How To Find Best Channel For Wifi Mac
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InSSIDer is Wi‑Fi optimization and troubleshooting software that takes Wi‑Fi network discovery to a whole new level. With a quick glance, you’ll be able to find poor channel placement, low signal strength, and RF interference in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. The right way to make the best of the ever crowded airwaves is to ensure the Wi-Fi channel that you are using is as free of congestion as possible, which means you need to know what channel everyone else is using.
Wireless networks have come a long way in the past couple of decades. And yet, sustained Wi-Fi speeds are still a vexing problem in a lot of situations. A number of things can come into play, such as the way your router is set up, whether there’s nearby interference, whether you live in an apartment building or a separate house, and how far apart your devices are from the router. Fortunately, there’s always a way to fix slow transfer speeds.
If you’ve ever messed around with your Wi-Fi router’s settings, you’ve probably seen the word “channel.” Most routers have the channel set to Auto. But many of us have looked through that list of a dozen or so channels and wondered what they are, and more importantly, which of the channels are faster than the others. Well, some channels are indeed much faster — but that doesn’t mean you should go ahead and change them just yet. Read on to find out more about 802.11 channels, interference, and the difference between 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi.
Channels 1, 6, and 11
First of all, let’s talk about 2.4GHz, because even in 2017, the majority of Wi-Fi installations still use the 2.4GHz band in some way. 802.11ac, which debuted in 2013, is driving adoption of 5GHz — but thanks to backwards compatibility, dual-radio routers and devices, and lower-cost peripherals with less expensive chipsets, 2.4GHz will continue to reign for a while.
All versions of Wi-Fi up to and including 802.11n (a, b, g, n) operate between the frequencies of 2400 and 2500MHz. These 100MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each. As you’ve probably worked out, 14 lots of 20MHz is a lot more than 100MHz — and as a result, every 2.4GHz channel overlaps with at least two, if not four, other channels (see diagram above). And as you can probably imagine, using overlapping channels is bad — in fact, it’s the primary reason for poor throughput on your wireless network.
Fortunately, channels 1, 6, and 11 are spaced far enough apart that they don’t overlap. On a non-MIMO setup (i.e. 802.11 a, b, or g) you should always try to use channel 1, 6, or 11. If you use 802.11n with 20MHz channels, stick to channels 1, 6, and 11 — if you want to use 40MHz channels, be aware that the airwaves might be congested, unless you live in a detached house in the middle of nowhere.
What channel should you use in a crowded area?
If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels 1, 6, and 11 are your best choices. But depending on other wireless networks in your vicinity, one of those channels might be a better option than the others.
For example, if you’re using channel 1, but someone next door is annoyingly using channel 2, then your throughput will plummet. In that situation, you would have to change to channel 11 to completely avoid the interference (though 6 would be pretty good as well). It might be tempting to use a channel other than 1, 6, or 11 — but remember that you will then be the cause of interference (and everyone on 1, 6, and 11 will stomp on your throughput, anyway).
In an ideal world, you would talk to your neighbors and get every router to use channels 1, 6, or 11. Bear in mind that interior walls do a pretty good job of attenuating (weakening) a signal. If there’s a brick wall between you and a neighbor, you could probably both use channel 1 without interfering with each other. But if it’s a thin wall (or there’s lots of windows), you should use different channels.
There are tools that can help you find the clearest channel, such as Vistumbler. But it’s probably faster to just switch between channels 1, 6, and 11 until you find one that works well. (If you have two laptops, you can copy a file between them to test the throughput of each channel.)
But what about 5GHz?
Get ready for lots of antennas.
The great thing about 5GHz (802.11n and 802.11ac) is that because there’s much more free space at the higher frequencies, it offers 23 non-overlapping 20MHz channels.
Starting with 802.11n and continuing with 802.11ac, wireless technology in general became much more advanced than the prehistoric days of 802.11b and g. If you own at least a decent 802.11n or 802.11ac router (i.e. if you bought a router in the last several years), it likely has some hardware inside that chooses the right channel automatically and modifies the output power to maximize throughput and minimize interference.
If you’re using the 5GHz band, and your walls aren’t paper-thin, then attenuation and the general lack of 5GHz devices should mean there’s little interference in your apartment — possibly even allowing you to use the fatter 40, 80, and 160MHz channels if you feel like it. The best browser for mac 2017 shortcut.
