I have two wired APs, ap1 and ap2, connected to a router and configured on the same SSID with different channels. Performance is great, and I’ve optimized power to ensure coverage is appropriate. Handoff still sucks. When you travel from one to the other, we’re talking 1-3 seconds of chaos in the era of Teams calls.
I was way happier with the handoff on my previous Google Wifi mesh, and the performance was sufficient. Those endpoints weren’t wired, though, hence the performance hit. Can I run a mesh with wired endpoints like I have and thus get both the performance of a low latency direct backhaul, and the zero handoff of a mesh?
You are looking for 802.11r/k/v, for that you need to set up fast transition and steering.
Properties related to 802.11r fast BSS transition only apply to interfaces in AP mode. WiFi interfaces in station mode do not support 802.11r.
For a client device to successfully roam between 2 APs, the APs need to be managed by the same instance of RouterOS. For information on how to centrally manage multiple APs, see > CAPsMAN
Interesting, I didn’t know about this! I’m using CAP AX (for the APs) and I have a CCR2004 for my network core router. I’ll read up on this protocol, thanks. The only real concern I have is capsman, since honestly, it’s always been more trouble than it was worth, but perhaps that can be overcome.
So I do use the station bridge mode APs in a couple places, to get ethernet jacks where there is no drop. Can I implement 802.11k/v and have the benefits without 802.11r? Station bridge mode still works with k/v?
Update:
I finally had a moment to implement steering and fast transition, and it works great. Wonderful resolution, extremely robust handoff. To help others, here’s the configuration which worked for me (I have three APs and a CCR2004 router running capsman).
Additionally, to answer my own question earlier, I retain the ability to use station-bridge clients, which is important for my setup. They work just fine after this implementation.