Miracast Devices

[saltrock2k]

Hi, I thought I would post this as I have been trying for a while to figure out why our Microsoft Wireless adapters were dropping connections.

 

We use a Ruckus Solution with 2.4GHz and 5GHz turned on.

 

Findings: I found this site, How Miracast Communicates Over Wifi Networks - Barbs Connected World and it got me thinking. On the Ruckus Config page for the 2.4GHz, I turned off the channels for 1, 6 and 11. Then turned off the channels next to those three. So in all, channels 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 we unchecked/turned off. This left channels 3, 4, 8, 9 and 13. This is more than enough channels to use and as such, our network has been much more stable and I have not yet had any issues with Miracast devices. This was implemented at the end of March 2016.

 

If you have a similar wireless management system then try this is you are looking at using Miracast device for screen sharing. It works great in a classroom, where we have a 65" TV, Microsoft Wireless adapter, and a Surface Pro for the staff. The Surface become the interactive screen and then shares to the TV. You do not need to stand at the front of the class anymore.

 

This also improved the Apple TV devices as they do not interfere on those channels either. Wi-Fi log in time has improved also.

 

If anyone else has ideas on this then please let me know.

 

Tom.

[Cazale]

The only channels you should be using on 2.4gz are 1,6 or 11. The reason for this is that a 22mhz connection is upto 5 channels wide, so if you connect to channel 6, you are effectively connecting to channels 4 through 8 (6 being in the middle). In theory, if you use 1,6 and 11, you will never overlap into a neighboring signal.

 

Using one in the middle is bad (i.e. channel 4), because you can bleed into two neighboring channels. This can cause all sorts of problems, not least the problem that each WiFi channel is half-duplex, so if you are bleeding into two channel spaces you are causing every other device in that range to enter a wait state.

 

See this graphic for example (from wikipedia):

 

[Chris_Jones]

only 802.11b uses 22mhz channels, g uses 20mhz, n uses 20Mhz base but can bond to 40Mhz. ac can go up to 80 or 160Mhz channels.

 

Channels 1, 6 and 11 work for 802.11b networks, or faster ones in the US. but if you are in Europe (or anywhere else where 12 and 13 are permitted) then 1, 5, 9, 13 gives you 4 non-overlapping channels

[Cazale]

1, 5, 9, 13

 

I generally avoid telling people this simply because if someone else (or multiple people) are using 1,6,11 nearby it makes things far worse for everyone. But yes, I would agree, on a school site well away from other businesses and residential housing, you do "gain" an extra channel space using 1,5,9,13.

 

It's worth doing a quick WiFi scan around the site, anything on channels 6 and 11 could cause issues.