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Just curious if anyone is aware of any whitepapers that show the performance effects of "hidden" SSIDs, particularly on VoIP implementations. (EG - roaming delays)

I know of at least one vendor that actually recommends hiding the ssid for the voip ssid. 8-O

Hiding the SSID does not affect performance. There was an individual that put out a white paper several years ago that claimed hiding the SSID affected throughput. His claim was that hiding the SSID increased client probe requests and thus affected throughput. His conclusions were all incorrect.

If there is a VoIP vendor recommending not to hide the SSID, the only thing I can think is that is that they want to increase the chances of an AP seeing an access point via passive scanning (Listening for Beacons). Any VoWiFi phone vendor will always be sending out directed probe requests with the pre-configured SSID. Access points hiding the SSID should answer back just fine with a probe response.

I recommend not hiding the SSID for a different reason. First, SSID cloaking is worthless in terms of security. Anyone with a sniffer will find the SSID. Second, SSID cloaking is not standardized.

I have seen occasions where legacy client stations with properly configured SSID settings were denied association with a different vendor's access point.

Thanks for the quick response David. I've heard the same argument (maybe even read that whitepaper?) but I've never seen numbers supporting it. I guess I know why now. :D

Hiding the SSID has always baffled me. At least beyond the year 2000 or so. I guess if nothing else, hiding it removes the SSID from being the most low lying fruit on the branch...