The Building Materials that Affect WiFi Upload and Download Rate
Introduction
WiFi is part of people’s everyday lives, and there are now more than 3 billion people that use WiFi currently in 2020. People constantly need their upload and download rates to work efficiently, whether it’s for downloading an important speech from home, or just trying to use your WiFi. In my project, I will be enclosing a WiFi router in encasements made out of six different materials. These six different materials consist of metal, aluminum, cement, drywall, wood, and glass. Most of these building materials are in the structure of a house, whether it’s visible or not. Drywall is usually in the structure of a home, which is why I’m definitely using this material. Along with drywall, wood is also in the bones of a home. Cement is also used in the structure of a house, but not in the bones of a house- externally. Just like glass, it’s used for windows in homes, and transmits light throughout the house. You may not think that aluminum would be found already in a home, but some people have houses that have aluminum roofing; aluminum reflects light which makes it good roofing material if you live in extremely hot places such as Arizona, or currently Australia. The reason why I also used metal is because of kitchens. Kitchens are usually in the middle of a house, and if metal barricades that signal, that might be one of the many reasons why people have such low upload and download rates.
Background Research and Review of the Literature
In 2017, 3.2 billion people adjusted to using WiFi. Many countries are open to using wireless devices in schools and outside of school, and as an addition, many children use electronics frequently. Electromagnetic fields (EMF) are one of the fastest-growing environmental pollutants. However, in Europe, government officials are more cautious of this new advance in technology and say it’s too early to start putting it in schools. People are more at risk of EMF radiation as wireless electronics become more accessible to humans. Apparently, WiFi has no long term damage to the human body because the radiation is non-ionizing, but if it does, then the effects would be devastating to humans. Ionizing radiation using WiFi would be extremely dangerous. If scientists later discover that WiFi radiation can harm people severely, it will create massive controversy seeing as people already don’t believe that electromagnetic radiation (EMR) can harm you.
WiFi allows electronics to connect anywhere near the vicinity of a router, or larger base station transmitting radio waves to your device. Those radio waves are more specifically, in the form of EMR. This type is classified into the category of microwave radiation, around ten to three hundred gigahertz, which is non-ionizing. Non-ionizing radiation only supposedly has thermal effects, but with ionizing radiation, your cells become ionized and this changes the function and metabolism of the cell. Due to the damage of the DNA, the cells become cancerous and if there are enough, a tumor will form.
People have studied the effects of EMR, on plants, animals, and sperm. One of the results that happened was that the EMR had slowed down the mobility of the organism. There was an experiment with how sperm is affected by EMF radiation, and the sperm that was affected by the radiation had a large decrease in the sperm’s motility. As you can see, the sperm next to the laptop moved less, and the DNA of the sperm had split or mutated, possibly causing cancer. Another simpler study was where plants were put near a router, and in the experiment, the plants that were near the router didn’t grow while the control group did. Both organisms had not moved as much when they were in the vicinity of EMR. A study on rats said that when they were near radiofrequency EMR at ninety-nine gigahertz (GHz), their brain tissue was oxidized for one week. This can lead to damage of structures inside the cell, and also potentially cause death.
There are many different results of the study of WiFi radiation. As of 2014-2016, some countries place it into the category of non-ionizing radiation. One study concluded that the effects of WiFi radiation caused sleeping disorders, depression, and reduced appetite. Reduced appetite is common for people with depression, but the researcher also concluded that WiFi caused a cognitive disorder, triggering these symptoms. Despite this study, the Canadian government claims that the only effects of WiFi radiation are thermal. Another experiment was with rats, and they were exposed to WiFi frequencies long-term. These rats were later more prone to cancer; however, other researchers who did an experiment similar did not confirm that the rats would be more prone to cancer.
We can find out that these conclusions are true because when the scientists post their experiment in their Literature Review, other scientists conduct the experiment again, and then they conclude that their result was the same. It is also that the same scientist conducts the same experiment again, so they know that if the results are all the same, then they have an accurate project.
In my project, I will be seeing how different materials can affect the strength of upload and download rate. For my experiment, I will be using the materials glass, wood, metal, aluminum, cement, and drywall to imitate the structure of a house. The router will be secured in a box made out of those materials. This way, I can find out if some materials can potentially block out your signal, and advise against them.
