, it will be automatically handed off to the WAP with the best quality.
Power and channel of the two WAPs use are automatic. I live in a fairly dense neighborhood. Meaning my neighbors are so dense they barely have done any configuration of their WiFi. There are also a lot of them. The main thing I worry about is having just enough transmit power to give a good quality connection within the house, without being so strong it interferes with my neighbors’ networks.
I would never leave the management of my home network to an ISP. With that said, I’ve been an IT professional for 30 years and got my start in networking.
My upstairs WAP often works at higher power, but I don’t remember seeing it at 100%. It is fighting all the other WiFi routers that are nearby. There are so many that there are no clear channels on 2.4GHz and very few at 5GHz. The WAP in the basement is better shielded, so I almost never see it at high transmit powers.
My router is a separate unit that provides routing, firewall, IPS/IDS, DNS, and management for itself and the WAPs.
No, you almost never require 100% transmit power out of a WAP. The best thing is to have a good quality WiFi router or WAP and set it to “automatic” for channel and power settings. That way the unit can determine what is best for network quality on the fly. It will be better at it than you logging in multiple times a day doing the same thing manually.