Why Are STAs Associated with Other APs Than Nearby APs in Multi-AP Scenarios?
In multi-AP scenarios, if a long interval for sending Beacon frames is set for an AP, STAs associate with other APs than nearby APs.
STAs can obtain information about peripheral wireless networks in either of the following ways:
- Passive scanning: STAs scan Beacon frames sent by surrounding APs to obtain wireless network information.
- Active scanning: STAs actively send Probe Request frames and receive Probe Response frames to obtain wireless network signals.
In practice, STAs can actively and passively scan surrounding wireless networks. If a STA passively scans wireless networks, it associates with the AP from which it receives Beacon frames at the first time. If a long interval for sending Beacon frames is set for an AP, the STA may receive Beacon frames only from remote APs within the interval, but not from nearby APs. As a result, the STA associates with a remote AP. In addition, when APs are densely deployed, there is a higher probability that STAs receive Beacon frames from other APs.