What is everyone doing as far as MicroPops and Backhauling and powering them ?

We have a couple of test Micropops on utility poles in a local town and are wanting to set up a lot more but I'm not sure how to handle backhauling them and I was wondering if there was better ways/solutions than our enclousure with backhaul radio and AP attached to it.

What is everyone else's MicroPop configuration ?

Right now our two Micropops each consist of an ePMP AP attached to an Omni , an ePMP connectorized radio with a RF-elements horn both mounted directly to a small enclosure with a small UPS inside(just enough to keep the radios from rebooting every time the power flickers). No switch, no nothing the backhaul and AP are directly connected to each other Pic attached.

What solar solution would work best for something like this, mounted on a utility pole.

Right now both PoPs are installed on poles were the town has secondary power (a streetlight) and they aren't making us get a meter, they are just letting us piggy back off the streetlight. This may not be allowed on a larger scale however, not sure yet. So I'm lookin at possibly doing solar vs paying for a meter and minimum monthly electric bill for every pole. Anyone suggest a small as possible solar solution ?

Any suggestions on backhauling these when you plan to have a lot of them and a 1 to 1 backhaul solution isn't possible ?

Currently the two micropops connect to ePMP sectors that also serve 20 to 30+ customer radios. This solution is ok for just 1 little micropop but it isn't a good solution. Ideally we would have a PtP backhaul for each micropop but if we are going to have 30 or so micropops around the town then we would need 30 or so PtP radios mounted on the tower and that isn't possible. I'm thinking that maybe using Cambium 450 or 450M to backhaul micropops would work... I don't know though. I'm open to any all idea or suggestions.

Look at 60Ghz gear for your PTP links, assuming they are short.  I'm assuming you are trying to keep the physical footprint as small as possible.

When asking about solar, are you looking for backup power where you would normally have grid power (like your current setup), or would you like to avoid the grid hookup.  If you are after the second option you will find that you need a much larger physical footprint.  How much panel/battery you require will depend on where you are located but for the two ePMP units you would need at least 200 watts of panel and 2 100AH batteries to have 5 days of darkness only drag the batteries down to 50%.

You may be able to get the power company to do a meter-less hookup and have a flat fee based on the typical usage simila r to the way they bill parking lot lights (and like the street lights).  I'm not sure how the usage is measured - maybe it's tested or maybe it's based on the power supply rating itself (in watts).  

It's fairly easy to take something that's say, 24W, and figure out that it's 0.576 kwH per day, or 17.28 kwH every 30 days.  That would be a maximum, and if you have the power company connect each of these connections to a single billing account.  In comparison, a 1000W parking lot light running 9 hours /day for 30 days 270 kwH - so you see there's a huge difference (17.3 vs 270 in a month).  

Power companies run unmetered lights all the time (streetlights, parking lot, etc) so the possibility is out there.  Many things hooked up by the phone and cable company work the same way with a flat rate billing.

The problem with solar and batteries is not just the amount of space it takes it's also:

Wind load on the pole

Theft (of your panels)

Maintenance (of your batteries, replacing them every few years)

Damage from vandals

...etc.

So you figure  by the time you add all that expense for dozens of MicroPOP's it's probably cheaper to see if the power company will flat rate bill you for your APs.

we do this. 

you can get unmetered service with a good phone call and providing your equipment power details.      

I'd use a dish over those horns for your PTP,  the horns 18db, and 30degree beam, the dish is 23 db and 6 degree beam. 

60ghz gear is great if your links are less than 1km.    

the wooden utility poles are solid and reliable.  we've toyed with less expensive solutions, but i haven't liked much else for short 30' access. 

these solutions work wonderfully :)

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Chris,

   I'm not at all familiar with 60Ghz solutions and both replies have mentioned it as a solution.  The three big problems I am trying to over come backhauling these micropops is 

(1) No way we can mount 30+ backhaul radios on a tower. Until we figure out how to fold time/space there simply is not enough room to mount them or enough money to pay rent on 30+ radios (on just one tower).

(2) Frequency planning.  Even if I could get 10 or 15 backhaul radios on a tower every Master radio on the tower will be able to see  many/most of the microp slave radios pointed at the same tower . There isnt' enough frequency available in 5Ghz to do this,  self interference would break it.

(3) Size of the radios (on both the tower and the micropop).  I agree that the dish is a better solution, I only went with the horn because it was smaller (easier to get the city/utility guys approval at this stage in the game).

Does  60Ghz solve all three problems ?


@brubble1 wrote:

Chris,

   I'm not at all familiar with 60Ghz solutions and both replies have mentioned it as a solution.  The three big problems I am trying to over come backhauling these micropops is 

(1) No way we can mount 30+ backhaul radios on a tower. Until we figure out how to fold time/space there simply is not enough room to mount them or enough money to pay rent on 30+ radios (on just one tower).

(2) Frequency planning.  Even if I could get 10 or 15 backhaul radios on a tower every Master radio on the tower will be able to see  many/most of the microp slave radios pointed at the same tower . There isnt' enough frequency available in 5Ghz to do this,  self interference would break it.

(3) Size of the radios (on both the tower and the micropop).  I agree that the dish is a better solution, I only went with the horn because it was smaller (easier to get the city/utility guys approval at this stage in the game).

Does  60Ghz solve all three problems ?


60 ghz would be something to use from pole to pole. not so much pole to tower repetitively.   

60ghz is limited 1km range.  

5ghz would solve your problem as well, you'll need to use GPS sync.    with cabmium gear, you don't have to do single PTP.    PTMP can work just fine for backhauling.   i'd suggest diffrent install requirements, and possibly a seperate panel set.   using some dual radio sectors KP performance sells to keep your rent down, or if you need monster bandwidth, a single 450m can get you 400 mbps on a single 20 mhz channel depending on your links, with reuse and guardband, you'd be down 45mhz and have 1600 meg of bandwidth to use and unlike wifi, the solid wireless mac makes this model not only reliable, but extremely fast with very little waste.         we've used PTMP to feed micropop without a hickup on cambiums gear, for us mostly epmp.        gps snyc will save your spectrum.

Do your POPs see each other?  A good approach would be to build a ring with two high capacity backhauls on your primary tower, one pointed to each end of the ring.  Then use 60Ghz gear pole-to-pole (or 24Ghz, or whatever makes sense).

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We go pop-to-pop using 5ghz and then shoot up to the tower using 23ghz.  The first picture is a "leaf" node (fed by a single 5ghz link).  The second picture is an "egress" node, which is fed by a 23ghz link and then feeds two directions with 5ghz ePTP.  Within in enclosure is a small POE switch.  The exessive downward pointing antennas are because we had to run our legacy muni-wifi network along side for migration purposes.

Those look great !  I assume you made the mounts for them yourself ?

What speeds are you (and anyone else that wants to chime in) providing to customers via the micropops ?

Thanks !

Yep, we designed the mounts and had a local fabricator build them. We offer 25 and 50 mbps service.

Can you use GPS synced AP version or not ?

In case you use GPS, what is your F/B configuration on AP's considering that guide:

https://support.cambiumnetworks.com/file/e13730816e90878b11b3da92892de5ed74ffd88a (ePMP Configuration in a Frequency Reuse Deployment)