We've been in our new building with brand new, (supposedly) top-of-the-line networking equipment for about 6 months now. We have a Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller, Cisco Switches, Routers, and FWs, and 22 3800i APs spread across 32,000 sq ft. Many of these APs are only 30 feet from each other. Our wireless network is currently configured with all of the APs having the same SSIDs, but it's not set up for roaming to work. As someone walks around the office they will lose SAP sessions as they transition from one AP to another. If someone walks really far from the AP they are currently connected to but not so far that they disconnect, they will stay connected to that AP and get terrible speeds because of the distance, instead of getting switched to a closer AP. Because of this, users often manually turn their wifi off and then on to get connected to closer APs.
Our networking guy has not been the most prompt about resolving any network issues and has gotten a lot of pressure to resolve these things for months now. It seems all we get back are excuses. He says that creating a mesh/roaming/star (really not sure what it's called in the Cisco world) is going to require more equipment and licenses. More money
Is he correct? Do we really have to spend more money, whether on more hardware or licenses, to make it so our 5520 and APs are configured in some sort of mesh network that allows for roaming without dropped sessions and always being conneced to AP with the best signal? If he's incorrect, can anyone advise on a guide that could be used by a couple guys that have previous experience setting up basic networks and using Cisco IOS, but are by no means Cisco or network pros, to transition our wireless network to mesh?
Thank you!
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