Culprit in Wi-Fi Failures: Chicken Wire

For those that do not want to be part of any 'smart grid' -- I wonder if  
this would be the way to go as maybe it would prevent all those  future  
wireless appliances from communicating with smart devises outside the room they  
are in?  as well as shielding those living in the houses from  electrosmog?
               Shan
 
 
Culprit in Wi-Fi Failures: Chicken  Wire
_http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB126221116097210861-lMyQjAxMTIwNjAyMTI
wMTExWj.html_
(http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB126221116097210861-lMyQjAxMTIwNjAyMTIwMTExWj.html)
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
 
 
Two things beloved by San Francisco resident Galen  Pewtherer just couldn*t
get along: his Edwardian-style house and wireless  Internet access.
 
 
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.
 
 
The problem dates to before drywall became a popular  building material in
the 1950s. Before then, construction crews usually made  walls out of
plaster applied to lath, a base structure that holds it up. Often,  lath in
Victorian and Edwardian-era homes was made of wood stapled with chicken  wire, a
cheap fencing material that also doubles as lightweight support. The  problem
occurs in other cities too, but San Francisco has an unusually dense  
collection of old homes and gadget lovers.
 
 
**It*s the old bumping into the new,** says Mike Scott, a  technical media
manager for network gear maker D-Link Corp., who fields many  questions
about chicken wire. **How were people 70 years ago supposed to know  that we
were going to have all of these wireless gadgets?**
 
 
Many factors can disrupt wireless networks, including  steel girders,
air-conditioning vents and water-filled objects -- including  humans and pets.
But even with its many holes, chicken wire creates a  particularly powerful
metal shield.
 
 
Physicists call it a **Faraday cage** -- a metal structure  that impedes
electricity and waves -- because the fencing is the perfect size to  catch
waves generated by 2.4-gigahertz Wi-Fi networks. **It turns out that  chicken
wire is almost perfectly the right wavelength of a Wi-Fi signal,**  says Karl
Garcia, who sets up Google Inc.*s free Wi-Fi efforts. **It acts  just like
a solid piece of metal.**
 
 
Google*s plans to bring citywide Wi-Fi to San Francisco  died in 2007 for
political reasons. But Mr. Garcia says making it work in a city  filled with
so many hills -- and so much chicken wire -- would have created  unique
technical challenges.
 
 
San Francisco resident Alex Menendez, a partner in  boutique Internet
service provider MonkeyBrains.net, discovered the difference  chicken wire can
make when he recently gutted a 130-year-old house in the  Mission. He removed
one-inch metal mesh behind plaster walls and replaced it  with drywall.
However, the co-owner of the property left his original walls  intact.
 
 
The result: Wi-Fi networks flow smoothly through Mr.  Menendez*s part of
the property. But according to their tests, his neighbor*s  walls lose as much
as 75% of the signal and 33% of the throughput.
 
 
There are workarounds for the problem beyond knocking out  walls, and Mr.
Pewtherer in the Mission has tried almost all of them. He bought  special
equipment to **bridge** signals between the rooms, but it worked only in  spots
where there was a clean line of sight from a wireless transmitter to the  
receiver.
 
 
He also built a signal-boosting antenna out of an old  Pringles can, known
as a **cantenna,** following some online instructions.  Despite cranking the
cantenna signal **high enough to cook bacon,** it improved  his signal only
minimally, he says.
 
 
In the end, he gave up on wireless entirely and ran  Ethernet cable through
the walls and floorboards in the building. But the  Ethernet network ended
up solving only one wireless problem. The same factors  that prevented Wi-Fi
signals from penetrating Mr. Pewthere*s walls also kept out  cellphone
signals. **I basically had to stand on the fire escape to get a cell  signal,**
he says.
 
 
He has since moved to another building with an open plan  -- and no
wireless woes.
 
 
 
Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at _geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com_
(mailto:[hidden email])  
 
 
 

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

That poor ignorant sap who moved out of the old house in S.F. because he was so miffed he couldn't get Wi-Fi represents the vast majority of the brainwashed public.  So trusting of Corporations who put things on the market - Remember the Thalidamide Babies back in the early 1960's? 

I bet the city council can't wait to tear down some of those old houses to make way for technologyy.



