PMP450b mid-gain SM Unboxing

Hey Folks, just got a couple 450b mid-gain SM's in fresh off the assembly line and thought I'd do a little unboxing ceremony. Pretty excited about the 450b SM line and think it's going to open up a lot of doors for operators that felt the older 450 SM line was too expensive and confusing to get into. Here are just a few things I'm buzzing over:

- Same form factor as the highly successful ePMP Force 180 line 

- Unlocked! No more licenses to deal with!

- Comes with a PoE! That saves you like $12 bux right there over the vanilla 450 SM's. You'll still need to buy a $12 PoE

- 17dBi integrated antenna packed into a very small 9.8"x4.9" enclosure

- Max transmit power is 27dBm (where allowed by region)

- Ultra-wide band operation, can operate 4900 to 5925MHz

- New System on a Chip (SoC) enhances Packet Processing Power more than 4x that of the 450 SM

- Capable of >250Mbps aggregate in a 40MHz channel (I've heard this can actually do upwards of 300mbps!)

- Gigabit Ethernet

- 3.5mm audio jack allows direct connection of headphones without any adapters. Still annoying not to have a visable signal level for alignment, but at least this is one step forward over the vanilla 450 SM's

- MSRP is $299, and I'm seeing it listed with distributors like Winncom for much lower even in single unit quantities

- There's a high gain 25dBi version right around the corner (I've been told a few months away) that will be feature-wise very similiar and priced on par with the 450b mid-gain.

- UPDATE: These do not come  wit h the dynamic noise filtering features on some of the 450i radios. If you need this feature there still are other 450i SM's you can purchase that have this feature.

I'm going to be doing some testing with these new SM's and a Medusa 450m here soon, so stay tuned for a full report and photos.

Shown alongside vanilla 450 SM for size comparison:

NOTE! These radios DO NOT come with a PoE or line cord!

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Just want to point out a couple of things here....

Power Supply and Line Cord do NOT come with the unit.

In the box will be the following:

- The radio itself

- The Bracket (as picutred)

- a Hose clamp (the same one that comes in the Force 180 box)

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Thanks for the post Eric!  Shipments of this product have begun and more customers will be seeing them in the next couple of weeks... we have a LOT of orders to fulfill!

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What's the power consumption of these new radios?


@George Skorup wrote:

What's the power consumption of these new radios?


9 W nominal, 12 W peak


@Eric Ozrelic wrote:

9 W nominal, 12 W peak


OK, so, stupid question. Why not include the Force180/200 GigE injector? That's rated 30VDC/15W.

Sure, we can just order the injectors individually, as we've been doing for Canopy all along. All I'm saying is it would be nice to simplify ordering and stocking like ePMP. You order ePMP, you get the POE and everything in the box.


@George Skorup wrote:

 

OK, so, stupid question. Why not include the Force180/200 GigE injector? That's rated 30VDC/15W.

I'm guessing that they were sticking to the norm with PMP450 SM's in that the PoE isn't included, and secondly, trying to maintain the lowest cost possible for the SM. I don't know about you, but I have piles of PoE's from back in the PMP100 days... so I never have to buy PoE's anymore... however, for these SM's, which are now capable of over 100mbps net throughput and have a gig ethernet adapater... the inclusion of a gigabit ethernet capable PoE would be welcome.

Exactly my point. We have dozens of 10/100 injectors laying around. That GigE interface though. I guess it doesn’t really matter since we can just buy the injector separately and stuff it in the box after applying our field deployment defaults.

Since it appears to fit onto a RD, do you get any more/less gain attaching the 450b onto one?


@FVI wrote:

Since it appears to fit onto a RD, do you get any more/less gain attaching the 450b onto one?


It's not meant to be used with a reflector dish and due to the size and width of it, I don't think it would work very well.

I asked the same question long ago when the Force 180 came out and I was told that it was easier and less expensive from a manufacturing standpoint to keep that style mount.

The antenna is a patch array antenna system.  I am unsure what the gain value might be if you try to put a reflector on it... but even if the gain might increase or remain the same, it is sure to distort the pattern.

As Eric says, it's not meant for that.

We will be releasing the high gain version in a few months.

Is there a factory reset button, now that the 6-pin jack is gone?

Do these units take either POE polarity?

No, "recovery mode" is entered in the same way that the 450i is done as referenced here.  It's a power cycle vs. a default plug.

Yes, these units are 30 VDC input (actually will accept 20-32 VDC), and are "polarity agnostic", but will NOT support 802.3af.

Is there an alternative way to default the radios? With our ePMP equipment, we've had a few "lucky" brownouts / power outages that defaulted an entire area's subscriber radios. We managed to fix the aftermath of those incidents remotely, but it involved manually re-programming a bunch of radios after setting static ARP entries to the default management IP... After the second time we used cnMaestro to disable that feature from our entire customer base.

It's not like ePMP. With the 450i based default sequence, if you don't get into the web page and select the factory defaults option within 30 seconds I believe, then the radio will boot normally.

Correct. The power cycle only allows you to choose the recovery console.  It requires the actual step of selecting to enter that mode, or else it will boot normally as George mentions.

Wht doesnt it come with a POE these devices arent exactly cheap. Makes no sense.


@russ007 wrote:

Wht doesnt it come with a POE these devices arent exactly cheap. Makes no sense.


No, it doesn't come with PoE. As far as the price is concerned, it depends on how you look at it. It's an unlocked radio, so no licenses to deal with. They're also high gain, so you won't need a dish or clip anymore. They also can push way more PPS and throughput (100mbps or more net throughput) which is espeically useful when paired with the 450m and using larger channel widths. The older 450 SM's were limited to around 30-40mbps of net throughput.

All things considered, the 450b's give you multiple, significant benefits at a lower price point then the older SM's at the unlocked license level or the 450i SM's.