this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Wifi jamming is an easy thing to do, as the whole 2.4GHz band works on the assumption that everyone is nice to each other. One non-cooperative device, and everything in that band goes down: Wifi, BT, Garage door openers, Car key fobs...
Vehicle fobs are usually not in the 2.4Ghz range, they're usually in the 300-500mhz range.
But yes, there's a lot of assumptions and usually it's right, but it can be wrong also.
Also, fun fact, microwave ovens use very high power 2.45Ghz. so they can do this by simply rigging a microwave to turn on when the door is open, then pointing it at your house at a safe distance, like across the street.
Most companies that make outdoor stuff generally avoid 5Ghz because it's a regulatory nightmare. Some countries allow it, others only allow certain frequencies, others only allow certain frequencies up to a certain power level, others basically don't allow it at all. So all your fancy door bell/cameras/whatever that you connect outside your home are all going to be limited to 2.4 GHz with is basically universally available internationally (it's an ISM band, while the wifi 5ghz is a UNII band).... So yeah, good luck everybody!
Also wired cameras and such exist, they're a pain to install, but they work well, and the market for other outdoor network connected things is extremely limited.... Things like doorbells.
I hate putting static objects on wifi, even something like my TV, I want it wired simply because it never moves and there's no reason to use it wirelessly. I can run a wire to it once and even if I upgrade the TV, the wire still works. To explain this a little more, I'm an IT administrator and I have a specialty in wireless networking. As tersely as I can: more stuff on the WiFi makes it slow, so if something can be wired, it should be wired. Obviously there are things that are not well suited to it, like cellphones and laptops, but pretty much everything else should be wired. TVs, set top boxes, desktop computers... Basically anything that can be wired, that doesn't regularly move around.... Wired. This extends to cameras, doorbells, gdo's....
This frees up wireless bandwidth for devices that are obligated to use it, like your phone and tablet.
I've seen a lot of network issues resolved by simply plugging in everything that's practical to plug in, even if the device having the issue wasn't one of the things plugged in.
I always find it a bit amusing when I see "shut down due to radar activity" in my 5GHz logs.
Aah yes, that's UNII-2 in action. You can't have a radio in the UNII-2 band without some measure of radar detection and avoidance. It's a regulatory standard. Most will simply hop to another frequency and inform connected stations of the move, but shutting down when radar is detected, is valid.
It may be worthwhile to aggregate such reports and see if it's the same few channels each time, then simply exclude those channels from being selected by the system. It could increase the reliability of the connection to the clients and reduce any calls about the wifi going out or kicking people off of it.