Eventually, as everyone upgrades to newer hardware and moves towards 5GHz, picking the right channel will mostly become a thing of the past. There may still be some cases where it makes sense to fine-tune your router’s channel selection. But when you’re dealing with MIMO setups (up to eight in 802.11ac), it’s generally a better idea to let your router do its own thing. Eventually, of course, 5GHz will fill up as well — but hopefully by then, we’ll have worked out how to use even higher frequencies (60GHz WiGig) or entirely new antenna designs (pCells, infinite capacity vortex beams) to cope with our wireless networking demands.
Now read: How to Set Up a Mesh Network
Check out our ExtremeTech Explains series for more in-depth coverage of today’s hottest tech topics.
Sebastian Anthony wrote the original version of this article. It has since been updated with new information.
If your home Wi-Fi has slowed to a crawl, there are all kinds of possible reasons why. Maybe your router has hardware problems or is misconfigured. Maybe your service provider is in the middle of an outage. Or maybe you live in a densely populated area, and your neighbors’ networks are fighting with your own.
That’s…less than ideal.
The thing to find out, though, is whether you and your neighbors happen to be using the same wireless channel. Think of it like radio—if you drive through an area with a ton of competing stations, you won’t be able to hear any of them clearly, right? It’s the same with Wi-Fi.
If you think that’s what’s going on with your network, then, all you may have to do is unplug your wireless router and plug it back in. By default, most devices choose the best channel for the current conditions, so you’ll be set. But if you need to investigate further, I’m going to walk you through finding out how many of your neighbors are on the same channel as you are and some suggestions for what to do if your router doesn’t seem to want to adjust its settings with a reboot.
So to get started, first hold down the Option key, and then click on the Wi-Fi icon in your menu bar.
As I’ve done above, choose “Open Wireless Diagnostics” from the menu. Once the app opens, click on the Window menu and select “Scan.” (You don’t have to do anything with the “Introduction” dialog box that’ll appear.)
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Click “Scan Now” on the new window you’ll get, and there’ll be so much information about the networks around you that you just won’t know what to do, my friends. First of all, the column on the left will give you suggestions for the best channel to use, whether your router is providing a network on the 2.4GHz band or the 5GHz one.
Then you can look at the list of the networks near you to see what’s what. Scroll to the right to find the “Channel” column, and click its header to sort by it.
Luckily, our home network (in bold) is on 5GHz, so we don’t have a ton of competition in our area yet—but I feel sorry for my sad neighbors who are on channel 11 on the 2.4GHz band.
As I noted, if you see that your router is on a channel that’s crowded, just unplugging it and plugging it back in will usually do the trick. It’ll probably grab a better channel if one’s available, and you can go on your merry way. But if a reboot doesn’t work and you’ve gotta switch yours manually to the recommended one shown, you’ll need to do some sleuthing on the best way to do that for your device. With non-Apple equipment, you’ll often just need to find your router’s IP address, shown in
If you type that number into a browser and log in with the correct username and password, you should be able to make changes to your router’s settings. What would the username and password be, you ask? Well, many devices have that info printed out on a label on the hardware; for others, you may need to find the instruction manual online. If that sounds scary or if you can’t figure things out, contact your internet service provider for help.
Finally, if you’re using an Apple router like a Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme, it’s pretty simple to change the wireless channel. Open the AirPort Utility program (it’s within your
Click the “Edit” button to make changes, then go to the “Wireless” tab.
How To Find Best Channel For Wifi Mac Address
At the bottom of that window, you’ll see a “Wireless Options” button, under which is the channel selection.
If the Wireless Diagnostics app suggested channel 1, 6, or 11 as a possible option for 2.4GHz, go with that—I won’t get into the technical details as to why lest you die of boredom. If the app suggests something else it means things are congested. Still choose from 1, 6 or 11, just pick the one closest to the one it suggests.
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Save your changes, update the device, and that’s all there is to it! However, if switching to the recommended channel doesn’t help your network speed, then you may have to do some more troubleshooting, including calling your internet service provider for support. Now, here’s where I’d normally snark at Comcast just as a way to end the article on an upbeat note. But I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to talk about how I’d rather get stung by bees on my eyelids than to have to call their support, no sir.
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I’m above such things. I’ve grown up.