Advanced Optimized Roaming

[antonios.skoulariotis]

Hey there WLAN gurus, i have a question which applies only on the legacy 2.4 GHz spectrum.

I have a high in interference high density wifi environment, which results to high channel utilization, i followed best practices, disabled lower data rates, did an RF survey, checked DCA, TPC, coverage hole detection, aggresive loading balancing to name a few.

Long story I have been able to stabilize the network considerably,

My question is should I enable optimized roaming? which I have it enabled as we speak but on the default values, anyone has some best practices to share here? from an RSSI, Data Rates, and time perspective?

Essentially I have sticky clients at -66 dBm but they are crawling in the range of 2-4 Mbps Up/Down, and this is what I am trying to figure out.

Also would 802.11K help me here?

Please see the links I am referring too.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-0/configuration-guide/b_cg80/b_cg80_chapter_010011001.html

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/7-4/configuration/guides/consolidated/b_cg74_CONSOLIDATED/b_cg74_CONSOLIDATED_chapter_01100111.pdf

Thank you

[matthewcharette]

Having just enabled 802.11k, it certainly can help as far as the client being informed in it's decision making, but you first need to check if the wireless NICs support the new protocol. 

This Intel link was the most comprehensive I found:  http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/network-and-i-o/wireless-networking/000021562.html

[mohanak]

Optimized Roaming addresses the sticky client challenge by pro-actively disconnecting clients, thus enabling the clients to move to a nearby AP that offers stronger connectivity. It achieves this functionality by actively monitoring Data RSSI packets, and enforcing client disassociation when the RSSI is lower than the set threshold. When Optimized Roaming is enabled, the clients with signal strength lower than -80 dB will receive disassociation and achieves the following:

• Client receives best connectivity and maintains the quality of experience.
• Improves overall performance of each AP cell by reducing Airtime interference.

Also verify the end client support 802.11k or not, there are some restrictions in enabling 802.11k which is known as assisted roaming, for more information refer documents : http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/technology/wlc/82463-wlc-config-best-practice.html#pgfId-380513

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/7-4/configuration/guides/consolidated/b_cg74_CONSOLIDATED/b_cg74_CONSOLIDATED_chapter_01100111.pdf