8 ePMP2000 sectors with Beamforming on one tower

Hello,

We are going to be turning up 8 ePMP2000 sectors on a single tower location, and we are curious if anyone has tried this type of configuration before. If so any suggestions of things that worked or did not work? Also, best practice for selecting Front and Back frequency reuse in this type of configuration. Below is our plan.

All Access points are on 90 degree sectors, and all have the beamforming antenna. 2 radios face the same exact direction and all pairs of radios point 90 degrees off eachother. We are planning on doing an ABCD channel scheme. Example:

    A                                 D
B      B                        C     C
    A                                 D 

Where A and D sectors are phycially facing the same direction, and B and C face the same direction.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions. Please let us know if we are missing any important details.

KP sells dual 5ghz sectors just for your setup, remember to maintain 5mhz guard bands and the more physical space you can place between your APs the better. Enjoy all that capcity :wink:

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First question - are you sure you have those four channels available in every direction from that tower?  

I ask because on our network I pretty much gave up pre-planning frequencies until we have gear installed on the tower so I can perform spectrum analysis on all the APs.  Usually once I've done that I end up discovering that my plans are out the window.

We have a couple towers with 5-6 sectors, none with two full rings yet.  We usually start with a single ring of APs on 3-4 seperate channels, then when we start seeing excess client load (number of clients, sector utilization) we add an overlay sector, re-using frequencies 180 degrees off whenever possible.  (this process is certainly easier for us than some, given that we own most of our towers, built them, and have multiple climbers on payroll)

Second question - are you planning 20MHz or 40MHz wide channels?

Third question - do you know in advance that two full rings of APs will be needed, or are you just planning large based on logistics or expected need further down the line?

As far as Front vs Back, if you only have the two APs on that channel (IE, no other on a nearby tower aiming this way, etc) then it doesn't matter which is front and which is back, so long as they differ.

j

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Hello Maryanne,

I would recommend you to look at the KB articles regarding GPS Sync and Frequency Re-use.

http://community.cambiumnetworks.com/t5/ePMP-Synchronization/ePMP-GPS-Synchronization/m-p/37884#M1

http://community.cambiumnetworks.com/t5/ePMP-Synchronization/Mitigating-self-interference-in-an-ePMP-ABAB-frequency-reuse/m-p/38203#M2

Since you are planning to have overlapping sectors, we recommend a minimum frequency gap of 2 or 3 channel widths  edge-to-edge for the operating frequencies of the overlapping sectors, in addition to the 5MHz frequency gap edge-to-edge for adjacent sectors.

Regards

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