IEEE 802.11r

The IEEE 802.11r working group is concerned with fast roaming in WLANs in accordance with 802.11. This standard, which was adopted in 2008, is about shortening authentication and thus reducing interruption times that occur when a mobile WLAN end device transitions from one access point to another. These interruption times can be several hundred milliseconds and thus impair voice communication. They must be reduced to less than 50 ms so that they do not interfere with Internet telephony, VoIP or other real-time applications.

802.11r supports quality of service( QoS) mechanisms as specified in 802.11e, as well as fast roaming, without compromising the security features specified in 802.11i. Thus, 802.11r meets the requirements of enterprises in terms of good voice quality as well as the required security.