Statement of the Problem
Sometimes people are not aware that instead of their router or WiFi plan, peoples’ materials are blocking their signal. If people continue to think that it’s their router, then they’ll spend much more money than they’re supposed to. Routers aren’t that expensive, but if you’re continually trying to find out why your upload and download isn’t that fast, buying routers will add up and may not financially be the solution. The same is with WiFi plans. I’ll give an example; if you’re a couple of two, then you may not need a strong WiFi signal if you both don’t work from home. However, the times that you do use your WiFi, you may be concerned about why your upload and download rate is slower. This could come from other materials, but the average person may not come up with that hypothesis. The couple may switch from plan to plan, spending more money than they should. WiFi plans can actually become extremely expensive, especially if you’re going to buy a “premium plan” that suits a family of four. This experiment will tell people what certain materials can block out WiFi upload and download rate so they can save money for other funds.
Hypothesis
I believe that aluminum will make the upload and download rate decrease the most. The reason why I believe this is because I had already learned about aluminum and what it can do. I didn’t know much about it, but I did know that it could possibly make it decrease the most. However, metal could also decrease the signal, but I don’t think it will be as much as aluminum.
Findings
After my experiment, I was actually quite surprised because most of the materials were around the same, excluding metal and aluminum. The average for most of them was around the thirties through the sixties. I also thought that going through all these variables wouldn’t take that long- I estimated about one hour to an hour and a half. However, it took two full hours to do all these tests so I stand corrected. To my surprise, metal also completely blocked out the signal. I was also surprised when I saw the graphs and some of the download rate numbers fluctuate a lot. When I was taking the data, I didn’t notice it, but seeing it on the graphs seems like it jumped twenty or thirty numbers. Although out of all the graphs, the download rate is more to fluctuate with numbers rather than the download rate, staying at a stable rate of numbers. It seems that this experiment supported my hypothesis. My original experiment was to test electromagnetic frequency, and so I made the hypothesis that aluminum would make it decrease the most. When I changed experiments, I still kept the hypothesis, and I figured that the results would not change much. I had also known some information about aluminum and what it can do, so I already made the connection.
Conclusion
My hypothesis turned out to be correct. Personally, I think I should’ve formulated a different hypothesis because I feel like I was cheating. I already knew about aluminum, so this gave me an advantage. However, I’m still trying to think if I was cheating and just chose an “easy project” unconsciously or if I just formulated a hypothesis because of actual thinking. I’m having mixed feelings on whether I should’ve actually chosen this. Well, I believe that aluminum blocked out the WiFi signal because aluminum is an electrical conductor and so it can be able to stop the upload and download rate signal.
The data showed me that most materials that I used did not change the upload and download rate a lot. However, it did show that when I put on the different boxes, it went from around fifty, and then it dropped. The only one that differed from that observation was cement. It went from forty to fifty, so I’m not sure what happened. This is definitely a cause and effect experiment because whenever I put on different materials, the router almost immediately reacts to it, judging from my data. However, if I did this outside of the location I did it, I don’t believe it would change. The upload and download rate changes constantly so I would have slightly different results, but for upload rate, it’s usually between thirty and sixty. As for download rate, it’s usually between ten and nineteen, but sometimes it could be lower than ten. If I had a different router and redid my experiment, I’m not completely sure what the outcome would be because router strength varies.
Works Cited
- Minhas, Ketan. “WiFi Radiation Levels at BCIT: An Analysis of Three Buildings at the Burnaby Campus.” Edited by Bobby Sidhu, WiFi Radiation Levels at BCIT: An Analysis of Three Buildings at the Burnaby Campus, 2014.
- Sidekerskienė, Tatjana, and Robertas Damaševičius. “WiFi Field Monitoring for E-Pollution Detection.” WiFi Field Monitoring for E-Pollution Detection, 2015, http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1730/p09.pdf.
- Li, Linda. “Review and Analysis of Wi-Fi Devices and Radiofrequency Radiation in Schools for the Maryland Children’s Environmental Health and Protection Advisory Council.” Edited by Dr. Paul Turner et al., Review and Analysis of Wi-Fi Devices and Radiofrequency Radiation in Schools for the Maryland Children’s Environmental Health and Protection Advisory Council, 2016, https://phpa.health.maryland.gov/OEHFP/EH/Shared Documents/CEHPAC/Wi-Fi in Classrooms_May2016_Capstone.pdf.
