My Airport Express keeps picking up my neighbors wi-fi signal. When this happens it interferes with my signal. I have tried changing the channel on my base station but that didn't work. I use a satellite network for my internet and my provider says my signal is strong. How can I set up my Airport Express to ignore the other signal.
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.5)
Unfortunately, wireless interference is pretty much a fact of life these days with the explosion of wireless networks. There are far too many networks and far too few wireless channels to use.
In general, you would want to locate your AirPort Express as far away as possible from any outside walls in your home or apartment, to help keep it from picking up signals from the neighbors. I assume that you are using the Express to broadcast a Wi-Fi signal, correct?
Unless you have a way of knowing which channel might be the better choice to use at any given time, you may have better results simply restarting the AirPort Express from time to time. When you do this, the Express will automatically scan to find the best channel to use at the time. In crowded areas, you may need to restart the Express almost daily, since other wireless routers are also scanning and looking for available channels.
Are you sure that the neighbor's Wi-Fi really is the culprit? More often than not, the real problem for wireless networks is interference from cordless phones. If you have not already turned off all of your cordless phones for a few hours as a test, to see how the Express performs that way......now or soon might be a good time.
Depending on the capability of your devices, and the model of Express that you have, it might be possible to set up a separate 5 GHz network for your devices to use. Since there is less interference on the 5 GHz bands.....for now....you may have better results using this higher frequency if all of your device support it.
I'll try that. Thank you!
Airport Express interference.
