Good day! There is a big request to developers - it is very necessary to introduce 802.11 r/k and Band Steering. Customers often turn to the terms of reference, in which one of the requirements is the support of 802.11 r/k + Band Steering. Customers often have to meet the 802.11 r/k support requirement in their technical specifications . For this reason, to my great regret, recently we have to use the equipment of other manufacturers ;-( . In particular, low-cost solutions implemented in support: Wive-NG (https://wi-cat.ru, an example of a product -
https://shop.nag.ru/catalog/00009.Bespr ... E-AP2#desc), Edimax Pro and other.

up
missing future

You are not alone. E.g.:

viewtopic.php?t=86271&start=50
viewtopic.php?t=127742
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=151536

I asked Support mid-July if there are mid-term (i.e. within a year) plans to implement k/r/v roaming and band steering.
The reply was that there's 'no precise schedule'.
That being said, I'm currently replacing a couple of CAPsMAN sites with Meraki. Really a bummer.
-Chris

I hope you will get troublefree operation from your network.
I operate a WiFi network from another competitor and I find that whenever you enable features like fast roaming, band steering etc you will always have some devices that have problems.
Not an issue when you have a controlled environment (e.g. some warehouse wifi network serving handscanners, or a corporate network with only certified laptops and enterprise-grade mobile devices) but in the typical "bring your own device" guest wifi scenario it is not workable, because there is no direct feedback in case of problems.
I had to disable all those options to avoid issues like "no connection at all", "lost connection when roaming until manually re-establishing it".

If there is no problem, you could activate it. Or disable in case of problems. But it does not exist at all!

The point is that unless it is a small network for e.g. your family house or you know exactly which types of devices are on it, so you can test them all, there is no way to know that there are problems!

I hope you will get troublefree operation from your network.
I operate a WiFi network from another competitor and I find that whenever you enable features like fast roaming, band steering etc you will always have some devices that have problems.
Not an issue when you have a controlled environment (e.g. some warehouse wifi network serving handscanners, or a corporate network with only certified laptops and enterprise-grade mobile devices) but in the typical "bring your own device" guest wifi scenario it is not workable, because there is no direct feedback in case of problems.
I had to disable all those options to avoid issues like "no connection at all", "lost connection when roaming until manually re-establishing it".

米ost used internetboxes for home in Germany do this (including their repeaters). Just works. I roam through my house and garden.

It depends on what you have. I had issues with some older Samsung phones, with a HP wireless printer, and with some models of Microsoft Surface laptops.
All of them appear to be "known problems that aren't going to be fixed by their manufacturer" when I search the internet for it.
当然,当你有这些设备,你can be happily using those features. But on a large guest network like ours (~ 1600 clients of which ~500 are online) there are AWAYS going to be affected devices, and not everyone with "strange problems with the WiFi" is going to walk by and show it. I found most of them only by accident.

I have to agree, pe1chl.
But the density of devices with problems drops constantly. I build temporary wireless networks with tens of thousands of concurrent clients on a very regular basis - the last time I had problems with clients with k/r/v was in August 2017 (that was a Meru/Fortinet system). Clients with problems were your mentioned older Samsung phones and iPhones with iOS 10 or older - and ithe first release of OS 11.
The last time I've built a really huge network was in April this year and we didn't see any problem, the system was a mix of Meru/Fortinet, Everest and Meraki. Not a single issue.
-Chris

It's funny to see us discussing something that WE DON’T HAVE, while other users from other vendors are enjoying the benefits of it

I expect to see those Apple forums will do the same way to discuss something like “Why we don’t need 5G”

Simple logic, if MikroTik selling 2 models with exactly same specs but 1 of it with k/v/r, selling at the same price, which 1 will you choose?

It's funny to see us discussing something that WE DON’T HAVE, while other users from other vendors are enjoying the benefits of it

As I wrote, I have experience with another manufacturer (in the same market segment) who DOES have these options, but I am not enjoying the benefits! I have them all turned OFF.

