WIFI roaming in a large house

[brossyg]

I have an ASUS RT-AC68U router in the middle of my large house and an RT-N66U set up on the far end of the house set up in A/P mode. Currently they have different SSIDs but the same security info.

As my Iphone/Ipads and laptop move about the house, they do not change from the router to the A/P (or the other way around) and have to be manually forced to switch. I have enabled the "Roaming Assistant" on both the router and A/P, with the RSSI set to "lower than -70 dBm", but that did not seem to help the devices to automatically switch.

Can someone please provide a short description of how to best set up a router and A/P in a large house with seamless roaming.

Should the SSID's be the same or different?
Should "Roaming Assistant" (on ASUS) be enabled?
Should the frequency/channel be the same or different?
Are there settings on Idevices for roaming aggressiveness?
Other considerations?

Thanks.

 

[stevech]

I have an ASUS RT-AC68U router in the middle of my large house and an RT-N66U set up on the far end of the house set up in A/P mode. Currently they have different SSIDs but the same security info.

As my Iphone/Ipads and laptop move about the house, they do not change from the router to the A/P (or the other way around) and have to be manually forced to switch. I have enabled the "Roaming Assistant" on both the router and A/P, with the RSSI set to "lower than -70 dBm", but that did not seem to help the devices to automatically switch.

Can someone please provide a short description of how to best set up a router and A/P in a large house with seamless roaming.

Should the SSID's be the same or different?
Should "Roaming Assistant" (on ASUS) be enabled?
Should the frequency/channel be the same or different?
Are there settings on Idevices for roaming aggressiveness?
Other considerations?

Thanks.

Lots of prior discussions on this topic.
Short answer: You can't optimize this because many client (handhelds) do no change access devices (router, AP) until the link reliability is poor, no matter the speed degradation due to weak signal. Consumer WiFi does not provide "directed handoff", e.g., a command from the current access device to "go use AP number 1234". Professional systems do this by proprietary means (managed WiFi).

Some here on the forum claim good luck with optimized roaming based on what client devices they have. I think that's the exception.

Here's the best I can offer: Give each AP and the router WiFi a different SSID, and one that suggests its location, such as "ABCrouter", "ABCpatio" where ABC are your initials. Then, unfortunately, when a client's user relocates but the device stuck with the current access device because it was working (somewhat), the user has to go to the device's WiFi screen and choose, say "ABCpatio".

 

[pete y testing]

I have an ASUS RT-AC68U router in the middle of my large house

first question is have you tried with just the 88u as you have it in a central location and you should still be getting at least 1/2 signal at 25 meters and 3 walls away

see my 88u sats throughput testing in the link below

http://www.snbforums.com/threads/asus-rt-ac88u-data-throughput.31991/

so what i think is happening is you have far too much overlap between the 2 transmissions

try going to the wireless / advanced section of each router and set the power level to zero ( its not actually zero but puts the wifi in energy saving mode

this should reduce the power transmitted by both devices , zero may be too much but play with the levels

what you want to achieve is no more than a 20% overlap in the signals

using something like inssider 3 on a laptop you want to read -50db at the crossover point between the two transmissions and standing next to each transmission the other transmission should be no less than -70db or lower

you might find because the 88u transmission is so strong you cant achieve the overlap and if this is so you really dont need the second ap

 

[sfx2000]

I have an ASUS RT-AC68U router in the middle of my large house and an RT-N66U set up on the far end of the house set up in A/P mode. Currently they have different SSIDs but the same security info.

As my Iphone/Ipads and laptop move about the house, they do not change from the router to the A/P (or the other way around) and have to be manually forced to switch. I have enabled the "Roaming Assistant" on both the router and A/P, with the RSSI set to "lower than -70 dBm", but that did not seem to help the devices to automatically switch.

Can someone please provide a short description of how to best set up a router and A/P in a large house with seamless roaming.

Should the SSID's be the same or different?
Should "Roaming Assistant" (on ASUS) be enabled?
Should the frequency/channel be the same or different?
Are there settings on Idevices for roaming aggressiveness?
Other considerations?

Thanks.

Here's one perspective on why Common SSID's are a good thing...

