Access points and SSID Names

[Haggis Veteran]

Hey Guys quick questions for you all

 

I have two access points in my house

 

one downstairs and one upstairs

 

Just now they have different SSID names lets say Haggis1 and Haggis2

 

This was so i could see what one i was connected to at the time, so i could see if they were automatically switching

 

this doe snot work exactly how i want what upstairs the downstairs one provides a very poor signal, but a signal non the less

 

so the device wont switch as it still has connectivity

 

 

 

So what would be the benefit of having both Access Points called Haggis-Home instead of Haggis1 and Haggis2

 

would this help with auto switching to the strongest signal?

 

 

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Yes, they need to have the same SSID to auto-switch anyway.

[Praetor]

not only the same name (SSID) but also both networks must overlap a bit for the auto-switching function to work properly: if it doesn't (like your wifi card still connects to the AP that is most far away instead of the near AP) is because the signal is too strong and the overlap is higher then it should be; try lowering the signal of one of yours APs to decrease the overlap (if the AP supports that).

 

Also you can test with InSSIDer to see the signal strength of both of those APs and that way you can find why it doesn't auto-switch  properly.

[Haggis Veteran]

Yes, they need to have the same SSID to auto-switch anyway.

 

 

Thanks

 

I will change the name of it later and give it a try :)

[+BudMan MVC]

Keep in mind that your wireless card can have settings on it that can be set to configure how and why your card might switch to different AP.

It seems obvious - but you will all need to make sure that encryption type ans psk are the same, etc.

[Haggis Veteran]

Thanks budman i will check

 

how is this checked in Debian?

[+BudMan MVC]

I would assume it would be iwconfig sens setting..

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/hardy/man8/iwconfig.8.html

sens Set the sensitivity threshold. This define how sensitive is the

card to poor operating conditions (low signal, interference).

Positive values are assumed to be the raw value used by the

hardware or a percentage, negative values are assumed to be dBm.

Depending on the hardware implementation, this parameter may

control various functions.

On modern cards, this parameter usually control handover/roaming

threshold, the lowest signal level for which the hardware

remains associated with the current Access Point. When the

signal level goes below this threshold the card starts looking

for a new/better Access Point. Some cards may use the number of

missed beacons to trigger this. For high density of Access

Points, a higher threshold make sure the card is always

associated with the best AP, for low density of APs, a lower

threshold minimise the number of failed handoffs.

On more ancient card this parameter usually controls the defer

threshold, the lowest signal level for which the hardware

considers the channel busy. Signal levels above this threshold

make the hardware inhibits its own transmission whereas signals

weaker than this are ignored and the hardware is free to

transmit. This is usually strongly linked to the receive

threshold, the lowest signal level for which the hardware

attempts packet reception. Proper setting of these thresholds

prevent the card to waste time on background noise while still

receiving weak transmissions. Modern designs seems to control

those thresholds automatically.

[Haggis Veteran]

oh and also do they need to be on same channels?

[sc302 Veteran]

channels are irrelevant, though they shouldn't step on eachother if they are in close proximity. 

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

They shouldn't overlap partially, but overlapping entirely is fine (That is, 2 APs on channel 6 won't cancel each other out, they can easily avoid the signal, while 2 APs on channels 5 and 7 won't be able to distinguish a clear signal, and will just show as noise)

If you're on 5Ghz you've got like 15 non-overlapping channels to play with though, so spread them out.

[Haggis Veteran]

its on 2.4 as its the crappy ISP only routers (will buy my own soon)

 

Mine are on channel 6 and 11 just now