[TriLUG] WiFi quality monitoring

[Igor Partola]

I have a problem with my new Wi-Fi setup that I cannot make go away using
the usual methods. The problem:

 - Intermittent but high packet loss over Wi-Fi. This can last anywhere
from 2 to 60 seconds where 5-75% of the packets are lost.

 - Intermittent high ping times. Normally, I see ping times in the range of
2-3 ms, but about every 10-50 packets it jumps to 100-300 ms.

 - Probably related to packet loss, but loss of speed. During normal
operation I can easily see iperf speeds of about 80 Mbps. During slowdowns,
I am seeing speeds of 2-3 Mbps. There are also times when I see speeds of
around 20-30 Mbps for no good reason (no other device on the network is
active).

 - Random connectivity dropouts on iPhones/iPads.

 - All of this happens on both 2.4 and 5 GHz networks.

Things I tried/eliminated:

 - My laptop normally sits 5 feet away from the router.

 - There is only one other Wi-Fi network around me, on a 2.4 GHz band. I do
have two Roku's which use Wi-Fi for their remotes, but when issues happen
nobody is using them.

 - I changed channels to several different values with no success.

 - I monitored the noise and signal levels and they tend to fluctuate quite
a bit.

My current suspicion is that the AT&T Microcell is what's causing the
issues, but I have no good way to prove it one way or the other. So the
questions:

 1. Can a GSM microcell intermittently interfere with 2.4 and 5 GHz Wi-Fi?

 2. Is there an existing piece of software that can continuously monitor
the quality of my Wi-Fi (signal, noise, ping, actual bandwidth via an iperf
type test) for 24-48 hours? I'd like to run it with the microcell running,
then again without it to see if that is in fact the issue.

Thanks,
Igor