The Roaming not work, and users disconnect constantly even not move around.

[javier_sanchez_]

I have a network with 16 AP (10 R500 and 6 R300) and a 1200 controller,2 SSID with WPA/AES and i need use a softphone but i have the next issue with some users:
All the Iphone ́s was disconnect constantly
An a Samsung Note 4 lost wifi signal and block the wifi networks when it moves of a R500 to a R300 (We need to turn on and off the airplane mode to resolve the issue)
More than 10 users with laptops HP and wireless card ralink rt3290 can not connect with the network (i upgrade the drivers and some laptops can connect now but the navigation on the net was terrible slow)
When i walk through the office and change of one AP to another and if i am in a call this ends, and the use of softphone it is very important in this project.

I hope anyone can help me.

[mike_clark_7652]

On the ZD models we noticed roaming will not work with WPA make sure you have security set to WPA2.

[bill_burns_6069]

Do you mean the ZoneFlex (ZF) models?
..as opposed to ZD? (APs connected to Zone Director controllers)

Do you mean that you think non ZF APs (like the R300, R500, R700, R710) do not have this problem or do you suspect that all Ruckus APs may have this issue?

..or do you mean that any Ruckus AP connected to a ZoneDirector has this issue?

[seanmuir]

I've not seen this issue

We use WPA/Mixed on our 802.1x SSID with 802.11r and k enabled and never had any issues with roaming.

What FW are you running?

[bill_burns_6069]

John + Sean:

Sid is the best Ruckus support agent I know of.
He's suggesting bss-minrate (and avoiding smartroam) as the best solution for rapidly-roaming stationary clients and iOS devices that may "give up" after being repeatedly kicked.

Please let me know if the following summary is accurate:

Roaming issues:
John:Y   Sean:N    Bill:Y

smartroam
John:1   Sean:4    Bill:1/2

ofdm-only
John:N   Sean:Y    Bill:Y

bss-minrate
John:5.5 Sean:24   Bill:12/24

load-balancing
John:Y   Sean:17dB Bill:N

band-balancing
John:Y   Sean:0%   Bill:N


We all have smartroam configured but Sean is the only one not reporting roaming issues.
Sean also has the highest bss-minrate of "24" across the board.
(I'm showing configs for my outdoor public access areas, where I have a bss-minrate of "12" for the 2.4Ghz spectrum and "24" for the 5Ghz spectrum)
Sean's smartroam setting seems very aggressive at a roaming factor of "4".

I wonder if that aggressive roaming factor may be "saving" him from smartroam problems.
My understanding is that a smartroam "kick" will happen when the client is seen to cross the threshold from the "strong" side to the "weak" side of the roaming factor. With a roaming factor that high, a client might never roam to another AP (due to a kick) unless it's in a very high density of AP situation.

Following that rationale, maybe we should try a bss-minrate of "24" across the board?
I'm not sure I'd want to try that in areas w/ a lot of cinder-block, etc. but maybe in places where I'm not concerned about the AP density being too light to support it.

Opinions?

[john_d]

Bill, thanks for summarizing this info, but I think there's too many unknown factors to support this conclusion.

The connectivity issues that I'm referring to, and awfully similar to what Sid has mentioned, involves mostly desktop / laptop / streaming TV settop box type clients after *days* of uptime. In Sean's environment (stadium/convention center), it's very unlikely that there are any of these types of clients, and it's even less likely that any particular client hangs around for that long. Plus, their users are unlikely to complain about momentary connectivity issues, and probably just shrug it off and toggle wifi. I was at Levi's Stadium not too long ago, and their wifi (I believe Aruba based) kicked me off to LTE every few minutes. I never complained, I just grumbled and went into Settings and reconnected every time I wanted to use my phone. You have to wonder how much that happens in a stadium style deployment.

I don't think a minrate of 24 or an aggressive roam factor of 4 is a good idea for most deployments, unless you are truly aiming for high density / max throughput at any cost. I can guarantee you that for streaming video or VOIP clients or folks using smartphones while walking around, using either setting recommended above virtually guarantees clients will be kicked off the wifi network briefly, which can be very annoying for VOIP / streaming.