I'm a long time UBNT user and I'm starting to have quite a few issues that is making my network unstable specifically with the low performance on ptmp m gear and also transitioning to the ac beta gear. I'm at the tipping point where I can either purchase all new AC and continue the beta bandwagon or I can switch to a new equipment manufacturer. From what I've been able to read it looks like Cambium is very reliable but I have a few questions to ask before I jump ship.
1. Can a Cambium AP work with UBNT M gear with Airmax turned off? If so what was the performance like?
2. Do the ePMP 1000 have the same standard pins and if not can someone direct me where I can check out cambium pin specs.
3. Does cambium require licenses for cpe/ap speeds?
Hey there kmitre, welcome to the Cambium forums! To answer your questions...
1. Yes, a Cambium AP (or SM) can work with a UBNT M series client (or AP), as you mentioned Cambium's TDD mode and UBNT's Airmax mode MUST be turned off, and both devices need to be in WiFi mode. I'd strongly recommend you do a bench test using the same UBNT firmware rev that you're using on your M series devices, and do some playing around before you go to the tower. In our limited testing of converting an 5GHz M series sector over to Cambium using this WiFi method, performance was not great, but it was usable. YMMV depending on how far your clients are out, the EIRP you were using, and how much noise is in the area. You'll want to make sure your clients are aware of degrade service during the transition period. I'd keep that period as short as possible. The WiFi mode is intended as a short term 'crutch' to help ease the transition burdon, it's not intended as a long term solution.
2. This depends on what ePMP radios you end up using. You should check out this recently release PoE guide located HERE.
3. The only ePMP radios that require licensing are the 5GHz 'lite' GPS radios that are limited to 10 SM's. All other ePMP products do not require any sort of bandwidth or use case licenses.
Thanks for the valuable information and the welcome. One of my locations thats suffering is actually a small community where I have somehwere of about 18 customers within a 1km radius. If I switch then I'll use the regular sync radio ePMP 1000. Since the SM's are so close what Cambium equipment do you recommend. Something like whats listed as the Force 180?
you can use Force180 for about 3-5 km far from AP and then go with Force200 till about 20 km far.
For the WISP we're working we're using Cambium since about 1 year and they rocks!!! Thousand's time better than UBNT...
We're managing the transition leaving UBNT network as is and building a new Cambium network with new AP. We're not replacing old AP or old SM except some SM that were give a lot of troubles to customers.
Anxiously waiting for my Cambium shipment to come in tomorrow where I'm replacing one whole UBNT AP and its SM's. Pretty fed up with the way they have been lately as a company and the equipment plagued with unreliable firmware. I guess I'll let you guys know how it goes.
Here in Italy every wireless ISP used UBNT in the last few years and now we are experiencing troubles finding some free freq for doing links or making new AP.
Cambium are really more reliable with RF interference!
Let us know what you think about them! (except for web interface that is VERY slow!!!!!!!)
Don't expect the ePMP gear to solve all of your problems. That said, your subscribers will probably see far more consistent service over UBNT M series regardless of the problems. Poor installs will drag down any system.
We've been going back and forth between ePMP and UBNT AC for months now. They both shine in low-noise environments, especially UBNT AC when lightly loaded, from a throughput perspective. The Cambium gear appears to be much more sensitive to noise, but when noise isn't the main issue it performs consistently regardless of other factors. Even in the face of noise though, so long as the CPE doesn't disconnect (my biggest issue, but I get why) performance is very predictable with ePMP.
We currently run ePMP for business customers who rely on voip. Residential and business customers that don't care about voip get installed on whatever performs better at their location, ePMP or UBNT AC.
What signals are you shooting for when installing, what channel widths, and what kind of latency/jitter are you seeing? Our UBNT AC works like trash with any bit of noise. Our first Cambium shipment is showing up Friday, and we've got ~700 M series radios and about ~300 UBNT AC radios deployed and the AC by far is the biggest pain, even running all AC (not mixed).
We aim for -65 at the CPE or better but I find that SNR is more important than a few db on RSSI. If we can keep SNR > 30 modulations are pretty stable on ePMP. Once it drops into the 27 and below range "it depends".
I'm looking at a particular CPE right now that has a downlink/uplink SNR of 31/36 though that can't maintain modulations to save it's life - right now at MCS 2/14. This particular CPE has another dish pointed almost directly at it about 500' away, though it is running at 5280 and my gear is at 5835. The CPE is overwhelmed by the noise though.
