Issue with new mobile phone devices on Unifi Wifi Enterprise Network

[AB_IT]

Hey All,

 

Hoping I can pick some of your brains with regards to this. The company I work at has purchased quite a lot of these mobile phones called "Cubot Kingkong 5" which run Android. The OS has been modified by the company we purchased them off to be locked down for staff so they can access settings and will only open one app which is our Care software.

 

We also have a full Unifi Network in each of our premises, all cabled with Cat6 and new Wifi6 Unifi Access Points installed to cover the entirety of the business. We haven't had reports of issues with any other devices but basically it seems that when moving around one of our sites with these devices the Wifi drops off in places it doesn't drop off with something like an iPhone. It also seems that they are acting as a 'sticky client' and won't hop from one access point to the next very easily. You can walk down a corridor and be right next to another access point but it'll still show the Wifi signal as low on the device. Viewing the Unifi Controller also shows that the device will still be connected to a much further away access point.

 

Restarting the devices seems to temporarily fix this and force them to reconnect to a closer access point as does turning the Wifi on the device off and on but staff can't do this due to the lockdowns imposed on them.

 

I'm not sure what I can do about this, like I say all other devices I test it with are fine and move from AP to AP like you'd expect them too. We've tried speaking with the company we purchased them off but after a few months of waiting for a response we where told "The other businesses we work for use Mesh Wifi Networks to counteract the issue" but of course I'd argue having individually wired AP's perform better than a small Mesh Wifi solution so now I don't have a lot of confidence in their networking knowledge.

 

I'm just wondering what you guys think based on the above, is it just an issue with these devices because the Wifi card in them is cheap and theres no real workaround or can something be tried? I've tried so far turning off Band Steering and forcing 5Ghz on our Unifi Controller but it made minimal difference.

 

Any help or advice would be most appreciated

[chazzy2501]

The devices roaming aggressiveness is too mild!

 

a work around could be to: set the network minimum data rate control in Unifi. The AP will boot the device if it cannot maintain a certain speed. This may force the device to reconnect.

[Alastairb25]

We also have Unifi.. had a few issues with Band Steering option

 

Unifi is ok.. but the controller is pretty rubbish, it really is SME product that we ended up using due to not being given funds, it does work but can have a lot of quirks.

 

In theory a proper Wifi survey, tuning ie buying some time for someone to map it and setup properly channel wise

 

Even then we came to the conclusion alot of our issues are the building, lead, microwaves, georgian glass (fire doors) and alike, testing proved the signal to be massively worse around these

[Michael]

Try creating a separate SSID just for these devices and 2.4GHz only. This has a much wider circumference than 5GHz.

[AB_IT]

The devices roaming aggressiveness is too mild!

 

a work around could be to: set the network minimum data rate control in Unifi. The AP will boot the device if it cannot maintain a certain speed. This may force the device to reconnect.

 

Thank you this is something I'll look into on the controller. I also just don't want to mess up the other devices. It seems that everything else is working fine so would you expect it to be a device issue?

 

We also have Unifi.. had a few issues with Band Steering option

 

Unifi is ok.. but the controller is pretty rubbish, it really is SME product that we ended up using due to not being given funds, it does work but can have a lot of quirks.

 

In theory a proper Wifi survey, tuning ie buying some time for someone to map it and setup properly channel wise

 

Even then we came to the conclusion alot of our issues are the building, lead, microwaves, georgian glass (fire doors) and alike, testing proved the signal to be massively worse around these

Thank you, I've had a pretty solid experience with Unifi kit, it's a lot cheaper and sure we don't have the same support as something like Cisco but majority of the times their Unifi Community is very helpful and most things we're able to resolve if there's problems.

 

We have had proper Wifi surveys completed.

 

The areas in which these devices are dropping out aren't as a result of interference, restarting these particular devices or turning the Wifi On/Off fixes the issue indefinetley so I don't think it's an interference problem they just seem to stick to one Access Point.

[TheHyperTechie]

Try creating a separate SSID just for these devices and 2.4GHz only. This has a much wider circumference than 5GHz.

 

This would be my suggestion. Having looked at the model of phone you are using it states the following... (Wifi 2.4G - 5.0 GIEEE802.11 a/b/g/n/ac(only SISO)

 

This means it just has a single antenna for transmitting and another one for receiving, compared to a mimo capable device which has multiple antenna for these services.

[TwistedHelixis]

We turn down the 5ghz radio, so it only has devices very close connecting through it. We leave 2.4ghz at its default.

This has helped a lot

[AB_IT]

Thanks all for your help

 

There's just a few suggestions and I'm trying to work out what would be the easiest to do. If I turn down the signal stregnth on the 5Ghz network would this not effect other devices that all seem to be working fine, I don't want to break those?

 

I was leaning more towards the suggestions of just creating a seperate SSID at 2.4Ghz (Keeping it on the same VLAN) but I read that it would effect performance too by creating another SSID. We already have two SSID's one for guest network and another for our main networks, will this cause much of a difference or noticable interference do you think or will it be fine?

 

Thanks again all!!

[chazzy2501]

setting a minimum data rate shouldn't affect well behaving devices as they'd shift to a new AP if there is a stronger faster network anyway. The only issue it may have is if the "good" devices are forced into a marginal wifi area and get the boot.

 

You can set this on a per ssid setting so you could test it.