On Thursday, January 22, 2015 1:19pm, "Richard Smith" <smithbone@gmail.com> said:

 

> On 01/22/2015 04:18 AM, David Lang wrote:
>
> >> Recently, we picked up the 11th floor as well and moved many people up
> >> there. I got a 3rd AP (another TP-Link AC1750) and set that one up on
> >> a free channel with a different ESSID.
> >
> > I like to put all the APs on the same ESSID so that people can roam
> > between them. This requires that the APs act as bridges to a dedicated
> > common network, not as routers.
>
> That's the ultimate plan but for convenience of being able to easily
> select what AP I'm talking to or to be able to tell folks to move from
> one to another I've got them on different ESSIDs. It also helps me keep
> track of what RF channel things are on.

A side comment, meant to discourage continuing to bridge rather than route.

There's no reason that the AP's cannot have different IP addresses, but a common ESSID.  Roaming between them would be like roaming among mesh subnets. Assuming you are securing your APs' air interfaces using encryption over the air, you are already re-authenticating as you move from AP to AP.  So using routing rather than bridging is a good idea for all the reasons that routing rather than bridging is better for mesh.