Anyone know how to help make a client roam better without forcing an station to “drop” with RSL?
In other words, here is my scenario.
I have two APs with the same SSID, same frequency.
A station that is associated with one AP but moving closer to the other AP will not “switch” APs until it loses connection all together with the first AP.
I would like for the station to pick the best AP that it sees/hears but not just at boot up.
I would like for it to switch to a new AP when it hears/sees an AP with better signal.
I’ve always wondered about this as well, although thinking about how it works I’m not sure thats possible. If the radio is associated it cannot scan at the same time, I think it would have to disconnect to decide if there was something else stronger… am I wrong ?
You can configure the access list to not allow stations with signal less than … also you can do the same in stations connect list. then you will not have to wait until signal goes to -90 and drops completely, but station will be dropped when it reaches the set threshold of for example -65. of course it will try to reconnect, but will choose the strongest AP
You don’t want to run the access points at the same frequency. You are creating interference that might make it roam slower.
Normally in an enterprise WLAN you have a wireless lan controller to handle layer 2 and layer 3 fast roaming. I’m not sure mikrotik has any option like this.
Well.. regardless of frequency (in our case we are limited to one freq for other reasons), anyone have any ideas how this might be done (or if it can be done) on Mikrotik? I know some of the enterprise systems claim to do it. Aruba, etc. I thought Mikrotik might have something…?
the only way i can see how this would work with 802.11 is to have a second wlan card thats in scan mode always watching for another AP to attach to, then script the first card to disconnect when there is a better one that fits your parameters. i believe the way these cards work is that once associated they cannot scan for anything else.
There are many ways to handle this issue.
All of them have draw backs.
As there are many applications for wireless from 100 clients at 15 miles per AP to 100 APs per client as 50 ft away I can only be generic in my application here. An idea of how many APs and at what spacing and the distance and number of clients can help you get a more specific answer. Also, if you share what client you are using that can be helpful. Will the client be guaranteed to always have an AP in range?
There are three families of methods commonly used here; threshold, server side scripting and client side scripting.
Threshold:
This method is described above and can include a second threshold for some clients (though I don’t think MT does). This is the roam threshold. Some clients expose this feature for just your need. You can also use the disconnect threshold to handle some of this.
Server side:
This method is very popular in many commercial complexes. It can very from a script that drops all clients with a signal below X every Y minutes to a system that watches the clients visibility, signal strength, and the APs load instructing the APs to drop and accept clients as needed. Cisco has a system that does this at a mere $30,000 a controller. You can mimic this behavior yourself but it will require a good deal of effort. This can be made easier if you can passively view other devices without braking your connections.
Client side:
This is much like the server side but simpler. It will depend on the client and how you wish to handle the issues but you can script it to roam if the data speed, signal strength, or corruption rates reach an undesired level and simply break the connection. The normal AP selection process ensues and an AP is chosen based on the normal criteria.