I was once invited to speak at an entrepreneurial event in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Upon arriving at the hotel provided to me, I couldn’t connect my laptop to the hotel’s WiFi. It never failed me before until now. The attentive hotel staff laboured with me for days to get my Internet to work, but to no avail. I finally decided to work from their scenic backyard lobby – a blessing but an inconvenience for my bursty, odd working hours, especially at night.
When I moved to South Korea, I noticed the same issue with some WiFi networks. This often happened at cafes and even at home. Finally, it struck me that the culprit may well be the 2.4 GhZ frequency spectrum that is shared between my wireless mouse and the WiFi network. The very moment that I turned off my wireless mouse is the very moment that my laptop got connected to the Internet. “That’s it!” I thought I screamed inside me.
Suddenly, everything is coming back to me now. The Sri Lanka trip to all the failed WiFi networks. I swear I must have sworn at some of those cafes. It’s the wireless mouse! That’s the root cause of my problem all this while.
Most, if not all, of our wireless electronics gadgets are dependent on the 2.4 GHz frequency – from the innocent Bluetooth headsets or AirPods to our trusty wireless mice and WiFi routers. This is because the 2.4 GHz is the spectrum that is globally recognized as the bandwidth that electronics manufacturers can use without having to pay for a frequency license. In short, it’s a free-to-use frequency for anyone to build their electronics products on. The good news is that it makes products cross-compatible across different manufacturers. The bad news is the noise!
Imagine you’re in a small pitch-dark room with 10 other people sitting at a table speaking English with one another. You need to get your message across to Bob, but you can’t see him. So, you just holler, “Let’s go for a drink after this meeting!” But everyone else could hear your message, thinking it might be meant for them. And, you could hear their messages too. So, everyone’s trying to decipher everyone’s message. See the noise?
Now, imagine only you and Bob speak Spanish, and you say “¡Vamos a tomar algo después de esta reunión!” The rest will not be able to understand you. So, the Spanish message is not regarded as noise to the rest because it’s on a different frequency.
So, the people here are like wireless gadgets, and the data they send and receive is on the 2.4 GHz frequency band – the English frequency, while the Spanish language is on a different frequency. And, the more gadgets you have in the vicinity, the more noise there is.
Back to my original context, my wireless mouse was creating so much noise for my laptop’s WiFi receiver that it couldn’t connect (or hear) the WiFi router. It was worsened by the close proximity of my wireless mouse to my WiFi receiver.
When I downgraded to a wired mouse, my Internet connectivity issue was practically over. This could also be your reason why you need a wired mouse sometimes. You may also need one to avoid the latency issue with the wireless connection, but that’s probably because you’re an avid gamer.
Thus, if you ever find it hard to connect to a WiFi signal, try turning off your wireless mouse.