I have to agree, pe1chl.
But the density of devices with problems drops constantly. I build temporary wireless networks with tens of thousands of concurrent clients on a very regular basis - the last time I had problems with clients with k/r/v was in August 2017 (that was a Meru/Fortinet system).

On the other manufacturer's forum I have tried to get clear if the current problems are implementation problems that potentially could be fixed in the future, or if they are inherent problems in the standards and the implementation in the older clients, that can never be fixed.
I don't rule out completely that other manufacturers have found workarounds for those problems so it at least works acceptably.
Of course I understand that when an older device does not implement those protocols it cannot benefit from them, but at least these clients should be able to use the network as if these options were not enabled.
Until this is fixed, I cannot enable it because we cannot live with a part of the users who do not have connectivity even when their devices are old.
I have to wait until either those older devices have completely gone away (which may take 10 years for things like a HP wireless printer) or some workaround is implemented.

I expect that when MikroTik starts implementing the same things (largely from the same codebase) they will have similar issues for some time.
And as can be seen in the 802.11d discussion ("Country code") it looks like MikroTik does not consider working around other people's bugs a priority.

I expect that when MikroTik starts implementing the same things (largely from the same codebase) they will have similar issues for some time.

I agree with you. When implementing new features there will pop up new problems. Every time! I follow forums about AVM Fritzbox hardware. There are problems with band steering since they first implemented it in a beta OS version.

And as can be seen in the 802.11d discussion ("Country code") it looks like MikroTik does not consider working around other people's bugs a priority.

If this is true they should stop any developement! There will always be problems with foreign vendors hardware in a network. Wired or wireless.

And as can be seen in the 802.11d discussion ("Country code") it looks like MikroTik does not consider working around other people's bugs a priority.

If this is true they should stop any developement! There will always be problems with foreign vendors hardware in a network. Wired or wireless.

I agree that when interworking causes problems one should not only point to the other side.
However, it can be that those companies where an AP costs 10 times as much and you still have to pay for a "controller license" and pay yearly for a "support contract" have more resources to burn on investigating problem cases and implementing workarounds than the "we are much cheaper but offer the same thing" camp where MikroTik and our current WiFi equipment manufacturer are.

米an, I was just coming on to try to determine the status of 802.11r/k/v support due to having multiple less-than-stellar roaming issues amongst my CAPSMAN setup.

Even Microsoft has caught up with these standards andis recommending them.

I love Mikrotik products so much but the RouterOS lag on doing anything useful in progressing standards and implementations.... (OpenVPN? IPv6 full support? and now this?)

Ugh. My impossible dream is they someday just open source the OS so the community can compensate. It will never happen.

米y next impossible dream is to open up extensions and a Mikrotik-certified marketplace for them. This, too, will never happen.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT202628

802.11r/k/v sounds perfect for use with CAPSMan.

米ind you, I haven't had issues with roaming on my larger (10+) CAPSMan sites. Using 5GHz only or predominantly, keeping the power low (20dBm) and manually assigning adjacent frequencies helps a lot. To assign adjacent frequencies you can try solve the problem in a similar way to the 4 colour map problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem). Except you only have 3 'colours' on 2.4GHz and 5 'colours' on 5GHz-80MHz and 10 'colours' on 5GHz-40MHz.

It would be awesome to know the status of 802.11k/r/v/w and MU-MIMO support.

We're using only Cisco equipment at the office and only recommend Cisco to our customers as the embedded linux clients we're manufacturing support 802.11k/r/w. It's impossible to recommend MikroTik infrastructure to our customers when RouterOS doesn't support these extensions, or does it?

All networks manufacturers created a group chat
Topic: 802.11k/v/r
“Admin added MikroTik to the chat group”
“MikroTik has left the group chat”

Topic: 802.11ac wave2
“Admin added MikroTik to the chat group”
“MikroTik has left the group chat”

any news?
it is planed to implement in RouterOS, or still not?

