I suspect this Aruba presentation pretty much nails the enterprise-unfriendly
behavior you're seeing:
http://community.arubanetworks.com/t5/Airheads-EMEA-Italy-2014-June-9/Breakout-Wi-Fi-Behavior-of-Popular-Mobile-Devices/gpm-p/163614
Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu | For every problem, there is a solution that
Manager of Network Operations | is simple, elegant, and wrong.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute | - HL Mencken
On 11/04/2014 04:22 PM, Watters, John wrote:
We have a continuing problem with clients devices which refuse to move to an
AP that provides a much better signal. For example, students entering a
classroom typically have at least one WiFi device active when they enter the
room (e.g., their phone) and maybe more (e.g.,, tablet, laptop, etc). As has
been the case for years, the default client behavior seems to continue to be
to hold on to the original AP association until it becomes unusable, then move
to the best signal for where they currently are. I know that recent Windows
machines have settings to control how aggressive the radio is in moving to a
better AP. Surely UNIX-based machines can also do the same. We encourage our
laptop users to take advantage of a more aggressive setting. And, we use the
Cisco load-balancing stuff to also try to help.
But, we still see the problem.
Now, we are getting complaints about phones (iPhones & Android). users cannot
infinitely wander around a residence hall or Greek house without getting small
breaks in service (about 1 second or less) when they finally move from one AP
to one with a much stronger (and clearer) signal.
Does anyone know anything else we can try to encourage client devices
(tablets, laptops, and phones) to change APs more aggressively?
We are a Cisco shop using WiSM2 controllers (7.6.120.0 & 7.6.130.0) with 5,000
APs of various models (1131, 1142, 2602, 2702, and a few 3502 & 3602s).
Thanks for any help/advice you can offer.
-jcw UA Logo
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John Watters The University of Alabama
Office of Information
Technology
205-348-3992
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