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Fuzzy Logic Xbox 360’s jamming wireless signals?
Fuzzy Logic Xbox 360’s jamming wireless signals? | Xbox 360’s jamming wireless signals? |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Monday, 17 December 2007 | |
  
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A ‘strong signal’ on the 2.4Ghz band, attributed to the wireless transmitter within the Xbox 360, was detected when an Xbox 360 was turned on, using a device called a ‘Cognio Spectrum Expert’ which plugs into laptops and identified what kind of devices are generating signals in the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands, usually used for WLANs, baby monitors and other wireless devices. The signal generated by the Xbox 360 was strong, interfering with other 2.4Ghz signals, and was also unrecognised by the Cognio software – no doubt there will soon be an update that correctly identifies the Xbox’s wireless footprint, but for now, it seems the Morrisville IT staff are the first to make their findings widely known. According to the report, the Xbox’s 360’s wireless emissions are present even when the console is in ‘sleep mode’, as it waits for any signals from its wireless controllers to wake up again. Using a static discharge bag wrapped around the Xbox apparently muffled some of the signal’s strength, likely leading to a new wave of third party accessories designed to contain the Xbox 360’s wireless footprint, although it will still need to offer users a robust and reliable connection to their wireless controllers or no-one will use them. WLAN’s are thought to be communicating with notebooks and other wireless devices in parts of the 2.4Ghz spectrum that aren’t affected by the Xbox 360, causing the network to work harder and potentially ‘drop frames’ or suffer from degraded performance by needing to actively avoid frequencies the Xbox 360 is broadcasting on with its strong signal. Questions have emerged over just how strong the Xbox 360 interference is, with at least one commenter to the Networld World story anonymously verifying similar wireless interference on a baby monitor whenever the Xbox 360 is turned on. Another anonymous commenter said a similar kind of interference occured with his PS3 was on, but that has not been confirmed. One would imagine that widespread wireless network problems would be accompanying ever Xbox 360 installation, but as there are only really the Morrisville experiences to go on, more testing is inevitably taking place around the world at this moment - and not just for Xbox 360s but all kinds of wireless devices. If the wireless transmissions turn out to be too strong for most people’s liking, something that is yet to be determined and, as yet, not acknowledged by Microsoft, perhaps a firmware update could moderate wireless transmission while still ensuring a solid wireless connection to headsets and controllers. Either way, it serves as a lesson to all manufacturers of wireless devices that the 2.4Ghz band and the 5Ghz band are public bands that are shared between all kinds of devices. Playing nice with your neighbours is always good policy, and in a wireless world, more so than ever! |
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