Xbox 360's Jamming Wireless Signals?

WirePosted writes "A report has emerged suggesting the Xbox 360's inbuilt wireless system for communication with wireless controllers and headsets is transmitting over a wide area of the 2.4Ghz spectrum, causing interference to WLAN's and other 2.4Ghz devices."

Old News

[JedaFlain]

This isn't really new news as shown by this [slashdot.org] article from 2005. It talks about Wal-Mart's problems with some of it's 360 kiosks causing problems with their wireless inventory system.

Not just the x-box

[methano]

I know we're supposed to hate MS and love the competition (and I do), but my wife claims that the Wii is also messing up the WiFi signal to her laptop.

Sounds like FUD

[paranode]

There's a lot of stuff that operates in this range. From the article itself it merely says: "It's not clear whether the signal disrupts the college's WLAN access points or students' wireless notebooks. There is some anecdotal evidence, however, that it at least affects other radios in the same 2.4GHz band." Basically the article just talks about a 'strange' 2.4GHz signal that they found and didn't know where it came from. Turned out it came from the XBox 360 (and that is admittedly his "best guess"). No evidence or claim in the article that it is interfering with any WLANs, he basically just says they need to do more 'systematic testing' (that is, putting a bunch of 360s in the room to see if they can cause interference).

Nothing to see here...

Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all....

[Shakrai]

I didn't say that the signal wasn't detectable only that it didn't (at least shouldn't) cause interference that made another RF device inoperable

An idle wi-fi network doesn't make the cordless phone inoperable (though hearing the clicks every time the wi-fi network beacons is annoying), but a network running some decent traffic load will render the phone next to useless.

but such as the life of using an FCC part 15 device in the ISM band...

Indeed. I'd like to see the FCC open up more unlicensed bands but limit each band to a certain type of device -- i.e: this band for DSSS devices, this band for FHSS devices, etc, etc. Most of the interference with 2.4Ghz seems to be related to devices that use different types of air interfaces. For the most part those using the same interface co-exist without issue.

Re:Microsoft and Radio? Help us all....

[Achromatic1978]

Anecdotally, I have my doubts. I have a pretty complex network - the office upstairs (with 4 LAN devices, including a Polycom phone) is connected via a wireless bridge between upstairs and downstairs with two Linksys routers. Where does my router downstairs sit? Right on top of my XBox 360. I VPN without a hiccup, use the phone without a hiccup, and stream music, whilst my partner and her friends have played games downstairs on the 360 for hours and not once have I ever seen the network hiccup as a result.

802.11a? Anyone?

[Guppy06]

Everybody has to make devices that use the same spectrum, meaning everybody wants to make devices that utilize that spectrum for the sake of cross-compatibility. This would be a non-issue were it not for 99% of home wireless networking hardware supporting b/g exclusively.

I'm looking forward to the IEEE finalizing 802.11n if for no other reason than because I'll finally be able to get 5 GHz access points without paying through the nose for office equipment.

Re:How long has the XBOX 360 been out?

[DaveCBio]

Troll? http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=ps3+controller+loses+connection&meta= [google.ca] Have a gander.