If you are having problems with VoIP when devices roam from AP to AP, then 802.11r makes sense.
My last real need for 802.11r was to support Cisco 792x wireless phones back in the last 200x days, and it did help, to an extent. Other than that, I've never had the need for it. Web browsing, file shares, etc., are simply not affected by roaming, as long as you have decent AP density.
As for Apple products, not to sound like a basher, but it seems that every time I try to do anything 'exotic' regarding networking, i.e., Wireless, VPN, etc. they give me headaches. So, hearing that they don't, or at least have, poor 802.1r support doesn't surprise me. Therefore, when supporting Apple devices, I try to keep things as simple as possible.
Personally, these days, I think high AP density to ensure good signal strength and quality between APs and devices, is far more important than roam time. Having good density isn't just good from an AP capacity standpoint, but will help reduce in-flight data corruption, retransmits, which can be as detrimental as roaming a high-density device environment.
Besides, modern 802.11 wireless protocols have come a long way compared to the 802.11ag days, helping mitigate many of the reasons 802.11r was developed.
Let me just say, I'm not trying to talk you out of using 802.11r, but unless you have a very specific use case for it, I don't see that it is worth the extra configuration hassle, and potential incompatibility/interoperability issues you may end up facing.
Original Message:
Sent: Sep 20, 2022 05:17 PM
From: Gary French
Subject: 802.11r and Apple Products
I am looking to set up fast roaming and came across this: Fast BSS Transition ( 802.11r) (arubanetworks.com)
It shows that a limitation was If dot11r is enabled, iOS clients such as iPad/iPhone gen1 (limitation on iOS) and all MAC-OS clients (limitation on MAC) fail to connect to the network.
Is this old or should I rethink my implementation?
I am on 8.7.1.8