Wireless - Access List Signal Strength Range (Problems/Broken)
I think a found a rather big problem with the Mikrotik Access-List Signal-Strength-Range setting.
1st - some background. I am a WISP here in North Idaho. We have a tower on top of a 4,000 foot tall mountain. The tower has 15 different 5-GHz access points (APs) on the tower facing slightly different direction. All are using NV2. Of these 15, 7 of them face a near-by town less than a mile away with slightly different aimed sector antennas. Thus my client located Mikrotiks at customer homes in town can see about 7 APs.
The problem is some APs with lower frequencies configured will take 80 connections while other good APs with higher frequencies will average 3 to 10 connections. In trying to balance out the connections to the APs facing the town there are two options using Wireless different AP settings.
One option is to limit the maximum connections (in my case 30 per AP). This option does not work because often the best possible link can not be established because the AP already has 30 connections.
The second option (this topic) - using Access List Signal Strength Range settings on the AP is failing. If on 3 of my most busy APs, I use a setting like Signal Strength Range -62..120 - I will initially only get good rock-solid new connections. Now the problems begin just after the client connects. When a client connects and the connection is good - the connection rate will auto-increase to faster and faster connection rates (in my cast N nv2 Ce 1x1 equals max connect rate of 150 meg). As the connection rate increases, the TX-power will start dropping and the RX-sensitivity will get weaker. ((Take a look at the wireless-specifications for any Mikrotik product. - Faster connection rates can be about 18 db weaker/worse than initial slower connection rates)). When the rates increase, the APs will soon see many connections outside of the required “Signal Strength Range” and the AP will auto-disconnect them.
This can result in clients constantly connecting - getting disconnected after a few seconds - then again re-connecting a few seconds later.
The constant connect & disconnect with up 50 clients ends up driving the entire wireless affected client Mikrotik devices to a point of usless/broken.
Tweaking the Signal Strength Range to anything stronger than your weakest client will start the vicious cycle of connect, drop & re-connect.
So basically I am saying for my use as a WISP “Signal Strength Range is broken and can not work”.
So I would like to make a Mikrotik ROS software request for a better set of Access-List Signal-Strangth-Range rules.
I would like see new rules that can do this:
#1 - Initial new connection required Access-List Signal-Strangth-Range settings
#2 - Established connection required Access-List Signal-Strangth-Range settings
The #1 rule would only control what connects (at the initial low connection rate signal strengths)
The #2 rule would only control connections after the connection is already established.
Where a #1 rule of (example) -60..120 would make sure only signal strengths -60 or stronger can connect.
Where a #2 rule of (example) -76..120 would auto-drop connections that have become to weak after the connection has already been established (possibly due to rate shifting and other factors).
Mikrotik - is there a solution to do what I am asking for ? Can this be reviewed as a new feature in newer software/firmare ?
North Idaho Tom Jones