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Go To Sleep, Go To Sleep, Go To Sleep Little iPhone

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In some circles, Apple Wi-Fi devices are knows to have problems with lost connections.  iPhones and iPads will unexpectedly miss incoming calls, have delays in receiving push notifications and even be forced to reauthenticate.

There is a solution to Apple devices' connection problems, and as with most "device problems", the fix resides on the infrastructure.  The DTIM setting needs to be increased.  (Apple recommends a setting of 3 or higher.)  Here's why:

Some Apple Wi-Fi connection problems stem from Apple iOS devices' use of 802.11 power management.  To understand what Apple devices are doing with power management, one must first understand how 802.11 power management works.

Let's start with unicast data.  The 802.11 standard allows devices' Wi-Fi radios to enter the Doze state in order to conserve battery life.  Wi-Fi radios in the Doze state are unable to receive data from the AP, so APs buffer all unicast data that has a destination MAC address of a…
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Are You(r APs' Transmit Power) Still Down? Raise 'Em Up

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Remember me? (lyrics NSFW)

Too many enterprise Wi-Fi deployments experience Wasted Wi-Fi.  

Wasted Wi-Fi is what happens when an enterprise wireless network offers users lower performance than it would under an optimal configuration.

Today, the most common culprit of Wasted Wi-Fi is low AP transmit power.  So, if your AP transmit power config is Still Down, Raise 'Em Up.
I've noticed a lot of Wasted Wi-Fi recently.  Situations where, given the distance, client density, and physical environment, the Wi-Fi should be faster.  These are situations where, irrespective of issues that may exist in the infrastructure equipment or design of the wireless LAN, client devices are getting worse performance than they should.

By its definition, Wasted Wi-Fi lays entirely at the feet of those who configure enterprise Wi-Fi settings.  The good news is, that means Wasted Wi-Fi is solvable without expensive and time-consuming changes to the wireless LAN infrastructure.  The bad news is, solving Wa…
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Roam, If You Want to (As Long as Your Channels Are 20 Mhz Wide)

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Editor's note: In the original publication of this article, the relationship between Wi-Fi channel width and SNR was described imprecisely.  While the point of the article was correct -- that wider channel widths increase the likelihood of Wi-Fi frame failures for mobile client devices -- the mistakes have been corrected.  Thank you to Adrian Granados.

Ahh, roaming. Few things capture the spirit of freedom like the ability to Roam wherever you want to go.



 Wi-Fi has its own brand of roaming, and there is one aspect of Wi-Fi roaming that often gets overlooked: 40 MHz and 80 MHz wide channels can make Wi-Fi users feel like they've been bounced from the Love Shack.
Much has been written and spoken about the pros and cons of the three Wi-Fi channel widths: 20 MHz, 40 MHz, and 80 MHz.

20 MHz wide channels allow for the highest number of APs to be deployed -- nice for ultra high-density Wi-Fi -- because each AP takes up less of Wi-Fi's scarce frequency space.  In North America, up…
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