Hahahaha...
No.
:(

What a pity

Furthermore, as already mentioned in other topics, not supporting these standards means not to be WiFi4EU compliant.
米ikrotik some planning date?

As a manager, I can say that if something's important but can never been done, only for two reasons, either you are no capable of doing it, or you are not willing to do so, but no matter what reason, you are out.

米ikrotik is not WIFI4EU compliant and they are likely losing a lot of money thanks to it. Competitors like Ubiquity are advertising hard they are compliant... it's clear advantage for them and they are making money on it. But Mikrotik doesn't seems to care...

What's even worse isnot a single Mikrotik device have official WIFI certification. Just go tohttps://www.wi-fi.org/product-finder-re ... order=descand see for yourself. Feel free to search for other vendors. All big names are there. Mikrotik is not.
It's easy to dismiss this as useless paperwork and waste of money, but in reality, you can't use any Mikrotik WIFI gear in any project where you are asked to build WIFI network as defined by WIFI association.

但它不仅仅是业务和专业使用。米Ikrotik have issues with some Macbooks and they are fully WIFI certified but MIkrotik AP is not... where do you think might be an issue?
Last WIFI standard that mostly worked on Mikrotik was 802.11n. It's a total minefield after that, thanks to the never ending hardware issues (RB4011...) and "stable" ROS versions breaking features that makes Mikrotik WIFI at least tolerable (recently removed antenna gain made lowering AP power impossible and that was already LAST RESORT feature to deal with a lack of band steering and other features).

I love Mikrotik routers, CRS and 60GHz antennas... but regular WIFI? No thanks, not recommended for anyone.

Yeah, it’s really sad. Due to the lack of standardized roaming features I replaced about 700 centrally managed APs in 20+ locations with Meraki just in the past two years...

I guess it is simply not the market MikroTik are operating in... for such deployments you often need quite some more features than just 802.11k/r and MikroTik is simply not offering a ceiling AP with the required features.
I guess this would be difficult at the price point where they are operating. Those Meraki devices typically cost 10 times as much and may require additional expense for licenses and support, and of course then it is possible to spend more effort on software features.
There is sort of a midway point at UBNT where stuff is not so expensive and offers some more features from the professional devices, however it certainly is not troublefree.
I run a Unifi AP system at work and I have 802.11r/k disabled due to the issues it causes with compatibility with older devices. Apparently Cisco have found ways around that.

I started replacing MikroTik cAP ac access points with Aruba Instant IAP-5xx and IAP-3xx in our most important buildings step by step because of lacking:

• - Airtime Fairness

• - 802.11k/r/v

• - MU-MIMO

• - unstable CAPSMAN forwarding

Aruba´s pricing on its management software is ridiculous overpriced, so I stay with Aruba's inbuilt "Instant" clusters. As the prices of those Aruba´s is also way higher I keep searching for and testing alternative access points.

I started replacing MikroTik cAP ac access points with Aruba Instant IAP-5xx and IAP-3xx in our most important buildings step by step because of lacking:

• - Airtime Fairness

• - 802.11k/r/v

• - MU-MIMO

• - unstable CAPSMAN forwarding

Aruba´s pricing on its management software is ridiculous overpriced, so I stay with Aruba's inbuilt "Instant" clusters. As the prices of those Aruba´s is also way higher I keep searching for and testing alternative access points.

Look at Cambium, Software is included , all needs are supported ....

Look at Cambium, Software is included , all needs are supported ....

The prices for Cambium´s access points are still higher than Aruba´s:
- Cambium XV3-8: ~1000$
- Cambium XV2-2: ~350$
- Cambium E600: ~330$

I can get the AP-555, AP-505H or AIP-315 for less.

Too funny! Are any of these changes possible via software, and does the new linux kernel in the upcoming RouterOS 7 allow for that?

