I have a split-level house that I’m trying to provide WiFi coverage for. In the past, I’ve tried configuring multiple APs with the same SSID, channel, etc, but I have found that my wireless clients simply will not roam properly or quickly. Instead, I’ve installed low-loss coax and have connected remote antennas to a 3 antenna, single chain wifi router (I hope I have the nomenclature correct). This works really well because the clients all see the same AP MAC and never need to roam.
Recently, I’ve found a need to upgrade my router to something that supports Gigabit, SFP and VLANs. Ideally, I’d like to just drop a Router OS product in and hook up my coax. However, there doesn’t appear to be anything that supports running 3 antennas from 1 chain. I’ve read a bit about CAPsMAN and I suspect that I could use something like a RB2011UiAS plus a BaseBox2 to cover my house. But that would mean roaming, and I’m afraid to spend a bunch of money just to depend on roaming working well.
I would appreciate any ideas or feed back. To be fair, every time I’ve tried to configure WiFi roaming, i’ve been using whatever consumer grade router I could find in my junk drawer. Does CAPsMAN make roaming work well? I’ve seen the threads regarding rejecting low signal clients; that looks promising.
Roaming is good for outdoors or big area network’s. its better use repeater mod
for house you can limit clients signal in wireless access list to roaming quickly and lowering AP’s power
Thanks for your response. I took a look at repeater mode, but it seems like this is really designed for an environment where linking via copper/optical isn’t practical. I can readily run wires to each of the locations where I think I should have an AP. In that scenario, do you think that I should still be using repeater mode?
if you can wiring AP’s in your house, its better than repeater and roaming network’s because in repeater and roaming your network performance is reduced
Search for threads about capsman and roaming. If other people’s experiences sound good, then that’s the route to go.
I’d always prefer roaming, and that only works well in a controller-based deployment (such as CapsMan or competitors’ similar products). Roaming is usually pretty spotty in environments where you just have multiple independent APs all broadcasting the same SSID, so don’t base your opinion of roaming on your past experience. It can work very very well.
My office uses Aruba, for instance, and it works quite well. (Aruba’s pretty expensive and quite a pain to mess with, so it’s not something I’d recommend for home use)
Similar comment to ZeroByte. Roaming with equipment that is designed for it can work very well. I’m using Open Mesh nodes very at my house with great results. Three of the nodes are wired gateways, and the other two are mesh nodes. As my kids tell me, I’ve got the best WiFi of anyone they know - now if could get a faster internet connection than my DSL… The Open Mesh nodes support up to 4 SSIDs on the network, and they are fairly inexpensive - less than 100 US Dollars each (depending on which models you use). Lots of management capabilities via a web interface. www.open-mesh.com
Sent from my Droid Turbo via Tapatalk, so blame any typos or spelling errors on Android
I’d also like to say that if you ever hear of me installing a repeater, you know that my other choice was boring a cable through meters of solid steel. I hate repeaters with a passion.
They cut your bandwidth in half if you’re downstream from them.
They can mess up your MAC address on the network if your network doesn’t support WDS or something like that.
They cause interference
In a word - they suck.
The one thing that makes them suck less is if they’re dual-band and your network is 802.11b/g/n.
I think Karma was reading this thread, because I got an email from my boss that a VIP in the company asked for someone to go to his house and set up a wireless repeater for him.
I just got back from that.
(Add “it’s not my house” and “has work-related power over me” to my list of reasons to install a repeater)
p.s. - Since this isn’t a “memes-friendly” forum, I restrained myself from posting an animated GIF from Spaceballs where Dark Helmet, Col. Sanders, and President Scroob were chanting “SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!”)
