WiFi Roaming Explained

[@PoringPoring951]

Tom's explanation always top-notch.

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Thank you

[@mrwonk]

My man. I knew there was a way to do this. Now I just need to figure out if my existing AP will support 802.11r and then get a half dozen more for my new two story office. This is going to let my staff (and me) use our cell phones for wifi calling over the company VOIP system. Thank you for the great explanation!

[@patrickvangortel2966]

Nice explanation. I'm using for almost 7 years meru (fortinet). They are using virtual cell. The device sees only one BSSID and therefore the device think he's constantly connected to a single AP. You will not get the highest throughput, but voice over wi-fi is running great!

[@BeardyMacBeardFace]

I got so much grief years ago from my decrepit grumpy old CIO, who could never seem to understand that our users poor performance when they moved around the building, was *_100%_* due to *_their_* BYOD devices and *_not_* our infrastructure. No amount of me trying to explain 802.11r, 802.11k and 802.11v got through to him and he just could not understand why the ancient EOL/EOS iPad that a top tier fee-earner lawyer insisted on using, which did not support fast roaming, smart roaming and infrastructure supported roaming, was *_100%_* responsible for poor roaming decisions or simply not attempting to roam at all. *_Me:_* Boss, it is the *_client_* which decides to roam, when to roam, which AP to roam to and how to roam! *_The_* *_BYOD_* *_client!_* *_NOT_* our infrastructure! *_Boss:_* Well we're just going to have to do better! *__* That job was hell. I was constantly being blamed for the poor performance of the ancient BYOD 💩 that VIP lawyers insisted on using.

[@Krakkel]

That ping tho all over the place

[@BradleeEdmondson]

Love your explainers Tom! I would be interested to hear a bit about FT-over-DS vs FT-over-the-air. Specifically, for fast roaming on OpenWRT, do I need to do anything or allow any traffic over the wired backhaul between the APs to allow FT-over-DS? Do I need to populate RK0 and/or RK1 entries on each IP with the IP/MAC over other roamable APs?

[@caPioVitae]

Have the access points just be on the same network or must there share same ssid - how does ssid affect roaming? how does 2ghz 5 ghz affect wifi roaming? how would you configure a home wifi scenario with e.g. 2 APs 1 at each floor? Greetings

[@craigmurray4746]

Roaming requires the client device to decide to jump from 1 AP to the next, but for that to happen both AP's must be actively broadcasting the SSID. If point B isn't broadcasting the SSID, your client won't roam because there's nothing to roam to. So yes, being on the same network is pretty important for AP's as is having the same SSID

[@nebraskacoder]

So, what happens when a client doesn't support it? Can they still connect or will it just be a shaky connection?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

hard to say, might work, might not.

[@OmarVR]

If a client does not support it, the issues will be experienced when associating to the wireless network. If the client is able to associate just fine, then you shouldn't have any problems.

[@nebraskacoder]

Thanks!

[@katdaddychap]

I had an old wireless printer that flat out would not connect to the network. I turned fast roaming off and it connected. I then fast roaming back on and it has stayed connected so far. We will see what happens.

[@skorpion1298]

WiFi roaming is enabled in my home network and my phone is compatible but while video calling it breaks the call up. All APs and controller are up to date as of 28.12.21. AP Pro and NanoHD.

[@AlexDiamantopulo]

Tuning AP power always seemed like a better option... I used a minimum RSSI option only once, in a very special case.

[@nicholas866]

that is on option... till you try high density offices lol! a real nightmare, cisco's minimum 2mW of power can travel very far...

[@weis.victor]

Minimum Data Rates are a hugely important tool to improve both roaming outcomes and optimizing bandwidth that need to be added to the discussion.

[@James_Knott]

You mentioned Cisco. Cisco has their CUWN, where they use dumb access points, connected to a common controller. How does 802.11r compare with it, in regards to switching?

[@kylegustafson7226]

I’m looking at upgrading and changing over to Ubiquity for AP’s. I have Pfsense and a Enginus EAP 2200 AP right now Would you recommend a cloud key. Does the cloud key help with Wi-Fi roaming or does the AP does the AP do the roaming. I have a 2,299 sq foot home, I’m thinking of either the U6 Long Range or the U7 Max for future proofing.

[@RK-ly5qj]

Thx Tom. Your explanation helped me to understand a lot ;)

[@andreavergani7414]

Great explenation. Ciao Tom

[@drtweak87]

Great video. Didn't realize there was a 802.11r that was needed on both ends. Though it was just on the AP side. Also wish they would just stop calling it mesh and go back to what it use to be called. WiFi Extenders! I never use the Mesh term.

