Multiple access points, same network, same SSID....use same or diff channels?

[BD2003]

Right now I have my network setup using different channels. The switch between the two rarely feels seamless as I walk throughout the house, and often a device will "stick" to the further away access point and barely work.

Would changing both APs to use the same channel make it more seamless? I'm sure they'll interfere with each other, but what would be the result? Just less overall bandwidth since they're effectively splitting the spectrum in half? Or will it cause more problem than that?

 

[Comblues]

A candidate for the CWNP certification program...

Ok

I recommend using the following:

1. Channels 1, 6, 11 -> Draw some circles for each - We want some overlap for roaming but not too much. If you don't have a wireless spectrum analyzer use your laptop or even smart phone to check where the signal diminishes.

2. The same SSID -> Kewl, you are now thinking enterprise.

3. The same Network -> Absolutely.

4. The devices are "sticking" because of persistence - there are some settings to help with this issue depending on the vendor of the device. Look into it.

Comblues

 

[BD2003]

I have one on ch 1 and one on 11. I used tomato to measure which channel had less interference at each station. I thought this through.

The devices I typically have issues with are iPhones and iPads, where I have zero control over the persistence.

What happens if I use the same channel?

 

[JackMDS]

Should be same SSID and Password and different channels.

However, End Users WIFI are not really seamless capable.

 

[CubanlB]

Clients and APs will see frames destined for the other APs as noise and collisions can occur which will require the frames to be re-transmitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_sense_multiple_access_with_collision_avoidance

 

[BD2003]

Should be same SSID and Password and different channels.

However, End Users WIFI are not really seamless capable.

Is there any setting on the router side to improve the seamlessness? I'm willing to give up some potential bandwidth if necessary.

What feature do enterprise routers have that consumer ones don't, that make it better at this?

 

[BD2003]

I guess to put it more clearly, this is my setup. In the basement, right underneath my living room, is one AP. It's stuck in the basement, not really feasible for me to move it out of there. Because of that it barely worked in my office on the other side of the house and backyard. This is also old brick construction, the signal doesn't pass very well through walls. So I repurposed my old router as a second AP/switch in the office. They're connected by a 75ft cat6 cable, everything is gigabit. Its configured properly as a pure AP to the best of my knowledge, DHCP, DNS and all that stuff is turned off on the secondary AP, never really have any routing issues.

If I initially connect in the living room, it usually sticks to the basement AP until I move out of range. Once it connects to the office AP, it'll pretty much stick to it, even when I'm back in the living room, often to the point where it can still see the office AP, but actual data flow grinds to a halt. Sometimes it'll stubbornly stay that way until I manually disable and re-enable wifi....it can be very frustrating. Is there any feature in tomato, or any router firmware, that can get the APs to "negotiate" and let go of a weak connection? Or is it purely handled client side, and if so, is there any router setting that can enhance the client's ability to recognize which AP is closer/more reliable?

Also, what's the best practice for integrating 5ghz and 2.4ghz n? Right now only one of my APs is 5ghz capable, so I use a separate SSID for the 5ghz. I generally reserve the 5ghz for non mobile devices that are always in range of the 5ghz AP, and use 2.4ghz for the devices that roam. If I were to upgrade the other AP to dual band, should I just put them all on the same SSID and let the devices work it out? Put them all on 5ghz? Or put half on one half on the other? I don't live in too dense an area, very little interference coming from the neighbors.

 

[Eug]

Most home WiFi router/access points have this very annoying hold-on-as-long-as-possible behaviour.

My solution was to get a stronger WiFi router placed centrally in the house, which works for regular surfing nearly everywhere in the house. It's still not strong enough to stream HD reliably everywhere in the house though.

For that I put two additional weaker $13 access points far from the central one, in two spots where I might be streaming HD. They are on different SSIDs so I have to manually switch over, for the occasional times I need to stream HD in those spots.

The other solution would be to buy 3 Ubiquiti UniFi access points which have that seamless handoff functionality, but I didn't feel like spending $200+ at this point for 802.11n UniFis. Maybe in a couple of years when 802.11ac is mainstream and the Ubiquiti UniFi 802.11ac models are cheaper, I'll get three of those.

BTW, I too had my router in the basement, and it was a much bigger problem. Now I have my newer WiFi router (with the stronger signal) in the living room, in the middle of the house.

Is it really not feasible to put an access point in your living room? You could run the CAT6 cable outside for example. It might require drilling through the wall in your basement and in your living room though. Another option is to drill a hole through the floor of your living room / ceiling of your basement to run cable. Or else you can just buy the Ubiquiti stuff.

In the meantime you could try reducing the signal strength of your basement access point, and then buying a very strong access point for your home office. That way, in your living room and in your office, you're always just using the office access point. The only times you'd use the basement access point is when you're in the basement.

P.S. I turned off 5 GHz in my house completely. The range just wasn't good enough compared to 2.4 GHz, so in spots further away from the router, 2.4 GHz was consistently faster and more reliable than 5 GHz.

 

[spidey07]

Is there any setting on the router side to improve the seamlessness? I'm willing to give up some potential bandwidth if necessary.

