Beacon and DTIM Intervals

Beacon is a special management frame broadcast by an AP at a fixed interval. The transmission is an announcement of the presence of a wireless network. Delivery Traffic Indication Map (DTIM) is the additional information added by your access point after a beacon broadcast.

The DTIM interval and beacon intervals determine the total length of time an access point will wait before sending multicast or broadcast traffic to a client. For example, if the DTIM interval is 1 and the beacon is set to 100 milliseconds, the total interval is 100 milliseconds; similarly, if the DTIM interval is 2 and the beacon is set to 100 milliseconds, the total interval is 200 milliseconds.

You must set the DTIM interval to 1 and the beacon interval close to 100 milliseconds to ensure that the badge receives multicast traffic properly and plays audio that does not sound choppy. Vocera recommends setting the beacon to 100 milliseconds, although values between 95 and 105 milliseconds have worked successfully.