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I have a long house, and must use two wireless access points to get full coverage. I also have terrible cell coverage so I often use Wi-Fi calling on my android phone to accommodate. However, when I walk from one side of the house to the other, the call can often get muddled or even drops as I pass from what I believe is one zone of coverage into the other. Both of these access point are set for access point behavior only and go back to a home router and then out through our U-verse gigabyte connection.

Signal strength throughout the house seems very strong. For home access points or on phones, is there some setting I need to throw to ensure the hand-off between access points happens seamlessly? I know there are some solutions out there that handle this, but I don’t have the $$ to buy an enterprise class setup so any direction is much appreciated.

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    Do the wireless access points have the same SSID and encryption mode? Are they on the same channels or different channels? Are the access points connected to each other, or are they both connected to the same device? Nov 5, 2015 at 23:30
  • Hi David - yes the access points are on the same SSID and encryption mode. They are both connected to the same router through Cat5e. I also set them both to the same channel
    – geoffmpm
    Nov 6, 2015 at 23:59

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If I were you I would try using an android app to map your wifi networks strength. You could walk through your house and see if there is a signal dead zone or some other anomaly where your signal is dropping. PErhaps the issue is interference from something like wireless phones or microwaves, not a handoff.

This app is pretty popular and has several graphs for 2.4 and 5ghz radios https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en

This app is $2.50, but it lets you do a walking survey and shows a heatmap of your coverage. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.slowchop.wifiheat.paid&hl=en

Another solution you might be interested in is a personal cell site. They plug into your internet and broadcast cellular service for about the size of a house. If you are on TMobile, they are giving these things away! Other services have similar devices.

https://support.t-mobile.com/community/coverage/personal-cellspot/wi-fi-cellspot-router

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  • Why am I getting downvoted? I need those points! Nov 6, 2015 at 0:14
  • I think others may have downvoted you because it seems you were promoting a product, or because the suggestion to do a signal strength map ignores the original statement that signal was strong everywhere.
    – algal
    Nov 2, 2016 at 14:45
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Obvious answer the first - stop walking from one side of the house to the other during calls.

VOIP is one of the few things that really freaks out when your connection drops for a few hundred milliseconds as you switch APs. If you don't switch APs IN THE MIDDLE OF A CALL it's not a problem. And that's the engineering solution, given your constraints.

Non-obvious (to most people) answer the second is to turn your AP power down, so that switching is more clear-cut, but that may not help without a system that you claim you can't afford, since you'd still be switching APs mid-stream without system help. But "signal strength throughout the house seems very strong" is not as much of a good thing as you may assume - most folks turn things up too far and have more interference and input overload problems as a direct result. Many a system is improved by reducing AP power somewhat. Your phones and computers need to be able to talk back to the APs and they don't have particularly powerful transmitters...

Mind you, I use one of those enterprise systems (a pretty darned affordable one, TBH) but that particular feature is one I do not use and don't have much interest in using, since it ends up with all APs on one channel and thus tends towards being an interference nightmare, rather than any sort of panacea.

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Roaming between access points needs the two access points to be on two separate, non-overlapping Chanel’s so a smooth hand off can take place.

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