Hi all, has anyone deployed a 450v in the field? Interested to see what you’ve had for results. The dual sector function is very intriguing. Thanks!
As of BETA3, still not equivalent to dual 450i. No 5.2 or 5.4 (DFS), no 5850-5895, no 6 GHz. No channel widths >40 MHz. If you have 40 MHz clear in both 5.1 and 5.8 you could maybe try dual sector.
I’d like to try a single sector performance comparison to an existing 450i but I probably need STA to do that.
We mounted one at a site today that has 4 x 450i. Ran an SA, you can see there’s lots of 6 GHz available, but we can’t use it yet. Not sure if it’s waiting for the radio to be FCC approved, or for firmware to be finished. Tarana announced their radios got FCC approval 2 months ago so it’s a bit frustrating. Honestly though I think most of the Tarana radios are going to be bought with BEAD money.
Thank you for posting, very interested in how it performs when you are able. Does the 450v and its SMs have gps built in or are pucks needed?
Current 450v performance is essentially the same as a 450i but with 2 carriers up to 40MHz each. Eventually, it will support larger channel widths and 2x more carriers (4 total). The 450v AP and SM have GPS pucks. In the USA/FCC region, 450v is still pending 6GHz AFC certification, which should be complete soon.
Oh I see, well hopefully it can perform as we have definitely hit the brakes on investing in cambium products in regards to 4500, 4600 and cnwave, a lot of disappointed operators commenting on all three products and so many delays on a lot of fronts makes one wonder about cambiums future, especially with the poor reports and drop in stock… but to be fair that is a lot of companies right now.
I think the 450v is being positioned mostly for current 450 operators looking to extend the life of and protect their investment in 450, by being able to deliver faster service tiers to those key clients that demand it. The 450v SM will also support PtP mode, allowing for some extremely high throughput with very agile channel configuration options.
On the e4k 5GHz side of things, they’re making steady progress with the firmware and many operators are deploying it today. We’re using it at multiple sites with 4500 AP’s reaching client counts as high as 40+ SM’s. If you can deal with some of these growing pains and can work with Cambium support on bringing issues to their attention along with frequent firmware updates, you can deploy it in such a way that you’ll have fewer issues, while still being able to make $$$ with it today. Will it work for every deployment demand today? No. Will it work for specific deployment scenarios today? Yes. I think by the end of the year it will be a stellar product and at that point we’ll see widespread adoption.
As to e4k 6GHz, much of the hold up (literally years) has been on the FCC’s side. There were a lot of unknowns as to exactly what would be required when the dust settled and so this made development for these products more difficult. Thankfully, the e4k 6GHz AP is 6GHz/AFC certified now and the SM is close behind it.
I have no comment on cnWave because we’ve never deployed it.
@Eric_Ozrelic I appreciate your insight and input.
In regards to the 450v, does it have compatibility with the entire 450 line up? Is there a 3GHz 450v in the line up that is compatible with 450b SM?
If/when they release backward compatibility with force 300 we would definitely hang one or two and give it a go!
I thought only the SM required the external GPS antenna and it was built into the AP.
Yes, it’s forwards and backwards compatible with all PMP450 radios currently within the supported bands, which, ATM, is only 5GHz. Typically the PMP450 team will work on the 5GHz line first and then later on announce upcoming new 3GHz radios. I have not seen any announcements of new 3GHz radios yet.
You’re in luck! AC backwards compatibility is coming very soon in the 5.7 firmware release train. It’s in private beta right now, I’m using it and it’s working very well. There should be a public beta available by hopefully the end of the month… OR you can reach out to @Fedor to see if he can share the private beta with you.
I’m a bit fuzzy on this… I’m being told by my field manager that deployed these that both the 450v AP and SM have RF GPS pucks connected to them. Reading the 450v AP spec sheet doesn’t provide any clarification. Looking through the 450v webinar slides it just shows that the new SM’s need a GPS puck. I can’t find anything mentioning GPS on the 450v AP.
Maybe @CambiumMatt or @Rajesh_V can provide some clarification.
For the 4x4 450v Access Point, the GPS antenna is built into the sector antenna. There is no external antenna or GPS receiver. This is a picture of the top of that sector antenna.
Thanks for the clarification, Matt. Nice picture, reminiscent of some long-ago FSK Cyclone APs with onboard GPS.
If the GPS wasn’t built in, then the 4x4 AP we just put up is tracking the sats by magic.
So I’ve got the 450v AP at the same height as a 450i facing the same direction. I don’t want to just switch all the SMs without some preliminary tests, so I’m very limited what frequencies I can use. 5160x20 is available, so I tried one 450b SM that is usually idle. Results make me cautious.
Main thing that worried me is 12 dB V-H ratio, which doesn’t occur with the 450i. One difference is 5160 MHz on the 450v and 5880 on the 450i. So maybe the sector antenna acts a little weird at the low end of the band. The other possibility is this sub is only 0.25 miles away with about 7 degrees of uptilt. Neither AP has any mechanical downtilt, just the 2 degree electrical downtilt and the null fill. But maybe V-H is a little out of whack in the null fill region.
I will have to try an experiment with an SM that is a couple miles away.