Too Many Wireless Signals?

My inlaws have Verizon Fios with wireless built into the modem/router, located in the office area of their house. When they first set it up, their TV in the family room picked it up just fine. Now they get a low level signal that drops off intermitently. I thought it might be the Fios device having problems until I installed a WiFi N access point in another part of the house and found that it too had very limited range. Using a signal strength app on my laptop, I found nearly 20 SIDs in range with moderate signal strength including 2 from Time Warner Cable's WiFi network. The strength of the stronger signals all seemed to fluctuate over time. It occurred to me that these devices might all be competing/interfering with each other.

My question here for anyone with wireless experience is whether too many wireless signals are likely the problem, and if so, what possible solutions are there?

Build a parabolic EMP gun and go to town on the neighbors?
http://www.amazing1.com/Graphics/emp400.jpg
EMP/HERF SHOCK PULSE GENERATORS

To reply with a little more substance other than the obligatory 'funny' response, yes, wi-fi signal strength can and will be interfered with by other wi-fi signals as well as any electromagnetic waves emitted from most electronic devices.

Here is a good article explaining the different types of interference that may effect WiFi
http://www.far-far-away.com/~yousif/articles/wifi-sig.php

All I can say is, location, location, location.


Paint the exterior facing walls with lead paint? Good luck.

Thanks for your input KT. Especially the EMP gun! When I was at the store picking up the access point, I couldn't help noticing that they had lots of various WiFi range extenders. Some that are boosters and some that use your household wiring to set up a repeater in another room. I'm guessing that with so many people going wireless these days, a lot of folks are having signal issues.

There should be a setting on the router that allows you to change the transmission channel. Try changing to a different channel (they go from 1 to 11) and see if that makes a difference. Type 192.168.1.1 into your browser and the router settings should come up.

Feel free to PM me if you need more info.

Channel interference on wireless routers will usually bleed over by 5 channels. So if you are on channel 1, channels 1-5 will likely cause interference. Most routers come installed with 6 or 11. You can probably change it to channel 1 and get the least interference.

I have Fios also and I have an old desktop PC in the front part of my house about 35 feet from the router. The wireless signal craps out all the time. My neighbors around me also have wireless routers, about 5 others are within range. I'm thinking my desktop PC is being interfered with.