[@bartbatenburg]

Hmm, extenders got a bad name tho through those stupid single band devices

[@qwertz4035]

Same but also mesh does actually make sense with some systems. Like Omada mesh, when you wired every AP up and then just cut a LAN cord, it automatically connects to the nearest AP and uses its data via wifi automatically. Thats sth. I would understand with mesh wifi and not range extenders. So when its kinda self healing/self organizing aspect where it decides on its own to where it connects. (I never used range extenders or mesh really but I have enabled it on my omada setup for failsafe just in case)

[@justinknash]

Heads up, you can't see/enable/disable BSS transition with the newest UniFi settings for some reason. You must go into UniFi legacy settings mode. Not sure why. Also for each access point I recommend turning off meshing (unless you know what you doing and what meshing means), tweaking channel width, channel, and transmit power. I actually turn off 2.4Ghz in my home (don't have any devices that are only 2.4Ghz). Finally, my 16" MacBook Pro strangely does not have a check box when viewing clients next to fast roaming, though my iPhone 11 Pro does. Seems weird, but not sure MacBook Pro's support fast roaming.

[@mrsgraham649]

Thanks for this, I was just about to question where the bss settings were.

[@badler050]

How many devices should you have on a single site before you split them? Could you have a single site with 23 APs and say 500 clients without a multicast issue?

[@francismori7]

You should disable multicast on wireless networks

[@chrisdeal85]

My main problem is the client device holding on to a poor 5 ghz connection instead of switching over to 2.4 ghz. Any recommendation for settings to accomplish that piece? I have fast roaming on, BSS transition on, and increased min RSSI on 5 ghz only. It seems to be working much better now but I’m also not sure what really did the trick here or if there are other recommendations.

[@MJLStudios]

Lovely explanation. May i have the software or whatever ur using on ur terminal to do such a setup for testing the roaming plz? 🙏🏻😝

[@bigredwag]

Great content as usual. Just a heads up, I believe fast roaming is a problem for many Google home / minis etc. If you "cast" to these items, they likely won't show up in your "cast to" list with fast roaming enabled. Video cast, and Home Max devices seem fine, it's just all the other ones that seem to have issues.

[@inktvip9246]

Same with Chromecasts. They just disconnect once you turn on fast roaming.

[@absolutium]

What about roaming between different brand components?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Not as likely to work.

[@TangDynasty1983]

I didn't catch the name of the Linux Wi-Fi testing tool at the beginning of the video. Can you share the name again, please? Thank you.

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

wavemon

[@TangDynasty1983]

@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS Thanks a lot! Is it possible if you can make a video on how to migrate everything (Unifi devices) to a tagged management VLAN in the future? By default everything seems to sit on the native 1.1 subnet/vlan, probably not a good practice in business environment. Thanks again!

[@christopherjbutler]

Has there been an updated video addressing this functionality in Network Application version 7.3.x? On the WIFI Network configuration page They have two settings, Fast Roaming and BSS Transition, but now the setting BSS Transition has a simple "Enable" slider, it no longer says "Allow BSS Transition with WNM" Not sure if that is significant or not Also UI seems to have removed articles about the subject: The support link in the description that pointed to the UI support Fast Roaming knowledgebase article is now a dead link, and they don't even reference either BSS Transition or Fast Roaming settings under Advanced | Network anymore Love your content, found your channel while setting up a new 3 AP / 2 WIFI network deployment of the new Nano HD APs using our existing third party switching and enterprise class security gateway. It has been super helpful. Subscribed :)

[@ukdanjones]

802.11r is only helpful when you’re using 802.1X - OKC is different. Unless Ubiquiti are calling OKC 802.11r when it’s not... The disassociation frame you talk about is part of 802.11v - this is only needed if the strongest RSSI BSSID is overloaded and the channel has limited airtime available. Nothing to do with 802.11r

[@lindhe]

What's OKC?

[@ukdanjones]

@@lindhe opportunistic key caching

[@DJ_Driven]

What Wi-Fi analyzer app were you using at the beginning of the video?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Wavemon

[@DJ_Driven]

@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS hi Tom, searched G play store no go...did the app get rebranded?

[@OmarVR]

@@DJ_Driven Wavemon is a Linux application that runs in the terminal.

[@SirPeterlll]

Any one know any good windows tools? And I mean not the standard "oh look a list of all ssid with the channels in the area" Those are so basic.

