802.11a 802.11g 802.11b roaming and SSID Naming

[avallach]

Greetings,

I'm trying to get a feel for roaming between 802.11a, g, and b access points and SSID naming. I'm inclined to think that giving each access point the same SSID and WEP keys, and using an a/g/b wireless adapter that I'd be able to seamlessly roam between each of the speeds. However, is this a good thing to do? Personally I'd want the best signal I could get, closer to the AP I think 802.11a would be most desired and then further away G or B, depending upon availability.

We have an AP that can support A and G or B, as it has two slots for cards and we stick an A in one and a B in the other (G coming soon). If I have an A/G/B card in my laptop, it connects to the A since I'm like 10 feet away from the AP.

Right now we have different SSIDs for our A, B and G, which would cause XP to maintain multiple profiles.

Any thoughts? I hope I've made some sense. I've tried searching on this topic and haven't come up with anything.

Thanks

[Phoenix]

This isn't in place yet, but future Wi-Fi compliance testing for dual band A/G cards will require cards to be able to seamlessly switch between modes without user intervention, choosing the best signal and highest data rate. This would require the A and G access points to have the same ssid in order to roam between them.

[avallach]

So, would it be a safe thing to look into using a common SSID right now between A and G and B APs? Or should they be separate?

Are there any major drawbacks to having separate SSIDs vs a common SSID between all APs and A/B/G?

Thanks!