Local Thieves using Wi-Fi Jammer

A few days ago a couple of Houston’s local TV stations ran a story about thieves using a Wi-Fi jamming device in order to defeat the common wireless security cameras. This sort of thing is very triggering for me. I have long believed that Wi-Fi, while convenient, is not your friend. Things that you truly rely upon should be physically connected to your network. By “physically connected “ I mean Ethernet. Accept no substitutes.

We have a handful of surveillance cameras hereabouts. They are all connected via Ethernet. It provides both connectivity and power. This way, they are powered from the Eaton UPS that runs the network core. The network stays up even when utility power is lost.

Our cameras were inexpensive. Installing them took some effort. Most of the work was in running the network cables. It was worth it. Given the camera locations, I was going to have to run power in any case. Better to run Ethernet that provides reliable connectivity and power.

Further, a network cable provides dedicated bandwidth. The camera has its own 1 GB connection to the switch. That connection is not influenced by anything else on the network.

In contrast, Wi-Fi is shared bandwidth. An access point shares its total available bandwidth with all the wireless clients that are connected. Start watching a 4K movie on your smart TV and you’ve peeled away some of the resources available to other wireless clients on that part of your network.

Most of the time that will have little practical impact, but if the reliability of your surveillance cameras is paramount, you should seek to eliminate such variability.

Wi-Fi is about convenience. And convenience always has a cost. Most often that cost is reduced reliability.