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Is there any way to get Mac OS X to connect to a specific access point by BSSID? I have a network with the same SSID for multiple access points, and I would sometimes like to specify which specific access point to connect to. Is this something Mac OS X can do natively, or is there a third party tool that can do this?

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If the APs are on the same network, you should be connecting automatically to any in range, right? – Nathan Greenstein♦ Jan 26 '11 at 1:04
@Nathan Connecting to the network isn't the problem, it's just one is a G network and one is an N network, and I want to use the N one whenever possible. Changing the SSID is, unfortunately, not an option. – Kyle Cronin♦ Jan 26 '11 at 1:06
Gotcha. I was missing the g/n bit. – Nathan Greenstein♦ Jan 26 '11 at 1:14
Maybe if you dig into the preferences file and try to edit manually . I know for an old powerbook G4 (Mac 10.4.11) I have the airport command line tool "/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resourc‌​es/airport" with the --associate and --bssid options available but it seems to be removed from newer releases. – phwd Jan 26 '11 at 23:55
I have the same issue. I solved it from the other end, blocking my Mac's MAC from the undesirable router. – Jamie Kitson Jan 1 at 19:42

1 Answer

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What OS X version do you have?

In older versions this is possible:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport -A'NETWORKNAME' BSSID='00:11:22:33:44:55' password='PASSWORD'

But on OS X 10.6 it doesn't work anymore.

I've searched high and low for a solution for this, but haven't found anything yet. The only solution is going closer to your base station. So that the n -signal is stronger.

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