Scan Wireless Networks with NetSpot WiFi Scanner

What Is the Purpose of a Wi-Fi Scanner?

The purpose of a WiFi scanner is to discover all nearby WiFi networks and collect as much information about them as possible. The collected information includes everything from network names and their security settings to signal strength, noise level, interference, and more. WiFi scanners can be divided into two categories:

• Hardware scanners: As the name implies, hardware WiFi scanners are physical devices, typically of the handheld variety. Hardware scanners are most commonly used by technicians in the field because they free them from having to carry a heavy laptop with limited battery life.
• Software scanners On the other hand, software scanners depend on a laptop or mobile device and its WiFi module. Because different laptops and mobile devices have different WiFi modules, the same software scanner may provide vastly different results when used on two different devices. In terms of features, however, software scanners typically exceed hardware scanners, and the same can be said about their ease of use.

Since NetSpot is a software scanner, we’ll be using the term WiFi scanner to describe software scanners.

As will become obvious later in this article, many leading WiFi scanners are so intuitive that even people with no previous experience with them and little to no technical knowledge can use them to discover causes of WiFi issues, such as co-channel interference and poor signal coverage.

With WiFi connectivity becoming increasingly ubiquitous and integrated into more and more devices and appliances, knowing how to use a WiFi scanner to optimize wireless performance is quickly becoming an important skill to have. The good news is that learning this skill can be easy — you just need to pick the right WiFi network scanner.

Before You Use a Wi-Fi Scanner

Before you use a WiFi scanner there are a few things that you should consider to obtain the most accurate results possible.

• Pick the right time: Some WiFi networks may be online only during at certain hours, so make sure to pick the right time to perform your WiFi scan. You may even want to scan multiple times, such as once in the morning, once in the afternoon, and once late at night.

• Measure from a suitable location: You most likely won’t be able to detect even a half of the networks broadcasting in your location unless you measure from a suitable location. Stay away from solid obstacles such as walls and avoid electronic appliances that emit electromagnetic interference.

• Focus on scanning: When using a WiFi scanner, close all other applications running on your laptop. Any application that transfers a lot of data online could compromise the accuracy of your measurements.

What Is the Best Wi-Fi Scanner for Windows

A quick search containing the keywords “WiFi scanner” and “Windows” is enough to reveal a large number of seemingly capable WiFi scanner Windows apps. But how do you know which WiFi scanner Windows apps are good, and which are best avoided?

You can start by comparing their features. Leading Windows WiFi scanners like NetSpot can not only collect information about available WiFi networks and present the collected data as interactive tables, but they can also create WiFi signal heatmaps that overlay detailed information on top of a real map. WiFi signal heatmaps can quickly reveal signal weak spots and other problems that might otherwise be difficult to detect.

Of course, you should avoid WiFi scanners for Windows that are not actively developed and compatible with the latest version of the operating system. While it’s typically possible to get a WiFi scanner for Windows 10 to run on Windows 11, you might run into all kinds of problems caused by the lack of optimization for the latest operating system.

Understanding the Information Provided by NetSpot

NetSpot is a comprehensive WiFi network scanner that can provide a wealth of useful information to help you learn more about nearby WiFi networks and troubleshoot various problems.

If you’re new to network scanning, you might have trouble making sense of all the information provided by NetSpot, which is why we’ve decided to create this brief summary of the most important information you will come across when using NetSpot.

Network Name (SSID)

Service Set Identifier (SSID) is broadcast by wireless routers to announce the presence of a network. An SSID is for all intents and purposes the name assigned to a WiFi network. It can be zero to 32 bytes long, and it’s typically human-readable, such as the name of the internet provider followed by the surname of the customer. Many people like to give creative and funny names to their WiFi networks, like “It Hurts When IP” or “FreeViruses.”

Not all WiFi networks broadcast their SSIDs for a variety of reasons, with security usually being among them. A WiFi network that doesn’t have any SSID is called a “hidden network”. NetSpot automatically reveals the presence of hidden networks, giving a complete picture of all WiFi activity around you.

