Roaming issue in a large residence

[william_zidek]

Will the zone director help with roaming issues? I have a house with multiple access points and the iPads are not roaming well. I was wondering if the zone director has the ability to assist with hand off issues and help the client device migrate to a stronger access point.

If not does anyone have any ideas about a better way to setup the network.

[keith_redfield]

Yes, that's one of the primary reasons to have a controller. What type of application are you concerned about - VOIP? In that case tunneling to the controller might be a good idea.

The only other improvement (sans controller) I can think of is to use a single DHCP server - then at least in that case only the STA association has to be made rather than also getting a new IP address.

[william_zidek]

What's happening is that the iPad will stick to a distant access point and not move to one closer in proximity. The result will be poor wifi performance even though they are close to a stronger one.

How does the zone director take a sticky iPad and assist it moving to another access point. To the best of my knowledge you can not set thresholds on the iPad to detach from an access point and look for a stronger signal.

Can you please explain some of the details.

[keith_redfield]

Ah..that's something of a well-known problem w IOS and the ZD will help with that with our new 9.8 release (should GA in a couple of weeks) via Smart Roam.

This KB can help you with improving roaming when using standalone AP's

https://support.ruckuswireless.com/an...

[william_zidek]

I would like to learn more about the Smart Roam capability. So just so I am clear today with the current zone director it is mainly a centralized deployment interface for large access point deployments and can not do anything to help manage this hand off issue I am experiencing. Can you confirm I am understanding accurately

Thanks for all your help.