CSMA/CA

In the same meeting room, Wi-Fi signal may look full, but pages load slowly, video calls freeze, and ping latency jumps around. The first reaction is often “the signal is bad.”

But strong signal does not mean the air is free. Wireless devices do not have dedicated cables. Many clients, APs, Zigbee, Thread, or other 2.4 GHz devices may be competing for the same airtime.

At that point, experience is affected not only by RSSI and SNR, but also by a lower-level contention rule: who may transmit, when they may transmit, and what happens after a failed attempt.