I have just moved into a new Apartment and have had poor performance with 2.4GHz wireless and pretty much have given up on doing anything about it, but the part of my brain that wants answers isn't satisfied.
Here is where I would post a screenshot from inSSIDer, but can't, so I'll describe it. About 12 APs with a strength of about -85dBm. Very frequently at least one of them spikes to -50, and occasionally one may spike to -20 or better.
I've tried about 4 different wireless routers, and on every device get fairly consistently about 10Mbps down, while wired gives me my subscribed 50Mbps.
What I find interesting that while there are a fair amount of other wireless networks, it doesn't seem to be enough to cut my speed down to 10Mbps.
Also interesting is the frequent and intense spikes in signal strength from other APs. The APs that get the signal spikes don't appear to be consistent, I've seen just about each one get at least one "intense" (reading -20dBm or better) at some point or another.
Device, routers physical location, channel, and all other typical variables have been tested and have a negligible effect on download speed (as tested on speedtest.net).
Environment Details: I am in a corner, 2nd/top floor apartment. Within 500feet is the edge of housing development, a strip mall of about 5 businesses, and half of my apartment complex (2 or 3 dozen apartments).
Could someone be doing something illegal on 2.4Ghz that would cause so much interference?