Roaming issue for Apple devices

[OrkhanRustamli]

Hello,

We are implementing SD-Access network managed by DNA Center. Wireless network is also fabric.

Currently for people on their desk, there is not much problem but there is one important complain from upper management about his Whatsapp/Telegram/Zoom calls getting disturbed. We have seen that the person is usually walking around the floor while having his calls and I think the problem is in roaming. I have opened a ping and call between iPhone and iMac and in every roaming I see 5ping drops on computer which explains his cuts in calls. 

I have Fast transition enabled as Adaptive with "Over DS" to support Apple devices for pre-authentication. Authentication method is EAP-TLS. I have Optimized Roaming enabled. Client Roaming for 5ghz network is default with minimum RSSI - (-85dBm). What else I can do to improve roaming performance? Will increasing minimum RSSI to (-80dBm) help as maybe client is sticking to AP even though signal level is bad?

WLC Model: 3504

Version: 8.5.160.4

AP: 1852

[Leo Laohoo]

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@OrkhanRustamli wrote:

We have seen that the person is usually walking around the floor while having his calls and I think the problem is in roaming.

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Person.  Singular form.  

Is this "issue" happening to only one person?

[OrkhanRustamli]

Almost everyone using cooperate Wi-Fi in their Laptops and on their desk. For manager we installed cert and etc to make his phone also working in cooperate network. We have tested roaming with another devices and roaming in general having 4-5 pin drops. The only thing I can see as a problem here is Minimum RSSI is to low so devices roam very late.

[Leo Laohoo]

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@OrkhanRustamli wrote:

 one important complain from upper management about his Whatsapp/Telegram/Zoom calls getting disturbed.

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Ok, so this is happening to just one person, right? 

Give him a fresh phone -- As in phone is freshly factory reset.  

Next, load Whatsapp/Telegram/Zoom ONLY.  And see what result(s) he is getting. 

[JPavonM]

Do you have load or band steering enabled? If so I would recommend you to disable them.

I would also recommend you to disable legacy data rates (1, 2, 5.5 and 11 Mbps) to avoid modulation changes from OFDM to CCK on the devices. In addition to that, I recommend you to disable 6Mbps and 9Mbps to lower effective cell on the APs and steer clients to better AP decitions.

I encourage you not to use Optimized Roaming as this is not standard and you could suffer from disconnections while using real-tiome applications. Optimized Roaming deauthenticates the devices and it is forzed to look for another AP, so this is not seamless roaming.
Have you tried to debug one of those devices suffering from Quality of Experience to see the signal strength and SNR values when it decides to roam?

HTH
-Jesus
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[OrkhanRustamli]

@JPavonM  Hello.

No, I haven`t debug to see when the devices is doing roaming. Before it I may check the features you mentioned. Thanks for the reply!

[Scott Fella]

Some thing you need to understand is that not all features work in every environment. Sometimes you need to start with basic settings and gather data. Features that are enabled can be problematic at times. You need to separate configuration and RF, and make sure you take a look at both. You can’t fix a poor ap deployment with configuration changes, nor can you have too many ap’s to fix features that do not work or bugs. From what you provided, it seems like your EAP-TLS is the only issue and the applications don’t have issues on an open ssid or a ask ssid? Not all applications work well during roaming and maybe you need to test with an open ssid first, get some data and then a pre-shared key ssid also. Get a feel of what works when so you can get a better understanding.