Multiple AP frustration

[rstark18]

I have a Linksys E3000 (tomato FW) in my office which covers the office and bedrooms. Unfortunately the signal has trouble penetrating through some wall of the house and I get very degraded speeds in the Kitchen and living room. So I have a second AP (D-Link DAP1522 ) hardwired to the E3000.

Originally I had the SSID the same for both AP and this was okay except that I had no way to force my devices to the better connection of the two. So I changed the SSID to unique names. The problem I have with this is that I have to manually switch AP's when moving from one zone to the other as there is still "enough" of a signal that it holds but not enough to get good throughput.

I have to imagine that this is a VERY common problem and would think that there would be some sort of solution to this. Is there?

On a side note, does 802.11ac or ad address this in any way?

 

[stevech]

...
I have to imagine that this is a VERY common problem and would think that there would be some sort of solution to this. Is there?

None that I know of, in consumer WiFi, other than finding a client device that chooses best-signal more intelligently, and few do.

 

[coxhaus]

Maybe you can move the routers farther apart so they do not overlap except at the edges. I just set up 2 Cisco WAP4410N wireless devices that seem to be working well. I may be lucky in that my living room and den are on the opposite ends of my long house and you cannot pick up the signal from the opposite room.

 

[stevech]

trouble is, most WiFi client devices will keep using a given router or AP even with a very weak signal despite there being one nearer with a much better signal. That's because IEEE 802.11 has no standard for directed handoffs.

You do want overlapping coverage though, even if not the same channel, so there are no dead zones.

Using a different SSID for each AP and the router is the only universal cure, for consumer WiFi gear. Just not intended for connectivity with "mobility".

As you know, any small network has ONE router and 0 to n WiFi access points directly or indirectly connected to the router or its LAN.

A WiFi router is simply a router with a built-in AP.

 

[scuba31]

I have had the same problem and fixed it by:

- using the same SSID (otherwise roaming will never work)
- distributing the channels of the routers so they don't interfere (5 channels apart)
- and now most important: the client wifi cards need to be able to roam (i.e. sense signal strengths drops, find there's a stronger signal with same SSID and subsequently drop the first and hook up to the second). I was able to set this up with making sure that the client wifi cards are capable of doing so (in hardware) AND using the latest drivers.
- Last, go into settings of client wifi cards and setup sensitivity of roaming (i.e. how quickly a card will drop the original connection and choose a new, stronger signal). In case of one of my devices (Intel 5100 AGN) a setting of "middle-high" in "Roaming Dynamics" proofed to work just fine.

Xirrus Wifi Inspector was essential to check whether everything works as desired.

Scuba

 

[stevech]

I have had the same problem and fixed it by:
- and now most important: the client wifi cards need to be able to roam (i.e. sense signal strengths drops, find there's a stronger signal with same SSID and subsequently drop the first and hook up to the second). I was able to set this up with making sure that the client wifi cards are capable of doing so (in hardware) AND using the latest drivers.
- Last, go into settings of client wifi cards and setup sensitivity of roaming (i.e. how quickly a card will drop the original connection and choose a new, stronger signal). In case of one of my devices (Intel 5100 AGN) a setting of "middle-high" in "Roaming Dynamics" proofed to work just fine.

Scuba

It would be nice to have a listing of what consumer grade WiFi client devices and support software do the above. My experience is that the list will be very short; indeed, I've not seen any consumer grade that do best-signal criteria for choosing when to switch APs.