Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

Question

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.

Hydro130 · Answer

In my experience, FR caused by phone to bounce back-&amp;-forth between the router and sat way too much.&nbsp; But since the area of my house where I'm most commonly on my phone has some coverage overlap btween my router &amp; sat, that made fine sense to me.&nbsp;So I keep FR "off" - that way, my phone is stickier to either the router or sat, and that works much better for me.&nbsp;I imagine FR would work quite well in some other environments, but not mine.&nbsp;There are never "no trade-offs".

jdpg2 · Answer

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.

rhester72 · Answer

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

peteytesting · Answer

i&nbsp;believe its a variation on 11R in that it does and has something to do with BSS Transition.
&nbsp;
however Fast Roaming does not require client support, allowing backwards compatibility with all clients.

spinkick · Answer

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

Forum Discussion

Question regarding "fast roaming" in the version 2.0 firmware

7 Replies