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Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

jdpg2
Apprentice

Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

I would appreciate if someone internal to Netgear would comment on the Fast Roaming option in the recent firmware release. 

 

What does this offer that the default "off"  mode doesnt?

What are the tradeoffs, if any , that are being taking to offer this feature?

 

Thank you in advance.

 

P.S. the reason i am asking is i recall a potential speed penatlity being listed for this feature when i was running the beta.

 

 

 

Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Message 1 of 8
rhester72
Virtuoso

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

From what I can loosely tell, it looks like they may actually be referring to 802.11r - which isn't a bad thing (if implemented correctly), except for the part that it requires clients to support it as well, and pretty much none of them do.  *shrugs*

 

Rodney

Message 2 of 8

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

i believe its a variation on 11R in that it does and has something to do with BSS Transition.

 

however Fast Roaming does not require client support, allowing backwards compatibility with all clients.

Message 3 of 8
spinkick
Apprentice

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

So, why wouldnt you always have fast roaming on? Is there a speed penalty as mentioned above?

Message 4 of 8
jdpg2
Apprentice

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

I have posed the question to my level 2 support rep. If he replies I will post it here, but I would prefer a Netgear rep reply to this post. Any thing outher than that is and guestimation at best.
Message 5 of 8

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware


@spinkick wrote:

So, why wouldnt you always have fast roaming on? Is there a speed penalty as mentioned above?


to assist the non 11R clients to move between nodes better and faster , otherwise they can be quite sticky

 

no as the fast roam aka roaming assistant is only during disvconnect / reconnect , so would have no issue with throughput

Message 6 of 8
fruman44
Aspirant

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

Any updates here?  If there are no tradeoffs, then why does this setting default to "Off"?

Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Message 7 of 8
Hydro130
Luminary

Re: Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

In my experience, FR caused by phone to bounce back-&-forth between the router and sat way too much.  But since the area of my house where I'm most commonly on my phone has some coverage overlap btween my router & sat, that made fine sense to me.

 

So I keep FR "off" - that way, my phone is stickier to either the router or sat, and that works much better for me.

 

I imagine FR would work quite well in some other environments, but not mine.

 

There are never "no trade-offs".

Message 8 of 8
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