It is the annual December phenomenon we have seen every year since we were children—Christmas lights. Glittery and festive, coloured or white, these little lights put most people in a festive mood. But in recent news, the UK’s independent telephony regulator, Ofcom, has warned that your Christmas lights could affect the quality of your Wi-Fi connection.

As much as we would like to rebut this warning, the telephone regulator is correct – your fairy lights could indeed be a Wi-Fi disrupter.

The science as to why

The truth is, it isn’t just Christmas lights that could play havoc with your wireless connection, it is also microwaves, fluorescent lights and other devices. 

Wireless networks typically work on the 2.4 Gigahertz microwave radio spectrum. The term Hertz means the number of waves per second, so 1 Hertz is one wavelength per second. Your FM radio station may use 100 Megahertz, or 100,000,000 waves per second, while 2.4 Gigahertz, used by wireless networks is 2,400,000,000 waves per second, making the radio waves used by Wi-Fi considerably shorter. In short, this means that wireless networks are essentially utilising fairly ‘weak’ waves.

As such, where you place the router will make a difference to performance, both because of distance and interference from other objects. Home electrics, microwaves, steel beams, concrete and foil insulation all can have an effect.

Because most fairy lights have unshielded wires, there is no radio frequency insulation to protect radio-based devices from the electromagnetic effects of the Christmas light cords around your tree – including your Wi-Fi router.

So perhaps think about having less Christmas lights this year, so you can do faster online shopping. Or just make sure that your Wi-Fi router is placed far away from your Christmas tree.

Happy holidays from all of us at VTSL, and a prosperous New Year.