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The Xbox 360 wireless controller is a wireless device that operates in the 2.4GHz range. This is interesting for a couple reasons. One, this particular wireless frequency is already very overloaded by phones, Bluetooth, wireless networks, and even your microwave. Two, the Xbox 360 also comes with a wireless network adapter to allow it to connect via a wireless link to your local network and on to the internet. Wouldn't it have been wiser to select something in the 5.8 GHz range, or even the 900 MHz range? Regardless, I decided to fire up my software based 802.11 wireless analyzer and take a sample of the airwaves while playing Need for Speed on my new Xbox. Figure 17 shows the results. The high level is reflective of the close proximity of the analyzer to the Xbox.
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Figure 17 Wireless Spectrum Analyzer results of Xbox 360 Controller
Note the rather level spread across the entire 2.4GHz spectrum. This is similar to how Bluetooth operates, which helps it avoid interference problems with other 2.4GHz devices like an 802.11b wireless network. I suspect Microsoft is doing something similar here.