Wireless fast roaming for realtime applications
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Hi,
I'm trying to setup quite a few Access Points within a building and have wireless clients do "fast roaming" between them.
Clients will authenticate via WPA2-AES + EAP-TLS (radius server auth).
These wireless devices will need to roam very quickly because they will be using realtime apoplications such as VoIP…What do I need (in terms of hardware and software) to achieve this?
Lately I've been testing Linksys access points (WAP2000) and Atheros-based netbooks with Windows XP's native supplicant as well as wpa_Supplicant.
Roaming requires 3 to 5 seconds which is unfortunately not quick enough.I've read that Cisco products have something called Wireless Domain Service (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps4570/products_configuration_example09186a00801c951f.shtml - WDS) that allow caching user credentials within a mesh of access points, so the supplicant doesn't need to re-auth.
However, I don't have the budget to buy Cisco products (or any other high-end brand).I have not yet bought or built a pfsense wireless access point (based on hostapd).
I'd like to know if someone has tried to do "fast roaming" (for realtime apps) with multiple pfsense access points.
If so, I'd appreciate a few tips on hardware and software requirements.
Links/urls are also appreciated.I'm supposing that if all my access points were based on hostapd and all my clients used wpa_supplicant, I guess my chances of "fast roaming" could be good.
However, I have no idea if this is really the case.Thanks,
Vieri
[EDIT] Another brand that offers such a solution is D-link. I would need to buy a "unified wireless" switch such as the DWS-3024 and then "compatible" access points such as DWL-3500AP.
This, of course, not only is "expensive" (although I may consider paying for it) but is also binding me to use a specific brand and models. What happens if D-link goes out of business or if they stop providing compatible devices in the future? I would probably need to buy the whole shebang again (switch + replace all access points, even if they actually still work). -
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