LiteWire WiFi Channel Groups

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In most cases, your connection to the LiteWire tower operates in the same wireless channel range as the WiFi in your home. Unfortunately, this means that if your wireless router happens to select a WiFi channel that conflicts with the channel your LiteWire antenna is using to connect to the tower, it will cause problems, such as reduced connection speeds and disconnects.

This problem can be fixed by manually setting the WiFi channel(s) that your wireless router uses (by default, most routers will try to automatically select the "best" WiFi channel, but they typically will not detect the signal from the LiteWire antenna, because it's not a WiFi signal, and will see that as a clear channel when it is not).

To simplify determining which WiFi channel you should be using, you are assigned to a "Channel Group". To find out which Channel Group you are in, please contact LiteWire support. In some cases, your Channel Group can change over time (especially after a LiteWire service call, as we may switch you to a different tower), so if you are noticing connection problems, it's a good idea to verify that you're still using the right channel.

Once you know which channel group your connection is in, you can set your WiFi channel as indicated below:

Group A: Your 5 GHz Wi-Fi channel should be set to Channel 36. The 2.4 GHz channel can be left on "Auto".
Group B: Your 5 GHz Wi-Fi channel should be set to Channel 149. The 2.4 GHz channel can be left on "Auto".
Group C: Your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi channel should be set to Channel 1, and set "Channel bandwidth" to "20 MHz". The 5 GHz channel can be left on "Auto".
Group D - Your 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi channel should be set to Channel 11, and set "Channel bandwidth" to "20 MHz". The 5 GHz channel can be left on "Auto".
Group E - All WiFi channel settings can be left on Auto; if you are in this group, the Wi-Fi signal will not interfere with the connection to the LiteWire tower, and you will not need to set it to a specific channel.

For more detailed information about channel groups, you can see the information below.

Most typical single-unit routers do have the ability to manually set the Wi-Fi channel, so configuring your router properly is just a matter of logging into the router's configuration and finding the correct settings. The router's configuration is typically accessed through a web browser or smartphone app, but every router is a little different, so we can't provide specific instructions for all of them. In most cases, a simple Google search for the specific brand and model of router you have will get you instructions on how to access the router's configuration and locate the channel settings.

Most of the multi-unit, "whole home", or mesh-type Wi-Fi systems (notably Google WiFi/Nest, Eero, and Orbi) do not give you the option of manually setting the router channel, so if they are interfering, there's, unfortunately, no way to fix that problem other than to get a different Wi-Fi system. In some cases, increased physical separation of the Wi-Fi units from where the LiteWire antenna is mounted outside the house will mitigate this problem, but it won't entirely solve it, and in general, most of these systems should be avoided. At this point, the only mesh type system that I'm aware of that gives you full control over its Wi-Fi channels is the ASUS ZenWiFi system - we recommend the ASUS ZenWiFi AX Mini system if you are looking for a whole home/mesh system.

"Tri-Band" routers typically use two 5 GHz WiFi channels, rather than one, which adds an additional challenge, because in almost all cases, the router will want to assign one of those two channels to one that conflicts with the LiteWire connection (if you are in channel group A or B). The simplest way to fix this problem is to just completely disable the secondary 5 GHz channel on the router. In most cases, there's very little benefit to running a second 5 GHz channel anyway, so this is usually the best option. If you do need to use a second 5 GHz channel, there are ways to do that and avoid interference (there is more on that below), but the situations where you need to do that generally are going to be beyond the scope of this article. In general, while tri-band routers will work well if configured properly with our service, we recommend just going with a dual-band router, since you're typically just going to want to disable the "tri-band" features anyway. If a specific tri-band router provides other features that you want, it may make sense to use it anyway, however.

Additional information about Channel Groups:

Channel Group A indicates that your connection to the LiteWire tower operates in the upper 5 GHz (UNII-2, 3, or 4 - 5.5-5.9 GHz) range. If you need to use a second router 5 GHz channel - typically, this would be in situations where you have a second router, for whatever reason (to get better coverage in another part of the house, in an outbuilding, etc.), then the best practice is to set the "channel size" or "channel bandwidth" option on the router(s) to 20/40 MHz (or 40 MHz max; basically, you want to disable 80 MHz and 160 MHz channels) and use channel 36 and channel 48. In most cases, a 40 MHz Wi-Fi channel will be able to exceed the speed of your internet connection anyway, so you won't see any reduced performance by doing this, and it will provide you with two non-interfering 5 GHz Wi-Fi channels.

Channel Group B indicates that your connection to the LiteWire tower operates in the lower 5 GHz (UNII-1 or 2 - 5.1-5.3 GHz) range. If you need to use a second router 5 GHz channel - typically, this would be in situations where you have a second router, for whatever reason (to get better coverage in another part of the house, in an outbuilding, etc.), then the best practice is to set the "channel size" or "channel bandwidth" option on the router(s) to 20/40 MHz (or 40 MHz max; basically, you want to disable 80 MHz and 160 MHz channels) and use channel 149 and channel 165. In most cases, a 40MHz Wi-Fi channel will be able to exceed the speed of your internet connection anyway, so you won't see any reduced performance by doing this, and it will provide you with two non-interfering 5GHz Wi-Fi channels.

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