We design to -60dBm as measured by a Fluke Aircheck, That usually works out to around -63 to -65 on a MacBook and -65 to -68 on a tablet or phone. I’m sure there are a few outlier devices that measure it as weaker than -70, but until recently it was clear that those were outliers. If you did a packet capture where the coverage was up to our spec you would hardly see any probes.
We were already planning to up our standard to -55 as we deploy 11ax, but getting to that in our res halls means an AP in every room. We have every third room right now (each AP is expected to cover through one wall). We can’t afford to triple the number of APs right now, so it’s important that we find another solution. Jimmy’s suggestion of a 5GHz only SSID may help, but based on what I know about our coverage I think we’d still have significant issues with roaming between different 5GHz radios. From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mallon, Jason Sent: Friday, October 9, 2020 4:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] [EXTERNAL] Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Client roaming Agreed, an iOS device at -65 starts roaming and acts wonky from time to time. The issue we run into a lot is, which iOS device do you design for? Do you design with the iphone 11 or 10, or do you design for the frst SE, 6, or 7 that are four or five years old now? With iOS devices able to get code updates for 4 years do you still consider them a relevant device on the network, when you might see only a handful of them. I went back through my tickets earlier today, and did notice that most complaints are from macOS and iOS devices. As the wireless cards get better at what point do you start eliminating the older equipment off of your network when you are BYOD? Thanks, Jason Mallon | Network Engineer III [/var/folders/h2/r448cc4j4_v70yns10brx6r00000gq/T/com.microsoft.Outlook/Content.MSO/90F25235.tmp] OIT The University of Alabama <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ua.edu%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ccae104%40PSU.EDU%7C1314807c18f149dfbacf08d86c9461a7%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7C637378731861182412&sdata=S3RyWoyACCHV8j%2Fumld2sqOvZzD%2FgqvOoTPSLUEG6T4%3D&reserved=0>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [/var/folders/h2/r448cc4j4_v70yns10brx6r00000gq/T/com.microsoft.Outlook/Content.MSO/8434B70B.tmp] From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Friday, October 9, 2020 at 2:32 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Client roaming On thing to keep in mind is that iOS devices start behavior poorly when they have no good option above -65. That’s the threshold they prefer 5GHz and when you combine that with “hallway design” and “band select” you are asking for a bad time. Scenario: Client doesn’t see 5GHz above -65. 2.4Ghz looks better, client tries to associate and bandselect tries to send them back. Client doesn’t think 5GHz meets its requirements, tries to associate on 2.4Ghz. Round and round they go. If you need band select for devices like iOS that prefer 5GHz, you likely don’t have enough 5GHz coverage, and trying to force them to 5GHz only results in issues. A better approach is to have at least 6db of transmit power more on 5GHz than 2.4. This makes 5GHz generally look more attractive so clients naturally pick it, band select not needed. You can easily do this with TPC min/max settings. Also keep in mind when looking at your survey reports. -65 is as measured by the device, not your fancy sidekick or aircheck. Figure you need an extra 7-10db delta to overcome the limitations of some mobiles devices. That puts you -58 to -55 as measured. Sent from my iPhone On Oct 9, 2020, at 1:08 PM, James Helzerman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Best thing you can do for clients is have a 5GHz only SSID. We moved over the summer to this with our main 802.1x network and it has fixed a ton of these roaming issues and complaints of performance. Basically take the decision making out of the hands of the client, give them only one band to choose from. Band Select / steering may work but can lead to a lot of users issues as roaming can break if the client doesnt take the hint to use 5GHz. Transitions with real time applications like voice can be negatively affected. For those on our campus that have 2.4GHz only devices, we offer eduroam in both bands and have them use that then use AAA override to place them in the same network as our branded ssid giving them all the same access to resources. Our branded 802.1x, MWireless, has 95% of our user devices. -Jimmy -- James Helzerman Wireless Network Engineer University of Michigan - ITS On Fri, Oct 9, 2020 at 12:03 PM Enfield, Chuck <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: FWIW, I’ve been reluctant to assume this is a new problem. Usage patterns have changed in the dorms and people are spending much more time using real-time protocols than ever before. Those protocols make brief connectivity issues very noticeable. It’s quite possible we’ve always had these problems, but they rarely bothered users enough to make them open trouble tickets. From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Michael Davis Sent: Friday, October 09, 2020 10:49 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Client roaming We're an Aruba shop and only seeing it on iOS and MacOS devices. On 10/9/20 10:44 AM, Mallon, Jason wrote: I have not been able to pinpoint a device type as of yet. It seems to be happening across all platforms including game systems. Thanks, Jason Mallon | Network Engineer III <image001.jpg> OIT The University of Alabama <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ua.edu%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ccae104%40PSU.EDU%7C1314807c18f149dfbacf08d86c9461a7%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7C637378731861182412&sdata=S3RyWoyACCHV8j%2Fumld2sqOvZzD%2FgqvOoTPSLUEG6T4%3D&reserved=0>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <image001.jpg> From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> Date: Friday, October 9, 2020 at 9:40 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Client roaming We’re an Aruba shop and have noticed similar behavior. We’re having more incidents of intermittent connectivity issues this year than in previous years, and most of those clients are making questionable roaming decisions. It’s been really prevalent with iOS and MacOS. Much less on Windows and Android. There’s always been problems with picking a good radio when those devices first connect, but, historically, once they were steered to a good 5GHz radio they stayed there. They’re not staying there this year. We haven’t figured out why. Chuck Enfield Manager, Wireless and Cellular Penn State IT 814.863.8715 From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> On Behalf Of Mallon, Jason Sent: Friday, October 09, 2020 10:30 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Client roaming Wondering if anybody else is seeing this. We currently have devices doing a lot of roaming between 5 and 2.4 radios, especially in the dorms. I would not think anything of it normally, but they are moving from a -52 to -58 on the 5 radio to a -75 or worse on the 2.4 radio. This doesn’t seem to matter what SSID they are connected to. Band select is enabled on all SSIDs. We are running Cisco 8540 WLCs on 8.10.130. Most of the complaints are coming from the dorms, so I am not sure if it is happening on our other controllers with an older code level. Thanks, Jason Mallon | Network Engineer III <image002.jpg> OIT The University of Alabama <https://nam01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ua.edu%2F&data=02%7C01%7Ccae104%40PSU.EDU%7C1314807c18f149dfbacf08d86c9461a7%7C7cf48d453ddb4389a9c1c115526eb52e%7C0%7C0%7C637378731861192410&sdata=6jpFSRvsbW7XL4QeUcZpRv6QEbvOyETJ0dWPYOsL9Ts%3D&reserved=0>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <image002.jpg> ********** Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire community list. 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