What feature do enterprise routers have that consumer ones don't, that make it better at this?

Nothing you can do on the AP side, it is purely up to the client to make a roaming decision.

Seamless roaming all the APs have awareness of the client and have cached the private encryption keys so when a roam occurs there is no need to go through the full association process requiring re-auth and also a DHCP release/renew. The roam happens in sub 100 milliseconds.

Eug - that hold on as long as possible is the client, not the AP. Any decision to move access points is purely up to the client.

 

[BD2003]

Nothing you can do on the AP side, it is purely up to the client to make a roaming decision.

Seamless roaming all the APs have awareness of the client and have cached the private encryption keys so when a roam occurs there is no need to go through the full association process requiring re-auth and also a DHCP release/renew. The roam happens in sub 100 milliseconds.

Eug - that hold on as long as possible is the client, not the AP. Any decision to move access points is purely up to the client.

I'm confused by this. You say the client makes the roaming decision, but for seamless roaming all the APs need to be aware of the client. How do I know whether all my APs are aware of the client? I'm using static DHCP for all my devices, if that has anything to do with it.

 

[BD2003]

Most home WiFi router/access points have this very annoying hold-on-as-long-as-possible behaviour.

My solution was to get a stronger WiFi router placed centrally in the house, which works for regular surfing nearly everywhere in the house. It's still not strong enough to stream HD reliably everywhere in the house though.

For that I put two additional weaker $13 access points far from the central one, in two spots where I might be streaming HD. They are on different SSIDs so I have to manually switch over, for the occasional times I need to stream HD in those spots.

The other solution would be to buy 3 Ubiquiti UniFi access points which have that seamless handoff functionality, but I didn't feel like spending $200+ at this point for 802.11n UniFis. Maybe in a couple of years when 802.11ac is mainstream and the Ubiquiti UniFi 802.11ac models are cheaper, I'll get three of those.

BTW, I too had my router in the basement, and it was a much bigger problem. Now I have my newer WiFi router (with the stronger signal) in the living room, in the middle of the house.

Is it really not feasible to put an access point in your living room? You could run the CAT6 cable outside for example. It might require drilling through the wall in your basement and in your living room though. Another option is to drill a hole through the floor of your living room / ceiling of your basement to run cable. Or else you can just buy the Ubiquiti stuff.

In the meantime you could try reducing the signal strength of your basement access point, and then buying a very strong access point for your home office. That way, in your living room and in your office, you're always just using the office access point. The only times you'd use the basement access point is when you're in the basement.

P.S. I turned off 5 GHz in my house completely. The range just wasn't good enough compared to 2.4 GHz, so in spots further away from the router, 2.4 GHz was consistently faster and more reliable than 5 GHz.

Yeah, I'd love to run the router to the living room, but its a rented house, and the only place I can make a reasonably placed hole in the floor is actually outside of the finished basement, and is surrounded by pipes and wires. I nearly had a heart attack when the cable guy came to bring the cable feed to the living room from the basement. It was so close to a hot water pipe that when I asked him to drill another hole for the Ethernet he flat out refused.

 

[Eug]

Nothing you can do on the AP side, it is purely up to the client to make a roaming decision.

Seamless roaming all the APs have awareness of the client and have cached the private encryption keys so when a roam occurs there is no need to go through the full association process requiring re-auth and also a DHCP release/renew. The roam happens in sub 100 milliseconds.

Eug - that hold on as long as possible is the client, not the AP. Any decision to move access points is purely up to the client.

I had read that the UniFi APs can force a hard handover. You will lose the connection very briefly, but it's better than hanging on to an extremely weak signal.

I'm reading more now though and I'm not sure if this is the case or not. However, more importantly their latest models have "Zero Handoff Roaming":

http://dl.ubnt.com/datasheets/unifi/UBNT_DS_Zero_Handoff_Roaming.pdf

Multiple APs get seen by the client just as one AP, not multiple APs with the same SSID. You don't need any client side drivers either. The APs decide amongst themselves which will connect to the client. The client can't decide because it only sees one AP anyway.

Note: I haven't actually used these, but people say it does actually work in the real world.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

I always use 5Ghz when I can. With 802.11n you get much more bandwidth, regardless of the interference from outside, though the range is smaller.

However, many clients default to 2.4Ghz networks, even when a 5Ghz is present and it knows how to connect. For this reason, I usually name my 5GHz network with a different SSID and then connect to that with preference.

However, as it was said, the connection persistence is set by the client. The AP has little say in that regard.

And.... any AP that can see another AP should be on a DIFFERENT channel. Putting two on the same channel just makes them interfere and you might as well just turn one of them off.

 

[Eug]

I always use 5Ghz when I can. With 802.11n you get much more bandwidth, regardless of the interference from outside, though the range is smaller.

Well, range impacts bandwidth of course, so much so in my house that bandwidth is actually higher with 2.4 GHz than 5 GHz when I'm far away from the router (and my home office is far away from the router in the living room). This is despite the fact there are no other 5 GHz signals within range, and there are lots of 2.4 GHz WiFi signals within range.