Wi-Fi Calling Roaming with iPhones

[coxhaus]

I noticed a few months ago when I was talking to my wife with Wi-Fi calling I noticed a few words were dropped when I roamed from 1 AP to another using 5Ghz.

My test. I called my wife in the other room. She answered on another AP using Wi-Fi calling and an iPhone7. I walked to the AP she was on and when my iPhone7+ roamed it dropped a couple of words out of a sentence. The iPhone7+ roams and does not drop a call only it misses a couple of words.

FaceTime works great with roaming.

Who has Wi-Fi calling roaming working using an iPhone in their home or small business? What APs are you using? Are you using 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz? Are you using a controller? I am asking in general you don't need to perform my test.

I have 3 Cisco WAP371 APs that I am using at my home. They have been great as they just run in the background with no attention. My daughter needed Wi-Fi calling in her small business so I used 1 of my Cisco WAP371 APs. I kind of decided to use the other 2 at my daughter's house as she is running my old Cisco WAP321 APs which are at EOL with no support any more.

 

[coxhaus]

I just did some more testing as this is really starting to bother me and I have new info. I only lose a few words on the first roam. If I walk back and it roams back no words are dropped. If I continue the call and do it a second time there are no words dropped. It only happens on the first roam. weird.

 

[L&LD]

coxhaus, this is interesting.

Is it the specific phone you're using? Or all phones do the same?

 

[coxhaus]

We only have 2 iPhones. I guess I could reverse the iPhones in the test. This is part of the reason I posted this tread. Does anybody have iPhones working with Wi-Fi calling using roaming. If nobody does then it could be an iPhone problem. Or does anybody have the same problem?

 

[Trip]

I just tested with an iPhone 8 (iOS 12, all updates) at a customer's house with N-class Ruckus. 6 APs total, ZD1100 controller. Two calls, 5 roams each call. On two roams per call, I did get a 1-second or so stutter in the on-hold music. Otherwise, clean. Uncontrollable variables: 1) three APs were 1-hop mesh (not recommended for seamless VoIP) and 2) wired network is coaxial MoCa 2.0 via ActionTec ECB6200's (latency and packet flow issues there). So I'd like to think with all APs wired in and ethernet as backhaul, Ruckus ZD would work, but I can't say conclusively. Could also still be the iPhone 8, as I didn't have a chance to cross-test with Android or a laptop. I know this doesn't give you a conclusive "Yes", but wanted to add in the observation nonetheless.

I'll try and get an ethernet only, non-mesh lab setup and see if I can get repeatable positive results. Stay tuned...

 

[coxhaus]

I have fixed my Wi-Fi roaming issue with Apple iPhones by turning off band steering and checking WMF, Wireless Multicast Forwarding on my new Cisco WAP581 wireless APs. I have also turned off all a/b/g wireless.