Would like to setup 4 Cisco Aironet 1140 Accesspoints around the house, 1 accesspoint per level for wireless roaming around the house.

I know the easiest way to set up wireless roaming for these would be to assign different SSIDs for each AP but with the same wireless password for all APs. The problem with doing it this way is that there is a constant drop and reconnect with different APs as I move around the house.

Would like to configure them in such a way that the connections do not drop and reconnect when I approach the next access point. I.E. would like to configure all 4 APs such that they form a single wireless network with no drop in connections at all.

Is this possible?

You need to use the same SSID and PSK to achieve roaming.

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som om sinnet hade svartnat för evigt.

Would this result in dropped connections as I move around the house as the next AP logs me in?

Not if you've got sufficient coverage overlap.

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som om sinnet hade svartnat för evigt.

Is there also a way to configure them to become a singe wireless network?

Set one as a root AP and the others as repeaters.

No, dont. Just put them in the same SSID and make sure you have some overlapping coverage and you'll be fine.

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som om sinnet hade svartnat för evigt.

Four 1140s for a house is a little overkill unless it is a big house. You should have plenty of overlap to do as srg said. From my understanding the most that will happen is you might drop one or two packets while all the switches update your location, but if all the access points go back to a single switch you shouldn't have that problem.

-Otanx

What's wrong with killabee's suggestion?

What's wrong with single SSID setup?

APs in repeater mode come in handy when you need to extend coverage to areas where wired connections are not available.
Problem is that throughput is cut in half once for each hop away.

Noted. Didn't know about the throughput thing.

Thanks

Yup. I have a house (not mine! ) with 7 1242 autonomous AP's for wireless coverage. Been installed for 8 months without the customer reporting dropped connections. BUT... signal strength in a house can be limited if you have things like re-inforced concrete walls or floors, as the steel re-inforcement is a pretty good Faraday Cage Also in older houses here in England, particularly houses of the Victorian era, old red paint contains significant amounts of lead which painting or papering over disguises quite effectively. That's a fun one!

I have conducted a wireless survey in a house with seemingly plenty of wireless coverage but when walking up and down stairs and through corridors where space is limited, packet loss was experienced. In my experience though, whilst you can measure packet loss and watch a continuous ping miss a couple of replies, is it somethkng the user will notice? Probably not, unless you have an 802.11 IP phone and the call drops. I have been guilty of watching test equipment register lost traffic and saying there is a problem, when in reality all the user sees is a slightly slower load for the web page, and that can happen with any type of connection. A measurable result is one thing, a noticable lack of speed that can happen from time to time, is quite another.

Wow its like looking at post made by me in a parrallel dimension! We install and survey wireless networks in the high-end residential sector.

A little overkill? How about definite overkill. We just bought 3 1042 WAPS from Cisco and a 2504 series LAN controller for a 7 story building and three of those WAP's could have done the job with just 2. That must be a mansion. An ungodly, HUGE mansion, lol. 4' 1140s. Dear, lord!!!

Considering that if you need 4 APs to cover your house, one that means you have a huge... and I mean HUGE house. I know that if I had a house that big I could afford a wireless controller. With that in mind if I were you I would suggest getting a small Cisco wireless lan controller. At the most basic level it will control all 4 APs. At a little more of an advanced level, you in effect, only have to maintain one device... the controller. The controller takes care of the APs. About the only time you would have to deal with the individual APs is if one of them fails. Just my .02.