It will be a more integrated unit and not like the CSM that is external to the Force 110 today.
Sakid
There are major upgrades to the CNS planned in the near future. We will make sure your idea of scheduling a future upgrade is incorporated in the plan.
On 802.11AC we know that most of the offerings out there are based on the Wave 1 chipset. The two features in this case of interest are 256QAM and 80MHz channels. In our opinion both of these are difficult to get in a real world environment. Our view is to evaluate the next wave of AC functionality such as non continguous channel bandwidths and MUMIMO technology and evaluate a possible product around that.
No plans for ePMP in 900MHz
Thanks
Sakid
Hi Eric,
Regarding your questions on the ePTP mode:
1) We do plan to add 5/10 MHz support but not in the immediate future. ePTP is not TDD mode and the driver underneath functions differently. Its not so much 5 and 10MHz was removed. We have to rather add them.
2) ePTP will not support GPS sync. However we will be introducing 2.5ms frame support the in summer/fall in TDD mode (PMP and PTP) which will reduce the latency.
Thanks,
Sriram
The next generation of ePMP subscribers will have support for Gigabit
Sakid
The customizations required to deliver a properly synchronized GPS solution was not easy to achieve with some alternate chip vendors at the time of our engagement and thus we went with Atheros.
Sakid
Are there any plans to merge the two user interfaces between the ePMP and PMP lines? ALSO, can we get rid of WM4 and create a managment platform that takes care of both ePMP and PMP?
You can safely go to -40~-37dBm and not run into an overload condition. The ePMP HW is designed to function at these Rx power levels unlike other products.
Sakid
Will the next generation of SM have the same PoE capabilities as the current gigabit radios? while I don't care too much about actual 802.3af compatibility, it has the nice side effect of making them work with other manufacturers PoE, which can make upgrading to ePMP a lot easier.
There are plans to streamline the two interfaces between PMP & ePMP. Just slightly lower on priority vs creating new features that are needed. Also, there are plans to have a management system that takes care of all product lines.
Sakid
I agree with your reservations regarding deploying around 802.11ac/Wave1 and needing larger channel widths. There are no areas where I could deploy a radio using an 80MHz channel width. I think we just all want to see 256QAM and MU-MIMO on smaller channel sizes, 5/10/20... maybe 40.
Any plans to allow more then one person to be logging into an ePMP radio at a time?
Yes multiple login support is coming soon. Not in 2.4.1 coming out in the next month but in 2.4.2 right after that.
Thanks,
Sriram
We would be happy to beta test CNS server.
We have added you to the list for the CNS Beta.
While the 802.11ac specification doesn't specificially include support for the 2.4GHz band, and for instance, Ubiquiti has said that they'll never release an 802.11ac product for 2.4GHz... do you think it would be possible to release one for 2.4, assuming that you could modify it to the point where you can use 5/10/20MHz channel widths?
What's the typical turn-around time from when a product is submitted to the FCC, and when it's approved? I assume DFS approvals take longer?
Eric,
Unfortunately the 802.11AC specification does not support 2.4. If you are looking for some of the AC benefits such as 256QAM & MUMIMO in smaller channel bandwidths then I am afraid that would be a custom product.
Sakid
FCC approvals vary depending on how backed up the FCC labs are. We have seen approvals come in as fast as a month to taking as long as 3-4 months. Its not just about the testing but also review which takes a few weeks by itself.
Any plans to improve the spectrum analyzer or to provide constellation plots? Bonus points for a ethernet TDR!