Nebula & 802.11r Roaming Issues

sborgMT

Hello, I have been having some roaming issues which I have narrowed down to 802.11r on some devices, and I thought I'd share this information in the forum.

To be honest, I don't know if 802.11r was on by default in Nebula, but I was enabling it assuming I would gain some roaming benefits as per the protocol specifies. With the setting on, I have been receiving complaints by some individuals "losing their wifi connection for a few seconds then it reconnects".

I have narrowed this down to devices which advertise themselves as being 802.11r capable (I see this in Nebula). With 802.11r on, these devices (mainly Samsung and Huawei in my case), when moving between areas in the building they would "remain" connected to an AP, and internet would stop for say 15-20 seconds, then the mobile device disconnects WiFi (4G would turn on) and after about 5-10 seconds the device would reconnect to WiFi and I find it on a different AP in Nebula. I did not see this behaviour on Windows PCs for example, and these were not advertising as 802.11r capable. I found that it happens consistently with devices which advertise as 802.11r capable.

I turned off 802.11r in Nebula, but I kept 802.11k/v ON. I have Smart Client Steering ON and also Band Select to ON in Nebula. The problem went away. The same devices which were advertising as 802.11r capable now advertise as 802.11k/v capable and roaming happens without problems, seamless to the user and very quick.

I have turned off 802.11r on all my Nebula organisations until I hear otherwise from Zyxel.

Did anyone have these kind of issues?

Thanks,

Stefan