How does lightning affect wireless transmission

[srosenthal]

How does a storm affect the transmission of wireless signals in a building? This question was posed to me by a customer during a site survey. This is for a school and they will be doing online testing over wireless and are concerned that the wireless could be interupted by a passing storm without direct lighting hits.

Seth

[gamccall]

"wireless power" does not generate 2.4 GHz interference. It's a nonissue unless it hits a line and fries some gear.

[scottmac]

The possibly interfering impulse noise of lightning may cause a re-transmission of the information in-transit. The same impulse could also conceivably cause the same kind of re-transmission in a wired connection (or motor noise, or a bad flourescent balun ... ).

As mentioned, environmental noise happens; it's been considered in the development of the transmission protocols used and it's a non-issue for all but near and direct hits.

FWIW

Scott