Latency is higher than UBNT obviously because I'm running 75/25 5ms frames but jitter is very good. Below are two smokeping plots from two subs, one on ePMP and one on UBNT AC. The sectors are on the same tower - both 60* - both with exactly the same tilt and azimuth. They have about 6' vertical spacing between them. Both are running 10Mhz channels and have the same output power (20 dBm)
See, we're currently not installing less than -60dBm because of noise. On M series, we're seeing a lot of 117/130's, XW APs with PBE clients see 144 in a lot of locations, where we may have an occassional CPE linked at -68dBm, but an average RX signal of -58dBm across 30 stations and with even 20-30Mbps of traffic, the GUI is slow as all get out, and we see latency rise and jitter all over the place.
With Cambium, we're planning the initial deployment to like UBNT AC, everyone is -55dBm or stronger to make sure we're well above 30dB CINR, so I'm hoping we see great results with Cambium under the same conditions.
With Cambium I agree that even with signals around -65, even -68 db, but with SNR 24 db, we always get MCS 12/12 or better!! Even at 10 km (with a Force200).
On the AP we use TDD Flexible and 5 ms of frame... we have profile of 20 Mbps in download and customers are satisfied with always full bandwidth.
With Cambium I agree that even with signals around -65, even -68 db, but with SNR 24 db, we always get MCS 12/12 or better!! Even at 10 km (with a Force200).
On the AP we use TDD Flexible and 5 ms of frame... we have profile of 20 Mbps in download and customers are satisfied with always full bandwidth.
How many subs per AP with those statistics? I'm shooting for MCS14/15, and will definitely be taking advantage of the epmp 2000 + beamforming RX antenna to optimize RX at the AP signals. Airtime is valuable, so is spectrum, so I'm looking to really load mine up compared to Ubiquiti.
With UBNT RocketM we noticed that when we reached about 18-25 clients connected to the same AP, they started getting poor performance.
With Cambium ePMP 1000 we've reached already 20 clients connected without notice any problem... they said we can reach almost 40 clients without problem!
I’m running around 15 subs per AP at 25 Mbps and 50 Mbps packages with no problems. Subs are 1 to 3 miles from AP on mix of Force 180 and 200. Never was able to do that with UBNT AC gear.
I'll be brief. I was a UBNT "fanboy". Wholly supported them, they could do no wrong.. (Even bought a butt load of 3.65s which are absolute junk and are programmed to be that way!) Then it dawned on me, their "market" are their beta testers. In six years of buying UBNT, not ONE "new release" was ready to be released. Everyone of their "new" products are flawed, in some way. There's always a problem.
UBNTs can do a lot that you can't do with ePMPs. Namely because up until about the last few firmwares, regulations didn't matter so much for them. You can overpower a UBNT and you can't a Cambium.
Over all, Cambium APs beat UBNTs. They can process the packets and handle the heavy loads, UBNTs simply can't. RMA with Cambium is a nightmare.. UBNT, you send an email, they check the unit, you mail it back. SImple. I think Cambium is insulted with the suggestion of an RMA. (And we've seen more than a few lately.)
Cambiums are "twitchy". Set 'em and forget 'em and you're good. IF you have to keep tweekin them, they'll get angry.
PtP Cambium rules, hands down.. I can push more bandwidth on a comparable link than UBNT. Their pings are higher, about +20 ms higher. IF you've got a really "clean" link, good LoS, set it to "mater/slave" and you'll drop that +20 ms.
We've got over 1000 radios running, some in very congested areas, about a 70/30 split (mostly UBNTs) and IF I could do it all over again, it would be 100% Cambium. Over simplified, but that's my experience.
Thanks for the input Jack. I've had a really good experience so far on the AP and CPE's I've been converting over to Cambium. The throughput with ubnt was about 3 mbps before and now it's 50 mbps. It's just insanse! I get you about UBNT. I've been a fanboy for a while. Not anymore. Here's something I had posted which got a lot of hits and feedback.
Right now I deployed Cambium's ePMP in a small community with an omni. I'll be posting a story about that. We are not using the gps sync just yet as we are transitioning CPE's over from Ubiquiti. Once all CPE's are ePMP then I'll turn on gps sync. So far so good. I went from 3mbps average on a UBNT CPE to over 50 Mbps on Cambium's ePMP line.
Assembling a bunch of Force200's and getting ready to go transition a non-Cambium AP with 17 clients on it over to Cambium. Weather permitting, we should get this done next week hopefully, and I'll post as much details about the pros and cons as I can.
