Force 300-25 - first impression

So, we got our first Force 300's yesterday and I thought people might want to know our first results.

THE GOOD: This link is 1.25 KM across town. This was with the 4.1-RC36 and I was only able to test at 20 Mhz wide channels because when I selected other widths, the firmware wouldn't allow me to save those settings. The AP was set at 75/25 - and on 5800Mhz.  As well, RC36 doesn't have a LinkTest yet, so the throughput test I was doing was good 'ol SpeedTest.net test. So, that's ~160 Mbit aggregate in a 20 Mhz wide channel. That's working pretty well I think. :)

Force300_Backhaul_BetaFirmware_20MhzWide_EPTP_75_25_WHD_NCOTE_APRIL13_18-2.jpg 


THE BAD: The beta software wouldn't allow me to choose 40 Mhz widths, without complaining that I had selected channels which were not really allowed. And when I did finally get the SM side to save with 40Mhz widths in it's scan list, I then remotely changed the AP to a 40 Mhz channel and the SM didn't link. I expect this was due to the beta having a channel list mismatch. In any event, I ran out of light for the day - and so I only got a chance to test 20 Mhz wide channel and I was pretty pleased with 160 Mbit aggregate throughput.

THE UGLY: There is no ugly - the unit is physically really nice, it goes together very simply... the mount slides on and does an 1/8th twist - the feed snaps into the back and two bolts finish up the assembly.  It's literally 60 seconds to assemble and it's very well made and heavy duty.

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Hi ninedd, 

Thanks for the great write up! We're working hard in making many improvements including adding link test as quickly as possible. For the 40 MHz issue, can you tell us what particular channels you tried that were troublesome?

Sriram

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On the SM, I basically just did a 'SELECT ALL' in the 20 / 40 / 80 mhz widths, and then it wouldn't let me save those changes.  I could 'Select All' in 20Mhz widths, but as soon as I wanted to try the 40 & 80 - a 'Select All' didn't work, and the error message just said that I was choosing channels that weren't available in my region.

Also - because there is still no 'test' mode, or 'ping rebooter and revert back to the last saving' - every time I'd make a change where they wouldn't re-link, I had to drive back and forth from AP to SM side to plug in and set them both back to known linking results. It is difficult to believe that there is still no ability for a 'test mode' or to 'revery if unable to link within x seconds'

In any event - It was something when I did a select all in 40/80 and tried to save those.

EDITED: I think when I did a 'select all' on the SM, the 40Mhz list included 5745 and 5750 and I think those were the problem frequencies on the SM. They were there to select, but then produced an error during saving. Therefor, I had to drive to the AP side and set it back to 20 Mhz width, and then drive back to the SM side each time this wouldn't link.

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Thanks for this post. I was not expecting such speeds from a 20Mhz 802.11 AC channel. With that said, I have some questions for Cambium. 

How are these speeds possible for 802.11 AC operating on a 20mhz channel? A 20Mhz AC channel is limited to 256-QAM 3/4, not 5/6. Theoretically, you should only see about a 20% increase in speeds over a 20Mhz 802.11 N channel running MCS 15 (64-QAM 5/6) up/dn. 

In this set up, we -should- see about 100 dn/30 up for a total of ~ 130Mbps aggregate. This just happens to be what we get out of the competitions AC product on a 20Mhz channel at max modulation rate (used for very short bridges). How are you guys squeezing out 25-30Mbps over the competition, and pretty much over what the AC standards in general suggest we should see? 

OK, this is the same Force 300 link.  It's 1.25 KM Force 300-25 link running 4.1-RC36.

For my 2c CWB, the only way I can test the throughput is to test to SpeedTest, which of course puts the fiber and puts the Speedtest servers in the loop as variables. The Fiber is 300 Mbit download and 60 Mbit upload.  The beta software doens't have an internal link tests, so I'm testing via Speedtest and that throws uncontrollable variables into the loop.

So - this below is set at 20Mhz width and tested through the Internet to a different Ookla/Speedtest server.  We again see about 120 Mbit download and 33 upload to this Server. If this is real results, that's pretty awesome from a 20 Mhz wide channel.
 




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@CWB wrote:

Thanks for this post. I was not expecting such speeds from a 20Mhz 802.11 AC channel. With that said, I have some questions for Cambium. 

How are these speeds possible for 802.11 AC operating on a 20mhz channel? A 20Mhz AC channel is limited to 256-QAM 3/4, not 5/6. Theoretically, you should only see about a 20% increase in speeds over a 20Mhz 802.11 N channel running MCS 15 (64-QAM 5/6) up/dn. 

In this set up, we -should- see about 100 dn/30 up for a total of ~ 130Mbps aggregate. This just happens to be what we get out of the competitions AC product on a 20Mhz channel at max modulation rate (used for very short bridges). How are you guys squeezing out 25-30Mbps over the competition, and pretty much over what the AC standards in general suggest we should see? 


ePMP AC products support QAM-256 both with codding rate 3/4(MCS8) and 5/6(MCS9).

Thank you.

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@Fedorwrote:

@CWBwrote:

Thanks for this post. I was not expecting such speeds from a 20Mhz 802.11 AC channel. With that said, I have some questions for Cambium. 

How are these speeds possible for 802.11 AC operating on a 20mhz channel? A 20Mhz AC channel is limited to 256-QAM 3/4, not 5/6. Theoretically, you should only see about a 20% increase in speeds over a 20Mhz 802.11 N channel running MCS 15 (64-QAM 5/6) up/dn. 

