Detecting Heavy Traffic

[netsider]

Is there anyway to measure how much wireless traffic there is in a certain area?

 

[timberdoodle]

Only thing I can think of is running cacti on the switch interface that your WAP is running on....assuming everything about your network

 

[netsider]

Yea... I looked at that... thanks for the info. That's pretty neat, too, but I was mainly wondering how you can just generally detect the amount of 2.4ghz traffic (not necessarily just wireless signals from routers/NICs) in general.. since there is so much of it everywhere and pretty much half of everything interferes/transmits at that frequency (like bluetooth, although I don't know how far... 10 meters?). I'm pretty much wondering how I can find the BEST spot in certain rooms in my house, using *something* to detect that frequency. I'm pretty good at looking things up, and think I read somewhere that you can use an AM radio and you'll be able to hear the noise, or something to that effect? And I guess noise can somewhat determine the amount of traffic, interference, quality of the signal, etc..right? I'm just trying to piece together bits and pieces of what I know to try to detect the best Wifi spot for G/N adapters in my house. Is there anywhere that describes or explains a way to do this? I found links describing how to find the best spot to place your router at, but not anything in terms of adapters (not too much anyway, just bits and pieces). I guess the router location would make more sense, but what if you can't, or don't want to move it? I also saw tools you could buy to determine the quality of the wireless signal and to locate dead spots... but is there anyway to just walk around my house with something (Like an AM radio?), and dynmically, on the fly, locate the best spot to place an adapter? Sorry to be so long winded.. and any help is appreciated. Thanks guys!

P.S. - I forgot to mention (and should have) that I don't want to use software or the actual computer or laptop just to try and determine the best signal strength.... because that doesn't tell me about the amount of 2.4Ghz traffic/interference.

 

[gimp]

It sounds like you're looking for something like Wi-Spy

When I used it at my last job, it would show the interference being caused by a customer's 2.4GHz phone.

 

[goodcooper]

you can get a ubiquiti loco m2 and use it w/ a spectrum analyzer as well... 50 bucks...

 

[netsider]

I've been on "vacation" (from the forums, not from real life LOL).. and I will look into this a little further, once this school's semester ends. Just didn't want anybody thinking that I post on here, and then never check back. I saw these replies, but I was just too busy. I've looked into Wi-Spy, and I think that's probably along the lines of what I'm looking for. I haven't tried the other (last) suggestion yet.

For the A+ exam, some of the questions were based around "detecting heavy network traffic", and I really didn't understand how heavy traffic could be "diagnosed" (perhaps on a wired network, but not so much on a wireless one). On a wired network, do some routers/switches keep track of the amount of traffic, and things like that? I've never really worked with or seen enterprise/business class routers/switches.

 

[green91]

+1 for the wi-spy. For best results, try and turn off any WAPs in your control before you do the spectrum analysis to see what's in the freq. range that's out of your control.