All networks manufacturers created a group chat
Topic: 802.11k/v/r
“Admin added MikroTik to the chat group”
“MikroTik has left the group chat”

Topic: 802.11ac wave2
“Admin added MikroTik to the chat group”
“MikroTik has left the group chat”

Too funny! Are any of these changes possible via software, and does the new linux kernel in the upcoming RouterOS 7 allow for that?

No, they require a new driver.

Btw OpenWRT for the hAP ac2 already has MU-MIMO, MU-Beamforming, airtime fairness (AQL), 802.11r and 802.11k/v (those two require advanced tweaking to get working although I haven't tried yet) only band steering is not supported and probably will never be since it's a non standard feature. This firmware will also be ported to the cAP ac when the devs figure out a way to boot OpenWRT without a stripped down copy of U-Boot.

Does OpenWRT achieve interoperability with old devices when 802.11k/r/v is enabled on an SSID?
It is unclear to me if this is completely impossible, or if some workarounds are possible like a fallback in case a device connects that does not support those protocols.
I find it a bit cumbersome (and inefficient) to run 2 SSIDs for every network, one with and one without those extensions, and guide the users into connecting to the correct one.

Btw OpenWRT for the hAP ac2 already has MU-MIMO, MU-Beamforming, airtime fairness (AQL), 802.11r and 802.11k/v

米eanwhile at Mikrotik:
zzzZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz

W A K E U P !!

Also it seems like development have really slowed down over the summer. It's been over a month since last release of anything...

Also it seems like development have really slowed down over the summer. It's been over a month since last release of anything...

I've heard TILERA architecture was slowing down ROS development cycle since it got deprecated from the mainline Linux kernel.

I've heard TILERA architecture was slowing down ROS development cycle since it got deprecated from the mainline Linux kernel.

Where have you heard that?
Here on the forum, MikroTik said that they did not use the "official" Tilera support in the mainline kernel, but have always used their own.
(presumably based on proprietary drivers and other code they received directly from the manufacturer, instead of open-source)

Also it seems like development have really slowed down over the summer. It's been over a month since last release of anything...

I've heard TILERA architecture was slowing down ROS development cycle since it got deprecated from the mainline Linux kernel.

The slow down Beginns in 2011/12 with the 802.11n driver, it was shit at the start and the 802.11ac is shit until now.
最好是802.11 MT释放ax之前2025

This firmware will also be ported to the cAP ac when the devs figure out a way to boot OpenWRT without a stripped down copy of U-Boot.

A recent openWRT built for hAP ac2seems to work on cAP ac, too

This firmware will also be ported to the cAP ac when the devs figure out a way to boot OpenWRT without a stripped down copy of U-Boot.

A recent openWRT built for hAP ac2seems to work on cAP ac, too

Nice, btw they use almost the same hardware internally but Mikrotik has changed how the calibration data is stored on newly manufactured units but I'm glad they already figured out a fix.

https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull ... -677772688

You better add this in version 7

Got WPA3 personal working with latest master OpenWRT source plus hAP ac2 support patches, will test reliability for a day before publishing it.

PD: Currently I only have one WPA3 client (Samsung S10e) but WPA2 clients are also working normally.

Got WPA3 personal working

Thanks for the built. Is there also WPA3 Enterprise available?

P.S. It would be great to get hAP ac2 into official OpenWrt repository

Got WPA3 personal working

P.S. It would be great to get hAP ac2 into official OpenWrt repository

当Routerboot问题没有解决the need of an U-Boot copy, I also hope it happens soon.

lol

@santyx32
Have you done some iperf benchmarks with openwrt on your hAP ac2? E.g. 5 GHz, 5180@80MHz, clear spectrum
- with one single client connected with link rate of 866MHz
- with one old client e.g. 802.11a/g connected at a lower rate and one 802.11ac client connected at maximum rate; one test with airtime fairness enabled, one time with airtime fairness disabled.
... in order to see the performance difference to RouterOS

