I assume everyone knows the problem: You have one access point per floor, which are connected via Ethernet. When you switch between floors, you stay connected to the weak AP on the previous floor for a very long time until the end device decides to change the WLAN itself.
Other manufacturers, such as AVM and Devolo, have an access point steering system based on 802.11k and 802.11v. This automatically sends end devices to the better AP. However, this only works if all devices are from the same manufacturer.
I would like to go for Mikrotik completely in the future. Now I’m wondering whether access point steering is possible with Mikrotik if all my APs are from Mikrotik? Is there something planned? Does it already exist and I have overlooked it?
Yes and no.
Some clients will try to hang on an AP only letting it go when they have really no usable signal anymore.
Lowering TX power will make this happen sooner but it will still happen.
Fast Transition ( available in wave2) helps those clients to move over earlier in a controlled way resulting in seamless roaming.
I agree for most applications it is not needed ( not even capsman) but there are cases where it can be helpful.
I’m sharing my experience (also reported at http://forum.mikrotik.com/t/roaming-ft-unexpected-behaviour-on-7-13-3/173221/1): I have an ax3 and an ax lite, the ax lite is managed as an AP with CAPsMAN by the ax3 and shares the ports as a bridge. I tried to activate FT but, probably due to lack of client support (two Android 10 smartphones and an Ubuntu laptop with an Intel AC card), the user experience was not satisfactory. Disabling FT gave me a ‘perfect’ roaming experience.
Based on my experience, with the new drivers and CAPsMAN, the overhead of managing the AP with CAPsMAN (which, anyway, is low) has been well worth it.
By the way: my previous setup was (1) router of my ISP + (2) hap ax3. Even with the same SSID the transition took at least 5-8 seconds (3-5 seconds with a bad signal + 2-3 seconds to reconnect).
Hello,
after 1 year, i hope this infos are useful
AVM (German Fritzbox) and many another manufacturers will only steer wifi with 802.11k and 802.11v.
Mikrotik with the newest ROS versions and wifiwave 2 and! capsman can support 802.11r (wireless roaming) thins is one of the best options to have a seamless connectivity while you walk through your “wifi cells” there will no drop of connections while you moving between the floors so you can talk with a “VoIP” APP while you moving without any “cracks or lags” while you talking.
In Mikrotik you find this options in the security part of WIFI under “FT” (fast transition)
If you have “modern” wifi guests such as new Apple devices and new Androids you should have no problems with this functionality.
With older devices you can have problems!
There is a “workaround” to solve it.
You make 2! wifi LANs with the same SSID and passwords with one difference: One have the options with “FT” and one have “only” the older steering technology. So the clients have a choice to select the preferred WIFI-net.
BTW this “workaround” is a recommended method to handle this by Cisco in their WIFI-management solution!
Remember, the roaming will only work with all APs managed by capsman.
It works on all WIFIWAVE 2 Devices (AC and AX) devices, your clients will roam without any problems between AC and AX Mikrotik APs.
If you use VLAN IDs to separate the LANs it is better to use AX devices only. With AC devices you need a not so nicely “workaround” with manually entry’s in the VLAN-ID table in the bridge-interfaces…
Greets
Actually it will also work with 1 AP using 2.4Ghz and 5GHz radio.
Capsman on itself is not a must.
The key is that it works for all radios controlled under the same ROS instance.
Can be 2 local radios on 1 AP.
Or several APs/Radios controlled via capsman.
Or … several APs controlled via capsman plus local radios on the capsman controller itself (since local radios can not be handled by capsman).
Other than 11r/v/k (which is a standard and in theory should be interoperable) does Mikrotik allows for client associate rejection and inter-AP client information sharing like in usteer? So if AP 1 is currently at 70% load (for illustrative purpose, defined as max-sta=10 and it currently has 7 sta active) it can steer to AP 2 and if the clients reject this requests actively drop them
11k/v should be vendor agnostic, as long as the software allows it will send steering request to the client. As it is just a suggestion it's up to the client (their implementation) whether to honor or ignore this.
11r is somewhat vendor agnostic, if you have centralized RADIUS server the AP vendor doesn't matter. Some device either don't support certain mix (ie 11r+WPA2/3 PSK, or just have trouble in general). The difference between both ideal AP+STA on 11k/v and 11k/v/r is just latency where the latter can get sub-100ms connection drop because the client preemptively negotiate key with the roaming AP target as per current AP instructions.
