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Forum Discussion
RBR50/RBS50/RBSS50Y - Auto/manually setting wifi's devices' preferred SSID IP addresses needed!
I have a large three-level home on a 3.5-acre propety. I have one Orbio main router (RBR50), two indoor satellites (RBS50), and two outdoor satellites (RBS50Y. The main router and all indoor and outd...
What you are asking for is to make Orbi control the roaming decisions. Please note the following:
- Roaming decision is always taken by the device not the wifi router (the AP which can be the Router or any of the Satellites). The AP can just help and suggest to the device to roam but can't take the decision to roam.
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Orbi supports 802.11k, v and r to enhance wifi roaming.
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Orbi uses band-steering (part of 802.11v) to force the device to move to the band in the Router/Satellite that the device receives better.
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There are devices that do not support roaming enhancement standards, usually called "Sticky devices", those devices can cause bad user experience. For those "Sticky Devices", what Netgear can do to improve the user experience is the following:
- To implement a Min_RSSI_Value -I don't see that this is currently implemented in Orbi. This is a value that can be configured on the AP's (individually in the Router and all Satellites) per radio band so that a wireless device is required to meet a minimum signal level, as seen by the AP, to be able to reliably connect/use a particular AP, otherwise the AP will take action against that device.
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This works by sending a de-authentication packet to the wireless device that does not meet the minimum RSSSi requirement (the Sticky Device), which effectively tells the device that it's not welcome on that AP, It is then up the device to find a better AP to connect to. It may connect back to the same AP, especially if it is the only one within range.
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This should be configured on a per AP basis. This does actually require some careful configuration, and -probably- that's why Netgear chose not to implement it on this non-enterprise product.
Ekhalil: Thanks for your thoughtful response,
With the introducton of mesh-based networking, where the same SSID is used throughout the network across multiple devices (the main router and its satellites), mesh-based networks simply have to have a minimum amount of administrative controls necessary to prevent absurd (weak/extremely slow) wifi connections. Without ths basic wifi connection management capability, much of the advantages of using a mesh-based network is defeated.
If Netgear's Orbi system does not have the ability to manage the router/satellite wifi devices' connect to, then why do (some) wifi devices on my network sometimes switch to another Orbi router/satellite with the same SSID after a few days?
Subject to wifi devices' roaming-related constraints, any centralized - and reliable - approach to managing wifi devices' wifi connections would suffice. For example, can Netgear's centralized and web-accessible administrative user interface be enhanced to either:
1. Provide wifi administrators with the ability to add a list of excluded/ignored wifi devices (e.g. by MAC address?) to each router/satellite so that, when a wifi device attempts to connect to an inappropriate router/satellite that uses the same SSID, but has a poor signal and/or connection speed, that the specified router/satellite simply ignores the connection request, thus allowing the closer/faster wifi device to connect to a router/satellite with a stronger/faster signal?
2. Redirect the wifi device's weak/slow connection request to a router/satellite to another user-specified wifi device that is more appropriate?
While Netgear may not have full control over wifi devices' roaming processes, it would seem that a centralized method for managing this is both possible and essential.
I will be curious what you and others' responses are.
Thanks again.
JBinIL wrote:
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While Netgear may not have full control over wifi devices' roaming processes, it would seem that a centralized method for managing this is both possible and essential.
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As mentioned earlier, in Wifi standards control of roaming is solely given to the device ad not to the AP.
The only things that the AP can do is as I mentioend to help -not force- the device to choose. This is also an advanced procedure that needs to be carefully done, so a detailed radio network audit is needed to make this possible, otherwise, making those settings randomly can very much cause devices to be randomly disconnected from wifi. I think this is exactly why Netgear and other vendors is choosing not to implement such procedures in consumer products like Orbi. This is usually imlemented in Enterprise solutions.