Wireless Access

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Access network design for branch, remote, outdoor, and campus locations with HPE Aruba Networking access points and mobility controllers.
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VoWiFi deployment & roaming

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  • 1.  VoWiFi deployment & roaming

    Posted Feb 14, 2017 04:21 PM

    Hi,

    I am looking for some info/experience with recent Voice over WiFi deployment with smartphones.
    We have done a couple over VoWiFi deployments with Ascom phones and get good results with that Ascom phones. At a custuomer site we would like to do VoWiFi with Android smartphones. At this site we are using a local controller with AP205 Access Points. We created a dedicated 5 Ghz vlan/ssid for the VoWiFi clients.

     

    So far we did not find any Android phone which does work good. With the most Android phones we tested we get bad roaming experience, so the phone call drops / is silent for a couple of seconds during roaming. With an iPhone we get good results.

     

    So far we did test a Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini, Samsung Galaxy J5, Huawei P8 Lite (no 5Ghz), LG G4 & OnePlus 3. The OnePlus 3 is the best Android phone with roaming, it’s oke. Signal quality / interference is not the problem, clean enviroment. We tried limiting the number of 5Ghz channels so the phone has to scan less channels, this does not improve much.

    In the same environment a iPhone 6 roams good.

    It could be a solution if we find an Android phone which support 802.11r/802.11k/802.11v and enable this in de WiFi controller. It’s hard to find information about Android phones with that standard and some VoWiFi experience. We did find a couple of Android phone which support that standard but the most phones are not recent Android models.

    Even without the 802.11r/802.11k/802.11v enabled in the controller the iPhone just roams good. If we enable these functions it looks like it’s even slightly better. Apple provides clear information about which standard they support.

    This thread provided some info but not recent experience.

    Can anyone share their thoughts & experience with VoWiFi on smartphones?



  • 2.  RE: VoWiFi deployment & roaming

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Feb 14, 2017 04:32 PM

    The big problem with mobile devices is that they do not provide downlink QOS that is necessary for voice.  Custom handsets like Ascom, Spectralink, etc DO provide downlink QOS so that voice traffic coming from the phone to the access point can be prioritized over any other type of traffic.  This is crucial and that is why custom handsets are still a big business and have not been replaced by a simple smartphone.  Trying to run VOIP applications on a phone, expecting consistent roaming or voice quality across the board for those devices is a frustrating experience.  Even if you are standing still, the fact that regular phones do not provide QOS becomes an issue when there is any other traffic.

     

    Save yourself some time and energy and start testing devices that have started out life as VOIP phones, instead of cellular phones that are repurposed as voice phones.  Again, it is not necessarily the roaming that is the issue, it is the inability for QOS to be marked from the phones to the access point, is the problem...



  • 3.  RE: VoWiFi deployment & roaming

    Posted Feb 16, 2017 04:03 AM

    I agree that it's better to use an Ascom or Spectralink device.

    When we are not walking around the voice quality is good. If we start walking around we are missing audio when we expect the smartphone should be at the next Access Point. I think it's roaming and not Qos?

    Anyone else some experience with this?

     



  • 4.  RE: VoWiFi deployment & roaming

    Posted Aug 09, 2018 04:52 PM

    Does the same hold true with S4B client on smartdevices?



  • 5.  RE: VoWiFi deployment & roaming

    EMPLOYEE
    Posted Aug 09, 2018 05:19 PM
    @vinson wrote:

    Does the same hold true with S4B client on smartdevices?

    Yes