3 ms·

You should set a higher minimum RSSI on your APs, and/or reduce their transmit power. Also, ensure they have the same SSID. With different SSIDs you are not roa

by jhugo 4y ago

You should set a higher minimum RSSI on your APs, and/or reduce their transmit power. Also, ensure they have the same SSID. With different SSIDs you are not roaming and it won't consider switching until it completely loses the connection of the first.

toast0 4y ago
I haven't seen good results with minimum RSSi; if the client has chosen an AP to connect to, denying it's attempts is mostly going to cause delay; maybe it will chose another AP after, but maybe this is the only AP it can see, and low signal is better than nothing. Although, maybe some systems are better at it than the ones I've used. Reducing Tx power seems to help a lot more. Default high power Tx seems to send beacons farther than most clients can successfully negotiate anyway; some APs get distortion at higher power, so useful signal is strictly lower (but you can see the beacons farther!), and clients seem to be looking at the signal strength (rather than signal quality) as a sign to scan and roam, you want to make sure strength isn't so high that roaming is avoided.
- jhugo 4y ago
  > I haven't seen good results with minimum RSSi; if the client has chosen an AP to connect to, denying it's attempts is mostly going to cause delay; maybe it will chose another AP after, but maybe this is the only AP it can see, and low signal is better than nothing. Although, maybe some systems are better at it than the ones I've used. This comes down to the overall system design. If a client could have a usable connection with an RSSI below the minimum and can't see any other APs then either a) your minimum RSSI is too high, or b) you don't have sufficient or correctly placed APs to cover the desired coverage area.
- jhugo 4y ago
  > Reducing Tx power seems to help a lot more. Default high power Tx seems to send beacons farther than most clients can successfully negotiate anyway; some APs get distortion at higher power, so useful signal is strictly lower (but you can see the beacons farther!), and clients seem to be looking at the signal strength (rather than signal quality) as a sign to scan and roam, you want to make sure strength isn't so high that roaming is avoided. Yes, one common effect of too-high Tx power is that the clients can hear the AP beacons but the AP can't reliably hear the clients, causing the clients to repeatedly try to associate. Most clients will backoff a given BSSID after a few association failures though. Ideally you set your Tx power to just slightly overlap the next AP. A lot of gear doesn't properly implement fast roaming though, in which case proper RF design will result in clients disconnecting for noticeable periods of time around the borders between APs. It's more often the base station gear's fault than the end-device's fault; in particular Apple's recent gear roams really well on a properly designed and implemented network.

by jhugo 4y ago

toast0 4y ago

I haven't seen good results with minimum RSSi; if the client has chosen an AP to connect to, denying it's attempts is mostly going to cause delay; maybe it will chose another AP after, but maybe this is the only AP it can see, and low signal is better than nothing. Although, maybe some systems are better at it than the ones I've used. Reducing Tx power seems to help a lot more. Default high power Tx seems to send beacons farther than most clients can successfully negotiate anyway; some APs get distortion at higher power, so useful signal is strictly lower (but you can see the beacons farther!), and clients seem to be looking at the signal strength (rather than signal quality) as a sign to scan and roam, you want to make sure strength isn't so high that roaming is avoided.

jhugo 4y ago
> I haven't seen good results with minimum RSSi; if the client has chosen an AP to connect to, denying it's attempts is mostly going to cause delay; maybe it will chose another AP after, but maybe this is the only AP it can see, and low signal is better than nothing. Although, maybe some systems are better at it than the ones I've used. This comes down to the overall system design. If a client could have a usable connection with an RSSI below the minimum and can't see any other APs then either a) your minimum RSSI is too high, or b) you don't have sufficient or correctly placed APs to cover the desired coverage area.
jhugo 4y ago
> Reducing Tx power seems to help a lot more. Default high power Tx seems to send beacons farther than most clients can successfully negotiate anyway; some APs get distortion at higher power, so useful signal is strictly lower (but you can see the beacons farther!), and clients seem to be looking at the signal strength (rather than signal quality) as a sign to scan and roam, you want to make sure strength isn't so high that roaming is avoided. Yes, one common effect of too-high Tx power is that the clients can hear the AP beacons but the AP can't reliably hear the clients, causing the clients to repeatedly try to associate. Most clients will backoff a given BSSID after a few association failures though. Ideally you set your Tx power to just slightly overlap the next AP. A lot of gear doesn't properly implement fast roaming though, in which case proper RF design will result in clients disconnecting for noticeable periods of time around the borders between APs. It's more often the base station gear's fault than the end-device's fault; in particular Apple's recent gear roams really well on a properly designed and implemented network.