What is Roaming? | DirecTouch Do It Yourself Restaurant Point of Sale FAQs

What is Roaming in a Wireless Network?

A wireless computer can "roam" from one access point to another, with the software and hardware maintaining a steady network connection by monitoring the signal strength from in-range access points and locking on to the one with the best quality. Usually this is completely transparent to the user; they are not aware that a different access point is being used from area to area. Some access point configurations require security authentication when swapping access points, usually in the form of a password dialog box.

Access points are required to have overlapping wireless areas to achieve this as can be seen in the following diagram:

Figure 6: Roaming.

A user can move from Area 1 to Area 2 transparently. The Wireless networking hardware automatically swaps to the Access Point with the best signal.

Wireless Network Roaming Between Access Points

Not all access points are capable of being configured to support roaming. Also of note is that any access points for a single vendor should be used when implementing roaming, as there is no official standard for this feature.