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I have a wireless home network based on a 3Com OfficeConnect Wireless 11g Cable device. A few laptops, my iPhone and my wife's iPod touch usually connect wirelessly and a printer plus a couple of NAS devices are connected by wire. Everything used to work fine until a few weeks ago. Since then, the wireless connection drops on the iPhone and iPod touch every so often, but never on the wireless laptops. The wired connection never drops either.

The latest changes I have made to the network are an upgrade from Windows Vista to to Windows 7 on a couple of machines, and a firmware update on a NAS device. I don't think this could be related, but I can't be sure anymore. Anyone has an idea of what the cause of this issue may be? Thank you.

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Keep in mind that when it comes to wireless the issue could be completely unrelated to anything you did. For example do you have any new neighbors who enabled a wifi on the same channel? – Zoredache Feb 2 '11 at 0:02
@Zoredache: I understand. But wouldn't that affect all my wireless devices? My wireless laptops are unaffected; it's only my iPhone and iPod touch that are unstable. – CesarGon Feb 2 '11 at 0:05
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not necessarily. Your working equipment could have a better antenna, they could be in a better location. The radios could be better (more power, more able to filter out noise). The really fun bit is that interference could be coming many different kinds of equipment (cordless telephone, a microwave oven, RF remotes). The iPhone, iPod are very small devices meaning they don't have a great antenna, and they use a low level of power to avoid draining the battery. – Zoredache Feb 2 '11 at 0:35
@Zoredache: I understand. I have changed channels in my wireless router; we will see how it goes. Many thanks for your advice. I suggest you put your comment as an answer; if it works, I should set yours as accepted, since you mentioned this first. – CesarGon Feb 2 '11 at 0:44

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try changing the channel or frequency on your wireless router (1 tru 9)onthe router, someone else in the neighborhood may have set up a router using the same channel.

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Thanks, Bruce. I have switched from channel 11 (the one in use until now) to channel 7. We will see how it goes. Still, wouldn't that affect all my wireless devices equally? – CesarGon Feb 2 '11 at 0:18
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@Cesar - channels bleed over a bit, so there's not really 11 full non-interfering channels. Try to stick to 1, 6, and 11 where possible. – Joel Coehoorn Feb 2 '11 at 0:56
@Joel: I didn't know that. Thanks, I will do. – CesarGon Feb 2 '11 at 0:59
wouldn't that affect all my wireless devices equally? -- Not really ther are a lot of variables that come into play, bandwith, signal strength, distance etc - Bruce – Bruce Feb 3 '11 at 0:01

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