Multi-point WiFi configuration options

1

I have a property which contains a significant amount of metal structure between the floors, but not between rooms on each floor.

Currently because of this to achieve a decent WiFi signal throughout the house I use three Sumvision SVW307R wireless routers, one on each floor. These are wired direct to the main home switch.

Initially I configured these on not overlapping frequency bands with the same SSiD.

With this configuration I found that as I moved through the house the devices, i.e. mobile phones; laptops etc. would not drop the signal and reconnect to the strongest signals reliably. Basically the device would hang on to a very weak signal to the point where connection speeds were unusable. This behaviour continued even though a perfectly good strong signal was available, albeit on a different frequency band. I also discovered the phones would not always choose the strongest signal even if I cycled the WiFi on the devices off and on again.

To resolve this issue I have now changed all the SSiDs so that I can choose the SSiD I wish. For example XXXX-GF;XXXX-1F;XXXX-2F for Ground Floor, 1st Floor and 2nd Floor respectively.

This way I can at least select the most powerful signal explicitly, but it's not a smooth solution, and I'd really like to have the WiFi configured so that all devices will correctly choose the most powerful signals and not mess about with low grade signals even though the device recognises it.

I understand that the propensity of a device to "Roam" to a new WiFi signal can be adjusted on some devices, but as not all devices support this tuning it is not a viable long-term solution.

Can any networking guru suggest the best way to resolve these issues, ideally with the existing hardware, although I'm up to replace the hardware if it's the only viable solution.

Many thanks in advance, D.

Donchik

Posted 2017-02-02T09:58:48.000

Reputation: 11

1Your first solution (same SSID on different channels with the same password on all of them) is a working choice. Unfortunately it isn't an issue with routers you setup but clients(especially phones, they keep connection to the previous AP relatively long, but will eventually switch to a strongest signal). What I usually do if I'm in rush to get good connection, I simply turn WiFi off on the phone or laptop and switch it on again when moving to a different location where I want to reconnect to a strongest signal. – Alex – 2017-02-02T10:21:38.787

Hi Alex, Thanks for the info. Do you know if I can adjust the phone WiFi roaming sensitivity? I know I can do this on a laptop. – Donchik – 2017-02-03T16:00:49.313

If you using Android, then try "WiFi Roaming Fix" it should be on Google play store – Alex – 2017-02-03T19:36:17.620

Cheers Alex, no chance of anything for Window 10 Mobile :( – Donchik – 2017-02-04T10:27:09.893

Have no clue because I never used M$ phones – Alex – 2017-02-04T10:39:26.297

No answers