Signal Strength vs. Signal Quality

Most wireless utilities show signal strength and quality in bar graphs, or as a percentage value, but they don't tell you what a signal at 100 percent strength is 100 percent of. It's important to understand that signal strength and signal quality are not the same thing; a wireless adapter does not have to receive a signal at full strength to move data at the maximum possible speed. As long as the receiver can capture a clean signal, the network's performance should be acceptable. But even a strong signal can suffer if the receiver also picks up interference from other wireless networks or from other devices that use the same radio frequencies, such as wireless telephones and microwave ovens.

And even if the data ...

Get The Book of Wireless, Second Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.