Seamless Roaming/Zero-Handoff?

[Goofoff]

I am looking to make a home network that has 3 AP's.

My big thing is that i do IT architecture and do a lot of wireless networks for enterprises but don't know if there is anything for a home network that does the Seamless roaming/zero handoff.

Is there anything that has K/R functionality that does this, where you don't need a hardware controller or some $1200/per AP?

or if someone has other suggestions or should i just suck it up and use some extenders.
802.11 AC is preferred

 

[sfx2000]

In consumer territory - best you can hope for, and generally works...

Common SSID, Common WPA2/PSK passprhase - you can try multiple channels or single channel - I've found that single channel generally works...

clients roaming - generally depends on clients - some work better than others...

sfx

 

[thiggins]

or if someone has other suggestions or should i just suck it up and use some extenders.
802.11 AC is preferred

Extenders don't solve the problem. Clients still need to decide to move to a different BSS.

 

[Goofoff]

Extenders don't solve the problem. Clients still need to decide to move to a different BSS.

That's why i said Suck it up .
i don't particularly want to do those because i had a client who bought some for their office and the performance of the network just went to crap.

 

[mmm200]

What about buying three Aruba Instant APs on eBay for $300-400. One AP is working as fully featured wireless LAN controller (Even 802.11k and 802.11r supported as well as proprietary ClientMatch feature)
I've bought two switchable dual band 802.11n IAP-93 for $80 total.
You could buy used simultaneous dual band .11n Aruba IAP-105 for $80-120. Just make sure you buying the same country code APs (US, EU etc.).

The other option is wait until XClaim (Ruckus Wireless low-end solution) will introduce their cloud management platform XCloud. Their APs internally are the same greatest Ruckus APs with different firmwares. My Xi-3 is working much better than Aruba.

 

[stevech]

fast and correct roaming/handoff = professional grade WiFi (managed APs) as above. Cisco or Aruba in the main.

 

[remixedcat]

My arubas roam quite well

 

[paraplu]

Ubiquiti and Engenius (with a radius server at hand) should be able to handle your requirements, for a lesser price than the big boys.

 

[sfx2000]

My arubas roam quite well

Have to enable the feature in AirOS, otherwise they don't... similar to Cisco...

 

[sfx2000]

Ubiquiti and Engenius (with a radius server at hand) should be able to handle your requirements, for a lesser price than the big boys.

Don't need a Radius to make Seamless HO work, can do this with WPA2-Personal with common Passphrases/Pre-Shared Keys...

That takes some more cost out...

 

[sfx2000]

fast and correct roaming/handoff = professional grade WiFi (managed APs) as above. Cisco or Aruba in the main.

There is no correct/fast way to do this... there are a lot of approaches, and Cisco, by their size in the enterprise space, has a defacto spec on how it can be done... and with clients that support that spec, it works fairly well...

Aruba works a bit different, and perhaps is more open to clients on a general basis, but depends more on the client capabilities - they have a good approach..

What I like about Aruba and Cisco, is that they have the basic stuff nailed, and within their management platforms, the appropriate policy controls - nomadic vs. mobile, and what traffic flows are in use at any given time - that's why folks spend a lot of money on these two...

And then we have another vendor, which I won't name directly, that does some odd things with virtual BSSID's - which some folks that are deep in the wires will take exception to, their approach can work as well, and the challenge there is managing the BSS's within the ESS...

sfx

 

[remixedcat]

but single channel has way too many contention issues and other clustermucks as well.

 

[stevech]

Cisco/Aruba, in this context, means their systems with WLAN controllers and "dumb" APs that take handoff commands from the controller.
I didn't think that Engenius or Ubiquity does this... at least at affordable costs. Cisco (used to?) broadcast a best-neighbor MAC address list in the SSID beacon plus send management messages (proprietary) to the APs to pass encryption session credentials so the handoff can be fast enough for handheld VoIP such as these guys make
http://www.vocera.com/

PS: RADIUS is about authentication for access, not mobility management (handoffs).

 

[sfx2000]

but single channel has way too many contention issues and other clustermucks as well.

Don't say that when you don't test it...

Findings show that SCA works... I've shared what I can in another thread...

 

[sfx2000]

Cisco/Aruba, in this context, means their systems with WLAN controllers and "dumb" APs that take handoff commands from the controller.
I didn't think that Engenius or Ubiquity does this... at least at affordable costs. Cisco (used to?) broadcast a best-neighbor MAC address list in the SSID beacon plus send management messages (proprietary) to the APs to pass encryption session credentials so the handoff can be fast enough for handheld VoIP such as these guys make http://www.vocera.com/

Engenius and Ubitquity are at at different stratum compared to enterprise and carrier grade gear..

They service different markets - and I would put Meru/Ruckus/ex-Meraki into that same bucket...

Last time I was in hospital (01/2015) - Vocera wifi handsets with FMC on the backend - e.g. they could dial in/out was pretty cool, and the hosp had nice little wifi dumb dongles for my cardiac monitor, along with my IV water pusher...

perhaps a harbinger of IoT...

And they let in a patient that understands WiFi with a fully equipped laptop full of interesting tools - one can only stand so many hours of NCIS and Headline News... nothing else to do, and with a nicotine patch, I really didn't have a reason to escape... that and a lot of morphine...

Let's not go into why I was there...

sfx

 

[stevech]

I did a couple of projects using Vocera - really good stuff. One thing I did, years ago, was test various enterprise grade APs and managed APs with Vocera, to see which can really get 0.2Sec or better handoff of an encrypted session including VoIP. Few did it. Mainly Cisco had it down right with Aironet gear.

Last time I was in the hospital one of my bags of IV meds had someone else's name on it. I noted it soon. Told the staff. They all went wide-eyed, like "we're all gonna get fired for this!". Fortunately, wrong patient name, right med.

 

[sfx2000]

Last time I was in the hospital one of my bags of IV meds had someone else's name on it. I noted it soon. Told the staff. They all went wide-eyed, like "we're all gonna get fired for this!". Fortunately, wrong patient name, right med.

That's probably why they now have all the wifi/bt dongles on their stuff

 

[sfx2000]

I did a couple of projects using Vocera - really good stuff. One thing I did, years ago, was test various enterprise grade APs and managed APs with Vocera, to see which can really get 0.2Sec or better handoff of an encrypted session including VoIP. Few did it. Mainly Cisco had it down right with Aironet gear.

Fun to watch callflow there - the vocera stuff worked pretty well, could see beacons and pages, but traffic was encrypted... My hosp visit, knew that Cisco did some vertical integration with partners for VOIP handsets, and VoIP apps for smartphones - actually, the connected situation there was a bit encouraging, but a lot depends on back office..

 

[sfx2000]

and again, we've done gone off the ranch with regard to the original topic..

sorry everyone...

sfx

 

[remixedcat]

Don't say that when you don't test it...

Findings show that SCA works... I've shared what I can in another thread...

I've tested that on some of the APs I've reviewed and clients did not like that. Ra-Link based chipset adapters had the most issues.