Two SSID's with the same network names ...

[William H. Magill]

On 30 Nov, 2004, at 09:26, Michael Duffy wrote:
> Yes it is a network architecture problem, I will be changing (hiding)
> the SSID's in the next few days and adding WEP and whatnot after I
> have had a play around with them, but as I have just taken them out of
> the box they both have a default SSID and both issue the same IP's
> (Naturally running that out of the box config).
>
> This presented me with the problem of being able to connect to an
> individual AP as generally an SSID is how the AP is 'known' as you
> mentioned.
>
> Yes I could always just configure one at a time but I'm now more
> interested in conflicting SSID's, and selecting the one I want instead
> of the closest, than a quick configuration. :)
>
> The AP's haven't been set up as bridges and don't have an ethernet
> bridge between them so when you connect to them individually (by
> turning one off or disconnecting an aerial etc) they act like two
> separate networks, just with identical SSID's ...

Everything is working as it should.

By not configuring the APs, what you have is a half-setup, "roaming" 
network.
(To completely set it up, you would connect both APs to the same 
Ethernet Segment, and setup WED.)

"By definition," any 802.11 AP with the same SSID is interchangeable 
with any other.

In that case, consumer software will always select the strongest signal 
available for any given SSID, it is not a function of software 
configuration. Or put another way, unless you have software explicitly 
written for certain diagnostic purposes, the DESIRED behavior of an 
802.11 connection is to always attach to the AP with the strongest 
signal and the desired SSID, as this will give the highest bandwidth.


T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
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