Microwave Ovens Cause WiFi Confusion for UK Consumers

A new Censuswide survey of 2,014 UK adults that have broadband, which was commissioned by ISP Zen Internet, has found that 75% of people are unaware that using Microwave Ovens could be “causing havoc” for their home WiFi signal and 8% wrongly believe “hitting their router” will improve connectivity.

A typical Microwave Oven (2.45GHz) uses the same sort of band as WiFi, albeit designed for a completely different task and power levels. Such ovens will cook (i.e. HEAT) food by using lots of power (800 Watts+) and focusing their microwaves at ultra-short-range (a few centimetres).

The ovens themselves are of course shielded for safety, but a small bit of their energy (radiation) will escape during use, which is partly why they tell you not to touch the oven when it’s running. But the energy that does escape can be just enough to briefly create interference for WiFi connectivity on devices in close proximity (roughly a couple of metres), although you can often mitigate this by switching to the 5GHz band instead.

However, clearly many of those responding to Zen’s survey are not aware of this, which is why they’re warning consumers to be careful about router placement. The survey then goes on to identify some other “common misconceptions” among consumers.

Summary of Survey Results

— 72% believe that turning their router off and on again will fix their connectivity issues, with nearly half (49%) doing so

— 40% believe turning off video on conference calls improves connectivity, with one in eight (13%) doing so.

— More than one in five (23%) think broadband providers deliberately confuse them with jargon.

— 42% of those polled don’t think the centre of the home is the best place to put their router for connectivity, when Zen say it is.

— 29% don’t realise that storing the router in a cupboard out of the way will affect their internet connection.

— 19% think the router is a fire hazard.

— 12% believe that WiFi can cause harmful radiation (nope).

— 72% believe the broadband industry has too much jargon in it, with nearly a third (30%) calling it confusing and nearly a quarter (23%) believing providers do it on purpose to confuse people.

In fairness, while switching a router off and on again won’t stop a Microwave Oven from causing connectivity issues on your WiFi, it can sometimes solve other small network problems that may crop (Zen does recognise this later on). As such, there are cases where the odd reboot may help, although it’s generally advisable to just leave the router to do its thing and if you do reboot it then only do so very rarely (on some DSL lines rebooting too often may negatively impact your broadband speed).

Likewise, Zen seems to suggest that turning off video on conference calls won’t improve connectivity, but on very slower broadband lines it may improve wider connectivity by adding some extra speed back into your local network that was previously being used (especially on upstream). But this really depends more on how you define an improvement in connectivity and the capability of your existing connection.

The survey also indicates that the centre of your home is the best place to put a router, but in reality this may vary depending upon the layout of each property and what its walls are made of. In addition, anybody connecting via a copper line (ADSL, FTTC) will need their router to be as close to the Mastersocket as possible in order to get the best broadband speeds from their ISP (i.e. WiFi isn’t the only factor in network speed and stability).

The existence of WiFi extenders / repeaters and Powerline adapters should also mean that problems with WiFi related router placement are generally easier to overcome than problems with your broadband line.