MAC Address (BSSID)

A single WiFi network can consist of many different access points. While this arrangement is less common when it comes to home networks, businesses and organizations couldn’t function without it. The presence of multiple access points creates the need for identifying the access point from which a data packet has originated. This is where an identifier called a basic service set identifier (BSSID) comes in.

The BSSID is the MAC address of the wireless access point (WAP), and it combines the 24-bit Organization Unique Identifier (the manufacturer's identity) and the manufacturer's assigned 24-bit identifier for the radio chipset in the WAP. The BSSID can help you determine the legitimacy of a WiFi network and avoid evil twin attacks, in which an attacker creates a fraudulent wireless access point that appears to be legitimate but is set up to eavesdrop on wireless communications.

WiFi Channel

The WiFi signal is split into multiple channels, which are akin to the lanes on the highway. In North America, the exact number of channels is 11, while in most of the world, the number is 13. WiFi channels are important because they help prevent signal interference, but they work as intended only when properly configured.

Ideally, you should configure your WiFi network to broadcast on the least cluttered channel, preferably one that doesn’t overlap with adjacent channels: Channels 1, 6, and 11. NetSpot is a capable WiFi network scanner that can perform WiFi channel analysis and instantly reveal the least cluttered channel.

Frequency Band

WiFi networks are broadcast in two frequency bands: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. The 2.4 GHz frequency band is split into 14 different channels (not are channels are available in all parts of the worlds), with all channels spaced 5 MHz apart from each other except for a 12 MHz space before channel 14. The 5 GHz frequency band is split into much more channels than the 2.4 GHz frequency band, with each channel being 10 to 160 MHz wide.

Higher frequencies don’t penetrate solid objects nearly as well as lower frequencies, and the same holds true even when it comes to WiFi frequency bands. Modern WiFi routers often broadcast simultaneously on both frequency bands to achieve the best signal strength possible.

Encryption

To prevent unauthorized access, it has become a common practice to encrypt WiFi networks using several available WiFi encryption standards, including Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). WEP is the older of the two standards, and it’s now considered to be obsolete because WEP-protected WiFi networks can be cracked in the matter of minutes with tools that are readily available for download online.

WPA is far more secure than WEP, especially when it comes to its last two versions, WPA2 and WPA3. WPA2 is by far the most commonly used WiFi encryption standard today, but WPA3 is expected to overtake it in the near future. As a rule of thumb, you should always use the strongest WiFi encryption standard your router supports.

Router Vendor

Emitted together with data packets is information about the vendor of the WiFi router from which the packets originate, such as Cisco, Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, or Asus.

Since router vendors tend to use certain default router admin login names and passwords, this information can be used to gain access to a router’s admin interface.

WiFi Mode (Standard)

The IEEE 802.11 standard for implementing wireless local area network (WLAN) WiFi computer communication in various frequencies is constantly evolving to satisfy the demand for high data transfer speeds, low latency, and wide coverage. Today, the most commonly used WiFi standards include 802.11ac, 802.11n, and 802.11g, with 802.11ac being the most advanced.

However, there are already WiFi routers with support for 802.11ax, a next-generation WiFi standard that aims to provide 4x the throughput of 802.11ac at the user layer.

Signal Strength

WiFi signal strength is measured in dBm, which is a logarithmic unit of level used to indicate that a power ratio is expressed in decibels (dB) with reference to one milliwatt (mW).

NetSpot displays the minimum, maximum and average signal strength, and it can also plot signal strength on a graph to help you identify signal strength drops, which could be a sign of WiFi interference.

Conclusion

A WiFi scanner like NetSpot makes it easy to retrieve useful information about nearby WiFi networks and analyze the collected data to support the deployment of a new WiFi network or the optimization of an existing one. Thanks to its accessible user interface, you don’t need to be an expert to use it and achieve expert results.