Inter-Access Point Protocol (IAPP)

The Inter-Access Point Protocol (IAPP) was described in IEEE 802.11F as a recommended practice for communication between access points. When a WLAN client moves from one access point to another, the new access point informs the previous one about the association. The previous access point then removes the client from its records. This prevents duplicate registrations and allows switches to update their MAC address tables more quickly.

IAPP was intended to simplify roaming between access points from different vendors. However, IEEE 802.11F was withdrawn in 2006 and saw little practical adoption. In enterprise networks, WLAN roaming is now usually handled by WLAN controllers, vendor-specific mechanisms or standards such as IEEE 802.11r, 802.11k and 802.11v.