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/basi...751-snb-answer-guy-how-many-ssids-is-too-many

 

[sfx2000]

Here's the best I can offer: Give each AP and the router WiFi a different SSID, and one that suggests its location, such as "ABCrouter", "ABCpatio" where ABC are your initials. Then, unfortunately, when a client's user relocates but the device stuck with the current access device because it was working (somewhat), the user has to go to the device's WiFi screen and choose, say "ABCpatio".

That's a pretty good guarantee that a client will get "sticky" as they will camp on an SSID until it's lost... which is not a good thing..

 

[brossyg]

Interestingly, after I wrote the post above, I contacted ASUS and the tech support rep had a standard answer: use the same SSID for the router and A/P. (I had not done this because it didn't work well in a different house with a Linksys router and A/P). I also made sure they were using the same frequency/channel. Since I did this (and keeping the 'Roaming Assistant" enabled), my Iphone has not had any problem maintaining full WIFI signal strength ... so it is now switching between the router and A/P fine.

Thanks.

 

[pete y testing]

use the same SSID for the router and A/P. (I had not done this because it didn't work well in a different house with a Linksys router and A/P).

it really doesnt matter which method you use as the client responds the same when its time to change to a different transmission

I also made sure they were using the same frequency/channel.

which is the wrong thing to do as this in its self creates interference

 

[sfx2000]

Interestingly, after I wrote the post above, I contacted ASUS and the tech support rep had a standard answer: use the same SSID for the router and A/P. (I had not done this because it didn't work well in a different house with a Linksys router and A/P). I also made sure they were using the same frequency/channel. Since I did this (and keeping the 'Roaming Assistant" enabled), my Iphone has not had any problem maintaining full WIFI signal strength ... so it is now switching between the router and A/P fine.

Common SSID is good - there were older clients that had issues getting stuck, and some still do... single frequency - it's really a choice - in 2.4GHz, sometimes that's the only choice depending on environment (neighbors)...

iDevices are kind of fun to watch - in a common SSID environment, you can actually watch them hand over, up/down bands, jump from AP to AP, all pretty seamlessly - there's a third party AP called Net Analyzer, and it shows the BSSID (MAC address of the serving AP), and you can watch it jump... fun stuff...

The big thing to watch with Common SSID - make sure that the credentials and auth schemes are the same across all bands/AP's - meaning same passwords, and all the cool kids use WPA2-AES these days..

 

[sfx2000]

What's really fun with iDevices - run Wireshark and watch the devices work... gotta be a packet geek to follow..

Going from AP1 to AP2 - you'll see it start probing for neighbors in the same BSS (that's the purpose of common SSID) once RSSI gets down to around -70 dBm, and the association with a potential Probe Response if the delta is more than 8dB stronger... and either a successful association, or if less than 8dB, it will continue to probe...

But since it's the same BSS, it doesn't have to do the whole DHCP Req/Ack sequence over again, because common SSID (same BSS) means same DS on the backend...

Pretty cool...

Since we don't really have a robust means to hand folks up band, it's really up to the client to schedule a rescan and probe the other freqs, but if your AP's support certain 802.11 extensions, they'll hand up to 5GHz if they're in the 2.4GHz badlands at the first opportunity...

 

[coxhaus]

I am no expert but what I have figured out is when using the same SSID you need to make sure you don't overlap the AP units too closely. Then clients tend not to switch as well. The other option is if the units are too close then turn down the transmit power to compensate for being to close. I think this will fix it for most clients.

 

[speedlever]

Reading this thread, I may have to re-evaluate my approach to using unique vs common SSIDs in my setup. I didn't have much luck getting the clients to switch between the N66U and a WRT54G AP, so I went with unique names and manually connected to the strongest signal at the location I was in. Else they would hold onto a faint but barely usable signal rather that switching to the stronger available signal.

I used a common SSID and the same encryption/passwords. But I didn't find it to work in my setup.

With an AC-56u inbound and the old WRT54G exiting the picture, maybe I can at last roam without having to manually switch routers all the time.

 

[sfx2000]

I am no expert but what I have figured out is when using the same SSID you need to make sure you don't overlap the AP units too closely. Then clients tend not to switch as well. The other option is if the units are too close then turn down the transmit power to compensate for being to close. I think this will fix it for most clients.

Yep, as with anything WiFi, location is key - too close together, and devices won't have a reason to start looking for candidates...