When switching from one WiFi to another, how come it shuts off the internet while switching, and can’t pass it over without an interruption?

Question

When switching from one WiFi to another, how come it shuts off the internet while switching, and can’t pass it over without an interruption?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Back in the days of dialup, I had a PPP client that could suspend and resume network traffic in that way.

But switching WiFi networks is like switching houses: everyone needs to know the new address, and you need a key to get in.

So any established sessions are going to drop; the truck is that it’s technically possible to buffer your side of the connection and re-send the last requests made through the new address, but no OS does that anymore, partly because it’s hard to do well, and partly because it’s hard to do securely.