In this set up, we -should- see about 100 dn/30 up for a total of ~ 130Mbps aggregate. This just happens to be what we get out of the competitions AC product on a 20Mhz channel at max modulation rate (used for very short bridges). How are you guys squeezing out 25-30Mbps over the competition, and pretty much over what the AC standards in general suggest we should see? 


ePMP AC products support QAM-256 both with codding rate 3/4(MCS8) and 5/6(MCS9).

Thank you.


The AC standard does not support QAM-256 5/6 on 20Mhz wide channels and the specs for the Force 300 lists a max modulation rate of MCS8 (QAM-256 3/4) on a 20Mhz wide channel. So, the Force 300 does modulate up to QAM-256 5/6 (MCS9) on a 20Mhz channel?

CWB - this is what my "Monitor Performance" screen looks like.  If you can see that?

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Yes!!!, I can see it. Great!!!...They were able to get MCS9 (5/6) on 20Mhz channels. This explain the throughput you are getting. Did not think it was possible due to AC specs and the Force 300 data sheet itself only showing MCS 8 as max rate for a 20Mhz channel. 

Hi ninedd,
Thank you for your feedback!

Does the Force 300-25 has an ePTP Mode or Flexible mode? Is 75/25 TDD the only available?
Is 2.5ms frame available?

If not, I ask Cambium when it’s expected to have such support :slight_smile:

ninedd, could you please share 40MHz performance page?
If you have about 154Mbps aggregate in 20MHz channel, you should have about 310Mbps aggregate in 40MHz channel at same modulations!

Does the Force 300-25 has an ePTP Mode or Flexible mode? Is 75/25 TDD the only available?
Is 2.5ms frame available?

ninedd, could you please share 40MHz performance page?
If you have about 154Mbps aggregate in 20MHz channel, you should have about 310Mbps aggregate in 40MHz channel at same modulations!

The first Beta of the Force300 software only has an TDD PTP mode, and only has 75/25 and 50/50 and 30/70 ratios, so no flexible currently.  That being said - I got my Force300's last Thursday and I'm currently using 4.1-RC45, which is the 3rd firmware version I've used in 6 days.  SO - I'd say they are working pretty feverishly on the firmware.  :)

I also shouldn't have really posted any 40 Mhz results.  Those are absolutely 'first test' kinda results, no optimization at all.  I've got a few projects going on right now (plus a kid graduating University) so I haven't had time to really do much with the link.  I'm going to go delete that 40Mhz result... that wasn't any sort of test, just 'first results'.

Don't worry, I take all tests as "first results", not "Official Results" :-)

Let us know if they change something!

Hi,

Thanks for sharing and that is looking great.

Would you be able to show us the spectrum analyser results on that link? 

Could you also please show us the Monitor > Wireless Page. 

Cheers.

Hi,

Could you also please show us the Monitor > Wireless Page. 


Hi.  Here is the Monitor -> Wireless page.



I can't get the Spectrum Analyzer page currently. This is still beta software, and when I enable the Spectrum Analyzer the units get wonky.  I'll do a scan when I'm able and post it here.

I have this link running with live traffic now.  This is the SM/Slave side's Throughput chart, showing that those speed test results above aren't just a 'peak best case', those are repeatable and sustainable speeds. Tthis is a 20 Mhz wide channel and it'll happily carry 160 Mbit aggregate -  125 Mbit download and 35 upload (when set at 75%/25% duty ratio) which is amazing out of a 20 Mhz channel.

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And this is another SpeedTest result with over 160 Mbit aggregate throughput in just 20Mhz of bandwidth.  :D

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This is great data, ninedd! Thanks for sharing. 

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Hi, the Force 300-25 is announced with a ingression protection code IP55. Can you share any feedback about the equipment physical conditions after beeing working for a few weeks? In what kind of climate are you using it?

Thank's a lot!

Filipe

I am testing my first Force 300 at 3.75 miles and I can get 97meg down and 45 meg up to the net. My SM side is powered by a CTM-2 and I can not link to my Tik but at 100meg 1000meg hope to see more speed when i change out the CTM. One thing I have ran into is the AP side will stop talking on my LAN side every 24 to36 hours do not know how to fix this do you.

This is a few graphs and stats on a Force300 we're running as a backhaul across town. WE ARE CURRENTLY ONLY USING 20 MHZ WIDE CHANNELS ONLY - so very very impressive for only 20 Mhz of spectrum.

So, it was 3 days an 7 hours since I upgraded to Beta 4.1.1-RC6 and rebooted the link.  Over those three days, we have passed about 1.4 Terabytes of data.  Hopefully you can see the rest of the numbers on this screen shot - very few errors or drops or any problems, and 100% 100% quality.



This screen shot below shows that 98.5% of the packets are at the highest modulation - 256QAM.  I also note that the screen show 4 session drops, but this isn't really accurate - I was still configuring and sorting out the power cables, so in the first 1/2 hour after it was aimed, I rebooted and tweaked it a few times. There have actually been 0 drops over the 3 days, 7 hours.

This is the data usage graphs over the last 3 days.  The link is capable of about 120+ Mbit downlink the way we have it configured (75%/25%), but that's more than we are using at peak time currently.  So, we're peaking around 80 Mbit per second sustained every evening, without breaking a sweat it seems.  Again - this is only 20Mhz wide channel, and we will test 40 and then 80 Mhz channels over the next several weeks and I'll post that data at that time.
 

 
And as far as Latency, it averages 5ms (in TDD PTP Mode) so that's also pretty cool out of such low cost equipment, and with such early software.  As Cambium completes the features (including ePTP mode) these graphs will likely all only get better - and they are pretty impressive now. :)

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