@santyx32
Have you done some iperf benchmarks with openwrt on your hAP ac2? E.g. 5 GHz, 5180@80MHz, clear spectrum
- with one single client connected with link rate of 866MHz
- with one old client e.g. 802.11a/g connected at a lower rate and one 802.11ac client connected at maximum rate; one test with airtime fairness enabled, one time with airtime fairness disabled.
... in order to see the performance difference to RouterOS

I don't have legacy clients all of them are dual band 802.11ac or 802.11n single band. Btw I only use DFS channels because the non DFS ones are heavily congested (like 2.4GHz) since an ISP replaced all of their N300 routers with dual band routers without DFS. The network is way more responsive while I'm downloading a game on my laptop pings to gateway are stable on other 5ghz devices.

Edit: on my S10e phone if I rotate it to horizontal position during a speed test there's a speed drop with ROS, with OpenWRT it keeps constant (75mbps fiber from ISP).

Is Mikrotik aware of WiFi4EU mentionied in various other posts?
EU is spending dotzends of millions of Euros for public WiFi all over Europe.
Without 802.11k/v and Bandsteering, MikroTik WiFi HW cannot be used for WiFi4EU funded installations.
Just one of many examples:
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-mar ... ala-latvia

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-mar ... ala-latvia

15000€ for 11 locations and 11 hotspots. Does anyonek now which access point they bought in Jūrmala?
"EUR 15,000 voucher"
"The WiFi4EU network was launched in June 2020 and a map of the 11 Wi-Fi hotspot was made available on the municipality’s website."

There are a hand full manufactures who are complain to
Wifi4eu,

Cambium, Ruckus, Aruba, Cisco Meraki, and last
UBNT has done the certification...


mikrotik is overwhelmed

It would be fun to install other brands APs in front of Mikrotik headquarters

Still no updates?
I hate the Unifi ecosystem, but i can't swap them to Mikrotik AP's until they don't have r/k/v support.

What's even worse isnot a single Mikrotik device have official WIFI certification. Just go tohttps://www.wi-fi.org/product-finder-re ... order=descand see for yourself. Feel free to search for other vendors. All big names are there. Mikrotik is not.
It's easy to dismiss this as useless paperwork and waste of money, but in reality, you can't use any Mikrotik WIFI gear in any project where you are asked to build WIFI network as defined by WIFI association.

但它不仅仅是业务和专业使用。米Ikrotik have issues with some Macbooks and they are fully WIFI certified but MIkrotik AP is not... where do you think might be an issue?

I had to check, and sure enoughwell that kinda changes things. For so long I've ranted on about "hey, you should use MikroTik for this", I guess on the wifi front at least it will just be a hobby for now.

This is a big deal for corporate deployments and Mikrotik is losing a lot of money because of this. If contacted to build a WIFI network, using MIkrotik is clear liability right from the start. If there is any problem with WIFI (or no problem at all... just customer or competitor that's "layer friendly") you can be sued for not building proper WIFI certified network (no certification = it's not even WIFI network).
米issing 802.11r/k and other features that would have to be implemented before Mikrotik is actually WIFI certified and compliant are just "cherries on top" of this mess...

i think MikroTik is far from focusing on being a leader on corporate WiFi market

米ikroTik provides very versatile wifi products well enough for many scenarios at very affordable price

if your focus is corporate wifi implementations you have to look another vendors, therer are many, just more expensive

if your clients want advanced wifi they have to pay for ruckus or aruba, etc...

i think MikroTik is far from focusing on being a leader on corporate WiFi market

米ikroTik provides very versatile wifi products well enough for many scenarios at very affordable price

if your focus is corporate wifi implementations you have to look another vendors, therer are many, just more expensive

if your clients want advanced wifi they have to pay for ruckus or aruba, etc...

This 1000% I've been saying this all the time. Some people forget the market or target audience that MikroTik is covering. MikroTik products fill alot of gaps and have products for various projects. But corporate wifi is not it.