Cellphone tower Interference

[RyGuy92]

Greetings, I am really hoping someone can help me out here since I feel I have exhausted all of my options. Over the past few weeks I have had increased issues with my Wi-fi. The 2.4gh network to be specific. It started with extremely high pings in games that would eventually lead to me being kicked off of my network. The issue would subside for a little while but would always come back with vengeance. I have contacted my ISP several times and spent probably a total of 3 hours on the phone with them.

I have had them come to my house and check everything over, and even replace my modem. Still nothing worked, and I'd end up in the same boat calling my ISP and going through the same series of questions over and over again. "How far is your modem away, how many people are on your network, do you have interference from baby monitors, microwaves, garage door openers, are you hard wired, ect..." Nothing has changed in my house nor are there many devices on my network to begin with.

I am unable to hard wire at this point in time, but it is something I plan on doing in the near future for my PC. My internet speed is supposed to be 100mb down and 10 up. Depending on the time of day, I either get 10mb down or under 1mb or none at all and it affects all devices. So this leads me to the title of my issue.

After hours of getting nowhere with my ISP, I came to the realization my ISP has been building cell phone tower right next door to my house. The issues I have been dealing with started when they began work on tower and testing it. The official launch of the tower was yesterday and my internet was worthless for most of the day. Sometimes it has its moments where it does work for maybe half an hour but it never lasts.

So I am stuck and have no idea what steps to take to hopefully fix this issue, since I am getting nowhere currently trying to talk to anybody in the company. Usually all they do is ping the modem and say the modem is online and it is an issue on my end which it is not from what I can tell. Everyone no matter the device connected to the 2.4g is kicked off, but anyone on the 5g is fine. I can tell when they are doing work on the tower, because when my cell phone bars go up, down or off completely my internet goes out. Even when the tower is maintaining its normal coverage my internet speed is still awful. During this time though my modem is still working properly and unless you are standing directly next to the modem on the 2.4 network it is worthless.

The steps I have done thus far
- ISP tried different bandwidths
- Tried changing different channels
- Updated drivers
- Changed wifi passwords
- Tried just having 1 device on the network
- Tried different security settings on modem
- Turned off all firewalls
- Made sure all devices are up to date
- Tried moving modem to a higher position
- Had techs out to my house
- Have a brand new modem with latest firmware ( ARRIS ) is the modem brand

Does anyone have any advice for me, and has anyone ever ran into this before? Thank you in advance!

 

[kanewolf]

Most cellphone frequencies are very different than 2.4Ghz -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies_in_the_US (US for example). There could be a harmonic that could cause interference, but the fundamental frequency won't interfere. If you can't use an ethernet cable, have you tried powerline networking ?

 

[RyGuy92]

Most cellphone frequencies are very different than 2.4Ghz -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies_in_the_US (US for example). There could be a harmonic that could cause interference, but the fundamental frequency won't interfere. If you can't use an ethernet cable, have you tried powerline networking ?

I have not attempted this yet, but it is something I will definitely look into. I'll try anything at this point. Some of the people I have spoken to about this issue have hypothesized it may be temporary issue while they are fine tuning the tower.

 

[Solandri]

As stated above, it's highly unlikely the cell phone tower is interfering. And if it somehow is, the fault probably lies more with your equipment having insufficient filtering to block out nearby frequencies. Cell towers have to comply with FCC regulations or they get their license yanked. 2.4 GHz devices are unlicensed as long as their broadcast strength is less than 1 Watt.

Even if you're "unable to hardwire" right now, you need to do it once with a cable strung out across your floor (or lug your computer down to the router so you can use a shorter cable), just to verify that the problem is in fact due to your WiFi link. The problem could actually turn out to be your modem, or router, or ISP.

2.4 GHz is extremely crowded with lots of things other than WiFi operating at or near it which can cause interference. Wireless keyboards and mice, Bluetooth devices, other standalone wireless devices like baby monitors, and microwave ovens all operate at or near 2.4 GHz. Any of them (or any combination of them since 2.4 GHz doesn't have many independent channels) could be the cause of your problems. If you've been itching to upgrade to 5 GHz (802.11ac is 5 GHz-only), this would be a good reason.

 

[RyGuy92]

As stated above, it's highly unlikely the cell phone tower is interfering. And if it somehow is, the fault probably lies more with your equipment having insufficient filtering to block out nearby frequencies. Cell towers have to comply with FCC regulations or they get their license yanked. 2.4 GHz devices are unlicensed as long as their broadcast strength is less than 1 Watt.

Even if you're "unable to hardwire" right now, you need to do it once with a cable strung out across your floor (or lug your computer down to the router so you can use a shorter cable), just to verify that the problem is in fact due to your WiFi link. The problem could actually turn out to be your modem, or router, or ISP.

2.4 GHz is extremely crowded with lots of things other than WiFi operating at or near it which can cause interference. Wireless keyboards and mice, Bluetooth devices, other standalone wireless devices like baby monitors, and microwave ovens all operate at or near 2.4 GHz. Any of them (or any combination of them since 2.4 GHz doesn't have many independent channels) could be the cause of your problems. If you've been itching to upgrade to 5 GHz (802.11ac is 5 GHz-only), this would be a good reason.

Thanks for the response. Everything you've mentioned above that could interfere with the network, I either don't own or I unplugged or disabled them to try to rule any home interference out. It's not just my PC that has the issues, its any cell phone or laptop as well. I will pick up an ethernet cable or find one if I can at the moment. and try running a test hard wired. The one computer on the 5G as well as any cell on the 5G is untouched and works great.