--- On Wed, 12/12/12, [hidden email] <[hidden email]> wrote:

From: [hidden email] <[hidden email]>
Subject: [eSens] Culprit in Wi-Fi Failures: Chicken Wire
To: [hidden email]
Date: Wednesday, December 12, 2012, 12:01 AM








 



 


   
     
     
      For those that do not want to be part of any 'smart grid' -- I wonder if  

this would be the way to go as maybe it would prevent all those  future  

wireless appliances from communicating with smart devises outside the room they  

are in?  as well as shielding those living in the houses from  electrosmog?

               Shan

 

 

Culprit in Wi-Fi Failures: Chicken  Wire

_http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB126221116097210861-lMyQjAxMTIwNjAyMTI

wMTExWj.html_

(http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB126221116097210861-lMyQjAxMTIwNjAyMTIwMTExWj.html)

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

 

 

Two things beloved by San Francisco resident Galen  Pewtherer just couldn*t

get along: his Edwardian-style house and wireless  Internet access.

 

 

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.

 

 

The problem dates to before drywall became a popular  building material in

the 1950s. Before then, construction crews usually made  walls out of

plaster applied to lath, a base structure that holds it up. Often,  lath in

Victorian and Edwardian-era homes was made of wood stapled with chicken  wire, a

cheap fencing material that also doubles as lightweight support. The  problem

occurs in other cities too, but San Francisco has an unusually dense  

collection of old homes and gadget lovers.

 

 

**It*s the old bumping into the new,** says Mike Scott, a  technical media

manager for network gear maker D-Link Corp., who fields many  questions

about chicken wire. **How were people 70 years ago supposed to know  that we

were going to have all of these wireless gadgets?**

 

 

Many factors can disrupt wireless networks, including  steel girders,

air-conditioning vents and water-filled objects -- including  humans and pets.

But even with its many holes, chicken wire creates a  particularly powerful

metal shield.

 

 

Physicists call it a **Faraday cage** -- a metal structure  that impedes

electricity and waves -- because the fencing is the perfect size to  catch

waves generated by 2.4-gigahertz Wi-Fi networks. **It turns out that  chicken

wire is almost perfectly the right wavelength of a Wi-Fi signal,**  says Karl

Garcia, who sets up Google Inc.*s free Wi-Fi efforts. **It acts  just like

a solid piece of metal.**

 

 

Google*s plans to bring citywide Wi-Fi to San Francisco  died in 2007 for

political reasons. But Mr. Garcia says making it work in a city  filled with

so many hills -- and so much chicken wire -- would have created  unique

technical challenges.

 

 

San Francisco resident Alex Menendez, a partner in  boutique Internet

service provider MonkeyBrains.net, discovered the difference  chicken wire can

make when he recently gutted a 130-year-old house in the  Mission. He removed

one-inch metal mesh behind plaster walls and replaced it  with drywall.

However, the co-owner of the property left his original walls  intact.

 

 

The result: Wi-Fi networks flow smoothly through Mr.  Menendez*s part of

the property. But according to their tests, his neighbor*s  walls lose as much

as 75% of the signal and 33% of the throughput.

 

 

There are workarounds for the problem beyond knocking out  walls, and Mr.

Pewtherer in the Mission has tried almost all of them. He bought  special

equipment to **bridge** signals between the rooms, but it worked only in  spots

where there was a clean line of sight from a wireless transmitter to the  

receiver.

 

 

He also built a signal-boosting antenna out of an old  Pringles can, known

as a **cantenna,** following some online instructions.  Despite cranking the

cantenna signal **high enough to cook bacon,** it improved  his signal only

minimally, he says.

 

 

In the end, he gave up on wireless entirely and ran  Ethernet cable through

the walls and floorboards in the building. But the  Ethernet network ended

up solving only one wireless problem. The same factors  that prevented Wi-Fi

signals from penetrating Mr. Pewthere*s walls also kept out  cellphone

signals. **I basically had to stand on the fire escape to get a cell  signal,**

he says.

 

 

He has since moved to another building with an open plan  -- and no

wireless woes.

 

 

 

Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at _geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com_

(mailto:[hidden email])  

 

 

 



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]





   
     

   
   






 





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]