Apple Airport and Cisco Aironet AP350

[j.joe]

I have installed Aironet AP350 for every floors of my 3 level office.

When using PC-based laptop with wi-fi built-in, there is no problem when carrying around my office.

But when using Apple PowerBook with airport card, I can only work in a single floor and the connection is cut when passed into another floor.

Anyone gives me a hand?

[gverr]

I see several possibilities.

1) do you have more than 1 AP on the same floor?

2) if yes, does the roaming work between these AP's?

3) if no try the roaming on the same floor

4) are all your floors on the same IP segment?

5) are all your AP's in the same broadcast domain?

6) what is the nature of the device(s) between the floors (switches? hubs? routers?)

rgds,

guy

[j.joe]

Answers to your points:

1) There is only 1 AP on each floor

2 & 3) My PC laptop works fine for the roaming across floors

4) They are in the same segment

5) I don't quite understand you question...

6) All the AP are linked to a switch Cisco 2900 series

Thank you for your help

[gverr]

With CISCO AP's, there is an inter access point protocol (proprietary) which is not routable (it isn't with anyone when there is). Should there have been a router between the floors, you then would have had your floors on different broadcast domains. and the interAP protocol might not have worked.

Are you AP350 set for interoperability? Aironet extensions disabled,...

I would encourage you to test the roaming with your AIRPORT card between 2 AP's on the same floor connected to a minihub connected to the switch. This would point out the network infrastructure or the roaming itself.

Rgds,

Guy

[j.joe]

From my previous post, I mentioned that all my APs are connected to the same root which is a Cisco switch. And this problem would not seem to happen when I am using a PC laptop.

I cannot test with your instruction as they are mounted "inside" the ceiling.

[gverr]

the purpose of the suggested testing is to test roaming between the AIRPORT radio card and CISCO AP's. On your laptop, you likely use a CISCO card and as such do not experience problems (CISCO-CISCO environment).

What about the interoperability settings on the CISCO AP's?

- non-AIRONET 802.11

- use AIRONET extensions -> NO

- Radio Preamble LONG

- Ethernet encapsulation transform -> RFC1042

- Radio modulation -> Standard

Guy