On a medical-surgical ward, wireless connectivity works everywhere and no outages are reported, but nurses pushing workstations-on-wheels down the hallway notice a brief pause each time their device switches access points. The network already has appropriate channel and power settings. Which optimization best addresses this specific complaint?

This scenario describes a working network with a specific roaming-speed problem, not a coverage or capacity issue, since channel and power are already appropriately tuned and there are no outages. The right lever is roaming-assist capability — standards-based features that let a client receive information about neighboring APs so it can make a faster, better-informed decision about when and where to roam, reducing the pause during the handoff itself. Upgrading wired switch throughput addresses a wired-side bandwidth bottleneck, which isn't implicated here since the complaint is specifically about the moment of AP-to-AP handoff on the wireless side, not sustained throughput. Increasing session timeout affects how long a client's authenticated session persists before re-authentication is required, which is a different mechanism from the real-time roaming decision happening as a device physically moves between AP coverage areas, and wouldn't shorten the pause nurses are noticing. Weakening the security method to speed up authentication is also the wrong trade: it directly reduces the WLAN's security posture on a network carrying sensitive clinical traffic, and the pause described is more consistent with roam-decision latency than a full re-authentication delay each time. The operational caveat: roaming-assist features require support on both the AP and the client device, so results vary by device fleet. A concrete check: time the handoff pause with roaming-assist enabled versus disabled on the same test device and hallway route to confirm the improvement is measurable.