[@sven957]

what if I have a public guest network with 50 different smartphones connecting each day - I cant make sure they all support it. Or is it safe to say that pretty much all modern smartphones support it?

[@pmsrodrigues]

My personal experience is that it is a bit of an hit and miss. Have Aruba equipment but it's the same thing as with Ubiquiti. It's not just the hardware. Driver and firmware versions with different defaults appear to affect the end results. And, not certain that you can be so sure there are only modern devices on your guest network. Experience from the site I work for and our guest network is that several old devices will always come up. On the other end, is the iPhone 5s an old device? Spot several still being used around.

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

I would leave it off for best compatibility with your guest network.

[@peterfixit7221]

audio is a bit off in the beginning

[@danieljonsson8095]

Sad you didnt bring up handover techs in this and the effects of it being there or not... Like ping is graceful and all but a udp stream is going to have packetloss, especially if the network is congested and its an absolute nightmare if you're close to two APs witout handover... you effectively dont have a working connection at all because you keep switching back and forth and every time you lose packets. So handover is an absolute must for a lot of use cases and not at all included in regular roaming, nor do unifi support it yet afaik. Also, you didnt bring up windows limitation to it?

[@yogibong]

What a great video. Thank you.

[@AxellFolley]

Thank you for the info.

[@mingiasi]

wonder if this can be abused to make client jump to my unprotected specially built network.

[@andyrandy0815]

As far as I know SSID and authentification needs to be the same. Providing an u authenticated ap without passwd... should not work

[@slipknottin]

My Nest thermostat stops working when I turn fast roaming on in unifi. 🤔

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Weird

[@GrishTech]

Them one off modern devices LOL

[@25566]

@@LAWRENCESYSTEMS can we turn on fast roaming for 5ghz and leave it as default for 2.4ghz? Make two ssid, new devices only use 5ghz and old devices, IOT, printers and random crap go to the 2.4Ghz

[@slipknottin]

Lawrence Systems that’s what I said. I have absolutely no idea why. It’s about 4 feet from one of the APs too. I haven’t touched the RSSI settings either, they are all on auto or default. I hate that thermostat anyway and need to replace it.

[@justinknash]

@slipknottin I am using Nest thermostats with fast roaming on, however I noticed if I go into my bedroom where signal is weaker, nest constantly prompts me with "There was a problem connecting to the Nest service." Which is garbage, how strong a signals does the Nest mobile app need to send small payloads to the Nest devices. At any rate, I suspect this is what's happening with you. Go right under a access point with fast roaming on and try opening the Nest app. Should work. ALSO FLIP ON BSS TRANSITION. That helps me a lot.

[@_m.a-x]

Love the subnet address! Wise choice;)

[@kneecaps2000]

Love your stuff.

[@andljoy]

You dont have to tell me about dodgy wifi devices , i have seen everything, "hey lets put the wifi inside a sealed metal box with only one point the signal can get out" .... so so so many collisions as they cannot see others talking.

[@AmitChaudhry27]

Hello From India. love your content :-)

[@sudhirkankal]

Is 802.11r a client or router settings

[@run_deng]

Do you need to have all access point's ssid to be the same to roam seamlessly?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Yes

[@10a3asd]

oof. I started trouble shooting my speakers at the beginning of the video. 90% of the audio was coming from the right speaker. Thought something was wrong with my setup...

[@genyudiaz8344]

Turn on Roaming audio 😂😂

[@thomas2399]

How do I see in Unifi controller which of the connected clients support 802.11r?

[@OmarVR]

There's a column you can add in the classic Clients page that shows you if the client associated using the FT scheme. It is called "Fast Roaming".

[@siddharth1177]

Couldnt concentrate because of all those stickers on your laptop

[@bartbatenburg]

I use this in my student house and seems to be fine, just 3 AP's and 30 devices tho

[@rkt2583]

I use Ubiquiti AP AC PRO access points with Physical controllers and all latest firmware. however, our connection gets often disconnected while we are in middle of video calls or zoom meeting. Can anyone shed some light on how to fix this?

[@MyDiscovery2021]

Does Raspberry Pi4 support this function?

[@LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

As far as I know.

[@andrewvarey2027]

many thanks really helpful

[@XavierAlexanderr]

Unifi is by far the worst user end experience I have EVER experienced. It is a buggy mess and generally not fit for purpose. All for apple priced equipment!

[@guillermoflores4185]

Yahoo

[@martingrey2231]

You talked too fast.

[@stephenreaves3205]

first!

[@StarWarsCosplay]

People still do this?