Christmas Lights Slowing Your WiFi
FYI, Your Christmas Lights Could Slow Down Your Wi-Fi Speed | Chris D’Angelo | Huffington Post
Christmas lights and other household electronics, it turns out, can interfere with and have a negative effect on wi-fi speed, according to United Kingdom independent regulator Ofcom.
As NBC News reports, electronic gadgets generate electro-magnetic fields that can create interference with wireless communications.
Daniel Carpini, vice president of marketing at xG Technology, which develops interference-resistant wireless communications for clients like the U.S. military, told NBC that while Christmas lights emit a very small amount of energy, “it’s possible that your Christmas lights will have some effect on your router and broadband performance.”
Others, however, disagree.
“We have not seen any significant Wi-Fi interference from LED Christmas lights,” a Cisco spokesperson told NBC. “But consumers may experience interference from Wi-Fi enabled controllers and switches that are used to turn on and off their Christmas lights.”
Those fancy fairy lights you’ve lovingly draped over the Christmas tree might look pretty, but they could be causing slower Wi-Fi speeds, UK telecoms regulator Ofcom has warned.
The watchdog has added the festive lights to the likes of baby monitors and microwave ovens as troublesome electronics that may cause interference to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi signals. It estimates up to six million homes and offices could improve the quality and performance of their Internet connection by removing the offending electronics.
How to Test Your Connection for Interference
To help Wi-Fi users find out if their connection is suffering from interference, Ofcom has released the “Ofcom Wi-Fi Checker” app for Android and iOS. It performs two tests for data loss and data delay across your network and tells you how well your Wi-Fi network is performing.
