Meraki AP interference

[dandog2500]

Hello all, I have a new Meraki stack at home; switch, firewall, and ap. But, I'm getting constant 802.11 association/disassociation and auth/deauth. Its non stop and some of the devices are almost unusable i.e. firestick (1st gen). Also my speeds have dropped from 180mpbs to about 50mbps download.

I think my problem is interference from other broadcasts like wifi direct, or hotspots. There is a number one culprit but I cannot tell who it is based on the mac address. When i look up the first six digits of the MAC online, I get nothing!! Does anyone recognize this? I don't want to capture/Air marshal it its someones wifi.

Interfering signal:

Name: Hidden MAC: fe:64:4b:ae:62:23 (and 42 others) last seen: 12 seconds ago First seen: 3 weeks ago Status: uncontained


thanks!

 

[Ralston18]

Have you tried other channels within the current frequency?

Have you tried the other frequency and/or channels within that frequency?

Try downloading one of those apps that displays local frequencies and channels.

Here is a link that may be helpful:

https://www.networkworld.com/article/2925081/wi-fi/8-free-wi-fi-stumbling-and-surveying-tools.html

You have identified some culprit(s) but the only choice you may have is to use a less congested channel.

Does not matter who they are (or may be) as MAC's are easily spoofed.

 

[dandog2500]

Hi Ralston, I have tried channels 1, 6, and 11 on the 2.5Ghz and 60 on the 5Ghz. The Meraki interface has a page for the RF spectrum and shows what ssids or MACs are interfering and how the channels congestion looks. For some reason I also cannot click on this mac address to do anything to it, such as contain it. If its a valid MAC why is it not registered to a company? (First 6 characters).

I've found another issue with my speeds overall though. When My comcast modem is not bridged, I get 180Mbps down, 6 up. When its in bridge mode passing responsibility to the Meraki MX64, the best speed i get off the modem is 50Mbps. Is this something on Comcasts side? Once its in bridge mode there isn't much I can do as far as configuring.

 

[Ralston18]

I tried a couple online tools to look for the manufacturer using/assigned fe:64:4b:ae:62:23

E.g.,

https://www.macvendorlookup.com/

Results = "no vendor", "locally administered", "not found" - much as you probably discovered.

What are some of the 42 MAC you noted?


As for the Meraki/bridging my thought is that things slow down only because there is another device in the overall communications path and that device adds overhead.

What sort of area do you live in: congested with homes, apartments, dorms, hotels? If both frequencies and all associated channels are heavily used it does not matter what MAC's are involved. You can keep them off your network but not out of the RF.

Not sure what to suggest other than you transition to wired as much as you feasibly can.

And hopefully someone else will be able to provide some additional ideas and suggestions.

 

[dandog2500]

It doesn't show me the 42 others. It only shows me two. Maybe I'm chasing the wrong thing here but the overall performance is not great. Older clients are constantly falling off or deauthenticating, associating then disassociating, skipping video streams and so on.Those macs are on channel 9 according to the meraki dashboard. So they arent on my lan but seem to be interfering somehow.

I live in a suburban neighborhood at the end of the street, there arent a lot of homes. Probably 5 or 6 houses within an wifi range.

 

[Ralston18]

Not sure what else to suggest.

Almost seems to needs a forensic analysis of some sort. E.g., identify the location/source of the interference.

Think back to when the problems started: any new neighbors, any local construction, new lines run somewhere, new signs, anything at all?

Wondering if someone is using a jammer?

Did some googling. Example article:

https://www.jammer-buy.com/WiFi-jammers-are-used-in-homes.html

Lots of similar links and some are "how-to" instructions even.

If you feel that something illegal is going on then contact local authorities. Do not intervene on your own.