MikroTik

I have read a lot of posts about (seamless) roaming wireless, but most are old.

I want to use 6 APs with CAPsMAN and ensure that roaming works as well as possible.

How?

it is my question too

Has anybody experience with it? kick a client at -80dBm is not an option.

Go with Aruba but not mikrotik, solved you issue.

Has anybody experience with it? kick a client at -80dBm is not an option.

then kick it at 85-86dbm

disabling lower datarates can help to force client device to roam

fine tune tx power on accesspoint can help too

proper overlapped coverage between accesspoints help too

remember roaming is very client dependent

I will try that. There are many places with no overlap (long corridor) and that I would not make worse.

Aruba or better said HP is in a different league. I mostly have just small installations of up to 10 AP

I'm going to take a closer look at Ubiquiti combined with Mikrotik (Hotspot, VLAN). Can Ubiquiti seamless roaming wireless use WITHOUT UniFi Controller (UniFi controller only for configuration)? I know is not a UBNT forum but I will certainly not be the only one looking for an alternative for Indoor WLAN.

I will try that. There are many places with no overlap (long corridor) and that I would not make worse.

Aruba or better said HP is in a different league. I mostly have just small installations of up to 10 AP

I'm going to take a closer look at Ubiquiti combined with Mikrotik (Hotspot, VLAN). Can Ubiquiti seamless roaming wireless use WITHOUT UniFi Controller (UniFi controller only for configuration)? I know is not a UBNT forum but I will certainly not be the only one looking for an alternative for Indoor WLAN.

i suggest you to take a tour in ubiquiti forums before buying, some time ago i read about some issues about this topic, better check that issues has been solved before buying

Go with Aruba but not mikrotik, solved you issue.

Dear angboontiong, why you suggest Aruba and not Mikrotik?
Wich is your experience?
I'm searching some experience with medium large installations with mikrotik and capsman indoor.

My best regards

In my own experience (got several RBs in my home) if you set them up with CAPsMANv2 (wireless-cm2) and set all of them to the same frequency/ssid/key (just the exact same provisioning profile), the devices freely roam on their own (my iPhone very quickly swaps access points when I move through my home, within 30 seconds of being moved).

They key here is the APs must be on the same channel (it did not work with different channels)

using with 144 capsman interfaces working like a charm. You can fine tunning roaming using accest lists

You can fine tunning roaming using accest lists

What do you mean by that

In my own experience (got several RBs in my home) if you set them up with CAPsMANv2 (wireless-cm2) and set all of them to the same frequency/ssid/key (just the exact same provisioning profile), the devices freely roam on their own (my iPhone very quickly swaps access points when I move through my home, within 30 seconds of being moved).

They key here is the APs must be on the same channel (it did not work with different channels)

That is interesting. But is this just a coincidence (client process), or is controlled by the CAPsMAN?

That is interesting. But is this just a coincidence (client process), or is controlled by the CAPsMAN?

I think it does depend on the Wi-Fi client hardware you are using.
However it does make sense only same-channel roaming works seamless:
- To check for APs on different channels it would have to go switch channels, do a scan, which would or might interrupt your connectivity for most devices (i.e. those that can't be on two independant channels at once)
- If channel is same, it can observe beacon frames without having to swap channels at all and judge signal strength to swap over

I don't know if CAPsMAN is required to make this possible (I don't know if it syncs the WPA2 Wi-Fi unicast keys or group keys or not). But this is controlled by the client devices, not the APs.
So if your client device does not do it, then it doesn't (it might depend on driver, firmware and OS since all of those could initiate such swapping behaviour)

You can fine tunning roaming using accest lists

What do you mean by that

You can force roaming and the device has nothing to do with that. Devices does not apreciate when ap has changed. For them, the ap is always the same!

You can fine tunning roaming using accest lists

What do you mean by that

You can force roaming and the device has nothing to do with that. Devices does not apreciate when ap has changed. For them, the ap is always the same!

do you mean to set the signal threshold ???

You can fine tunning roaming using accest lists

What do you mean by that

You can force roaming and the device has nothing to do with that. Devices does not apreciate when ap has changed. For them, the ap is always the same!

do you mean to set the signal threshold ???

Yes, see:

http://forum.mikrotik.com/viewtopic.php?t=85755