Load balancing or Band Steering which is better?

[Sai_Prasad_Rao_]

Clients are getting stuck to the access point which they connect for the first time, they are not moving to other ap while roaming. I have enabled bandsteering for all those ap's. Is that causing the issue.... Just removed bandsteering and configured client load balancing will that help ?

[Ronald_Dvorak]

You'd need to look into the "Receiver Sensitivity" - so in example for the AP3805 on page#6 you'd need a min. signal of -85dBm for 24Mbps from the client to the AP.
http://learn.extremenetworks.com/rs/extreme/images/AP3805-DS.pdf

Every client works that way but unfortunately only few WLAN adapter vendors publish this values.
Could be that one client need -80dBm for 24Mbps and another one only -85dBm.

So you'd need to meassure the signal in the roam to see what min. basic rate would be feasible in your installation - that is normaly part of an site survey.
Might be that the door has such a high absorption that a stable WLAN connection isn't working in the room so you'd need to place one directly in the room to get a good coverage.

-Ron

[Raffi]

I'd probably want to check the signal myself in the room and see how it is with the door closed. If it is much lower then the clients inside the room with the door closed may want to gear down to a lower rate. Easiest would be to test with a few clients in the room with the door open / closed. If they have certain devices they are looking to work everywhere, like a certain model of vowlan handset then it is easier, just test with those devices. All devices work slightly differently with respect to roaming, since they each have their own roaming algorithm. Some devices ( like most pcs for example ) have a roaming aggressiveness type setting if you go into the driver properties for the wireless nic. My 6205 for example has 5 settings from low to high for roaming. I currently have it set to medium-high so the client roams more to the best ap. Lowest would have it be sticky. I know you can set these types of roaming thresholds in some wireless phones as well, like Ascoms.

[Sai_Prasad_Rao_]

ok, but here's the final thing which i want to clear from my side, all mobiles are working perfectly both outside and inside the room , its the laptops which are not getting connected, sometime laptop doesnt even show SSID.....any idea

[Simon_Vosper]

The decision to roam is one taken by the client device alone and different device vendors have different roaming algorithms. The only thing we can really do to make clients be less "sticky" is to disable the lower data rates. Set the minimum data rate quite high, 24Mbps for example. Once the client gets to a point where it needs to drop below 24Mbps it will being the roaming sequence.

Please beware. Increasing the minimum data will cause your wireless cells to effectively shrink, so please make sure you verify your coverage after changing the minimum data rate setting. Also a minimum data rate of 24Mbps will mean that DSSS (802.11b only) clients will not be able to connect.

[Sai_Prasad_Rao_]

HI i already have minimum rate set as shown below with probe suppression enabled. I was told that the signal is good outside the room, and very less inside the room when door is closed .does that mean i need to reduce the minimum rates, if yes what would the stable rates be....