Fast Roaming is a feature that allows your Wi-Fi clients to switch their connection from one AP to another quickly to get stronger Wi-Fi signal, improving your Wi-Fi experience, as well as optimizing the load of each AP by adjusting the number of clients connected to them.
802.11k, 802.11v and 802.11r are all standards designed to create a more seamless roaming experience for wireless clients.
- With 802.11k, the AP can respond to Wi-Fi clients’ Neighbor Report request, let them understand the RF environment around them better. As a result, it helps them select a stronger signal, decrease the time used to scan the surrounding Wi-Fi, and have a better roaming.
- With 802.11v, the AP will not only respond to Wi-Fi clients’ Neighbor Report request, but also evaluate the client connection quality, and direct the wireless clients to roam to be best AP which will provide a better WLAN experience, thus to balance the load among the APs.
- With 802.11r, the time for wireless authentication will be reduced, it’s suitable for WPA2-PSK and WPA2-Enterprise encryption method.
Note:
802.11k/v/r take effect only when the wireless clients support 802.11k/v/r as well.
Now we can enable/disable fast roaming via OC200 & Omada Controller & Omada APP. If Omada Controller or OC200 accidentally shuts down, then fast roaming will not work.
So far TP-Link EAPs with Seamless Roaming function support 802.11k/v Fast Roaming feature.