Chicken Wire Hampering WiFi in Many Buildings

[engine]

Chicken Wire Hampering WiFi [online.wsj.com]in Many Buildings

In 2008, Mr. Pewtherer tried to replace his old-fashioned cable Internet connection with a Wi-Fi network that he could share with other tenants in his building. "It turned out to be impossible," says the 38-year-old program manager at Cisco Systems Inc. "We couldn't get signal in or out of one room."

That is because Mr. Pewtherer's 80-year-old building in the Mission District, like thousands of other old homes in the Bay Area, was built with the technological equivalent of kryptonite in its walls: chicken wire. Metal wiring inside old plaster walls blocks wireless signals, frustrating San Francisco residents as wireless-equipped devices like iPhones and laptops proliferate.

[ogletree]

My parents have a Stucco house and cell phones don't work in there at all. I went to a fry's and bought a cell phone extender. It came with an antenna I put outside and something that looked like a wireless access point inside. Cell phones work great now.

[VasserPro]

Faraday cage effect (or at least a weak one). There's not a single new home in the Phoenix area that doesn't have chicken wire holding our homes together, so I feel your pain.

I've seen people using cell phone extenders but always scoffed at them as a gimmick. It's good to know they actually work.

[Essex_boy]

Saw an article in Telegraph this week on their IT pages stating that WIFI can be interfered with by other electrical items around the house. They suggested taking a portable radio and tuning it 612 or 6155 (forget which medium or long wave etc) and walk around the house until your either sectioned (!) or find an an item that produces a loud whistling noise. There in lies your problem