What is Fast Roaming

The signal that a wireless client receives from an access point (AP) will become weaker as the distance between the client and AP increases. When the signal becomes too weak, a client will need to connect to another AP, or the online experience will suffer. The term “roaming” refers to this connection shift from one AP to another. Fast Transition is Cisco's lingo for IEEE 802.11r. 802.11r is an amendment to IEEE 802.11 and was ratified in 2008. The standard defines fast roaming between APs.

If roaming takes too much time, your internet experience will suffer from long loading times and lag. Fast Roaming shortens the time it takes a wireless client to move from one AP to another. From the user’s perspective, the signal interruption when using a phone, tablet, or laptop will be unnoticeable because Fast Roaming makes the transition so quick.

How Does it Work

The concept of fast meandering is that the contraption makes a handshake with another AP in fact a few time as of late the client winds to the unused AP. This licenses the client to meander to another AP without re-authenticating.

Caveats and Restrictions

A remote client not congruous with 802.11r will not be able to connect a WLAN with Quick Move (802.11r) empowered. You'll ought to make another WLAN with a diverse SSID that has Quick Move disabled. Fast Move will as it were work with open and WPA2.

Fast Transition is not supported with:

- APs in standalone mode

- EAP LEAP method

- Legacy clients without an 802.11r enabled driver

Configuring 802.11r on a Cisco WLC

Fast Transition will not be shown on your controller unless you have at least version 7.2.110.0 on you WLC.

- Click on WLANs

- Edit an existing WLAN or create a new one

- Click on the Security tab

- Click on the Layer 2 sub tab of Security

- Under Fast Transition section enable Fast Transition

- Under the Authentication Key Management section, deselect PSK and select FT PSK.

- Click Apply and Save Configuration
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