wireless router channels, which is best?

[frequency]

The questions are:

When using a standard 802.11G router which offers you the option of picking the channel you want you network to broadcast on (generally 1 to 13), which is the best channel to use that offers the best signal penetration through:
a: brickwalls
b: glass
c: normal internal walls made of wood and covered by some type of plaster board?
d: surrounding wireless networks?

Also are all routers channels the same, by that I mean is channel 6 on a Netgear router the same frequency as channel 6 on a Belkin router?

Thanks in advance for helpful replies

[z1p]

The short answer to your last question is yes, they are the same. (For more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_80..._compatibility)

As far as signal penetration, I don't believe there is much difference between the channel. I imagine that if you did a scientific measurement you could fine a small difference, but in every day usage I don't see a major difference between channels.

As far as interference from other WLANs, that depends on the channel(s) they use. The link I provide above shows the channel ranges and you can see that all the channels over lap some of the adjacent channels. So, if you are using channel 1 you can still interfere with and be interfered by someone near by using channel 2.