Well I just did the impossible and got a solid wireless network going in a 136,000 square foot warehouse filled halfway up with 1 to 2 ton size paper rolls. I used 5 Linksys WAP54G Access Points, and upgraded them with the dual high gain antennas and a power over ethernet converter. Each AP has the same SSID and WEP key and are on different channels. It works great! You can roam through each AP without any considerable packet loss. I haven't found any dead spots so far, but I'm wondering if I run the APs on 802.11b-only if I will see a better performance. I will be running Pocket PCs out there that use 802.11b only, but I will have the occasional use for 802.11g in the offices.
My question is: can a device wirelessly roam throughout this network while switching between the B and G bands without a problem? Anyone have any suggestions for expanding the range easily?
There is currently an IEEE spec (802.11x?) underway that will standardize handovers, but as of now it just comes down to how each specific client hardware (and it's drivers) perform handovers. Each manufacturer is different.
You'll probably have to experiment to see how your hardware handles switchovers.
I have 802.11a, 802.11g, and 802.11b in the air -- plus a few repeaters. (Each has a specific purpose. The 802.11a is completely seperate physical network for my WLAN. 802.11g for game consoles and some media stuff.
802.11b for just an internet pipe.)
I'm using mainly DLink, so can only speak of DLink's behavior. Other manufacturers could, and probably are, different.
Anyway, with my laptop (or PDA), I get the following behavior:
(Switching between repeaters)
- When moving into the range of a repeater, the handover is seamless. There is no break in connectivity, nor do IPs have to be re-assigned. In fact, there is no notification that a handover has occured unless I pull up the ulitlity program and look at the MAC address of the AP I'm connected to. There can be network traffic at the moment the handover occurs without any problems occuring.
- When moving the range of a stronger SSID (with the utility set to automatically connect to strongest SSID, which I normally don't have it set to):
- (Switching to a stronger unique SSID on same network): There is a slight break in connectivity as it switches over, but no re-assignment of IP's. I can see the momentary disconnect and re-connect on the driver's icon. If there is network traffic at the moment the handovers occurs, most (90%?) of the time it continues without any problems.
- (Switching to a stronger SSID on a different network): Break in connectivity and, obviously, new assignment of IP's. Loss any network activity at the moment of handover, obviously, as it has connected to a different network.
I'd imagine that Linksys should be similiar to that. Just experiment.
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