05/13/2024 28 People found this article helpful 453,030 Views
IEEE802.11r, IEEE802.11k, IEEE802.11v Settings
A Wi-Fi client will decide to roam to a new SonicWave (AP) when it detects a better signal from the new AP than the one it is currently associated with.
This behavior is normal, particularly when devices are moving around within an environment, such as laptops and mobile phones.
Why do clients face disconnectivity while roaming ?
Lets say we have two SonicPoints's in the network - SP1 and SP2 and a Client is connected to SP1.
When a client roams from this currently connected SP1 to the new SP2 it needs to re-establish an association/authentication request to that SP2.
In this situations the SPs are acting independent, this whole process must occur each time the client moves from one AP to another.
The client will disconnect from it's existing associated AP before connecting to the new one if 802.11k and 802.11r standards are not included.
Whenever a client roams it results in a time consuming period where the client has no network access. This can cause packet loss, dropped calls, or other negative performance.
Both standards are equally capable of taking different measures to reduce the time required for a client to roam from one AP to another and reduce the roaming performance.