Spectralink 3626 and multiple access points

[tmckeown]

Does anyone have any experience with the Spectralink 3626 WIFI IP phone? We have 4 of them and 5 Cisco 1231 access pointa (over 23 acres) . It works pretty well, but I'm running into a bit of roaming difficulty.

When a user moves from one area to another, the 3626 phones don't seem to be jumping to the nearer access point. Is there a setting that may need to be changed in the phones that I'm unaware of? All the access points are setup the same, other than their host name and transmitting frequency. I can take an Apple Powerbook and walk around. The Powerbook will jump to the strongest access point without missing a beat. I can't say the same for the phones. Maybe they are not intended for this, but I've seen some installation where they are used in hospitals, so I figure they must be able to hop around access points. When I move into a different area, I can shut the phone off and then turn it back on to get it to jump to the nearer access point. There must be a way it can do this without a reboot. BTW, the access points are all set as Access point root.

Can anyone shed a little light on this?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[tmckeown]

I found the information on the Cisco 1231 Access Points on the Spectralink site.

http://www.spectralink.com/files/scms_docs//72_9962_00_A.pdf

They used a newer version of the access point software to test. I'm in the middle of updating our access point now. Hopefully, that will cure it.

 

[tmckeown]

Well, that didn't go well. After updating the access points, I now get Assoc Failed on all the phones. Apparently something is not right.

 

[tmckeown]

Apparently, Cisco changed something pretty major between releases 123-4 and 123-8. The newer version won't allow anyone to access the wireless network. I'll have to run some experiments to figure out how they messed it up. Have you ever noticed how cryptic Cisco's software and web site are? It's amazing they got to be so huge.

Thanks to everyone for the help. Back to network hell...