Dear All,
We are a WISP and we use Ubiquiti hardware.
Unfortunately ubiquiti has not provided us the needed performance.
So we are planning to move to Cambium.
Basically we want to start using PMP450m and buy some CPE to start testing
Can you advice us on this?
Regards
Hey there Delsio! Welcome to the forums!
The PMP450m is Cambium's flagship PtMP product and would provide an excellent path forward for a super high capacity deployment of 100 or more SM's on a single AP. That being said, it's also Cambium's most expensive AP, and it's not available on the market just yet (distro's are taking pre-orders however). While you could save a bit of money by purchasing the 'lite' model of the PMP450m that has the MU-MIMO features disabled (you can buy a license to enable it later as you need more performance), you might want to start off with the PMP450i AP w/integrated 90deg sector antenna to start off with and then as the sector utilization and the number of subscribers is reaching close to capacity, you can swap it out for a 450m (which also has an integrated 90deg sector). Also note, in order for your to get the full benefit of PMP450m's massive MU-MIMO feature, you'll want clients that are spread out across the sector azimuth, and not clustered in a single area within the 90deg beamwidth.
What sort of plans are you looking to offer, and what's your equipment budget look like?
Dear,
Thank you for your reply
We offer plans from 2-12 Mbps Shared and Dedicated
We currently use UBNT Nanobeam AC 16/19
We have right now 560 CPE running and about 38 45degreed Sectors running UBNT AirPrism AC
Since the 450m is not available we will wait while we start planning migration.
This will allow us to clarify some aspects such as:
1 - Can we reuse the 45Degrees Sectors antennas with Cambium 450i?
2 - Can we use the Nanobeam CPE with Cambium 450i/450m?
3 - We used to purchase UBNT hardware online and ship to our country. I cannot find any website selling Cambium.
Regards
1 - Can we reuse the 45Degrees Sectors antennas with Cambium 450i?
A - In theory as long as they have a N type connector or you have a jumper that goes from whatever it's connector is to N.
2 - Can we use the Nanobeam CPE with Cambium 450i/450m?
A- Short answer- No. The 450 products are not WiFi and will not work with WiFi.
3 - We used to purchase UBNT hardware online and ship to our country. I cannot find any website selling Cambium.
A- if you are looking to buy products in bulk for the best prices you would look for a distributor and work with them for good pricing. From Cambium's website: http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/where-to-buy/
I hope this helps
Dear All
Thank you for all your replies.
I have another questions:
1 - Under nLOS / NLOS can the 450m/450i work?
2 - What is the cheapest CPE to start with?
3 - What Radius server do you recommend?
Regards
To go back a bit... what country are you in? I can help connect you to a partner or regional sales manager to both talk with you and assess your needs, as well as connect you with local sales.
To answer your latest questions,
1) 5 GHz systems are generally speaking best for LOS. Due to limitations of RF propagation (i.e. physics), nLOS or NLOS scenarios do not perform as well, especially in this band. Cambium Networks offers many "tools" to get the job done, some of which are better suited for NLOS situations. We recently introduced the 450i in 900 MHz, which may be available in your area to make NLOS connections.
2) We have units in the 5 GHz band for as low as $249 MSRP. You'll need to talk to your reseller to get your price on them.
3) For RADIUS, we have customers that use many different servers. FreeRADIUS is a very popular version, but others can certainly chime in with their opinions.
Also, just to second the comments that Eric made above, the PMP 450m is certainly the most innovative and highest capacity product we've ever done. It is truly amazing.
However, if you're just starting out, I would recommend starting with the PMP 450i AP as the sector device. The true benefits of the 450m come from its capability to communicate with multiple subscribers simultaneously. This will only occur when there is a reasonable density of subscribers on the sector. As your sector fills in and usage becomes higher, the benefits grow.
The value of going with the 450 platform is that there are many options available, and all 450-platform devices are interoperable. That is, you can leverage your investment in the platform by continuing to use the SMs that you deploy today with the 450m, when you decide that you need it in a given sector (i.e. No SM truck rolls).
I thought the 450m was only able to connect 7-8 subs at a time? Is this not correct? Are the SMs standard 450 radios or will there be a 450m SM that is different which will need to be migrated to?
@gbtel wrote:I thought the 450m was only able to connect 7-8 subs at a time? Is this not correct? Are the SMs standard 450 radios or will there be a 450m SM that is different which will need to be migrated to?
The 450m w/Massive MU-MIMO enabled can connect up to 7 SM's simultaneously given even spatial diversity between them. Yes, the SM's are standard 450 radios. All the PMP450X products are designed to be compatible with one another.
I think it might already be clear, but to reinforce the point...
With the 450 platform, each sector can still connect up to 238 Subscriber Modules. With 450 and 450i Access Points, it's a TDD system in which each SM communicates in turn during the frame.
With 450m (and using the very same SMs), the cnMedusa technology adds the capability of Multi-User MIMO, which enables simultaneous communication of up to 7 SMs during each time slot of the frame. In a typically dense sector (where there are >30 SMs and they are spread across the 90 degree sector, with adequate distribution of data transfer requirements) we'd expect to see about 3 to 4 times improvement in overall capacity vs. that of the 450 or 450i AP.
Obviously, due to the nature of the technology, this is not an easy thing to predict. However, our LINKPlanner tool is probably the best tool to use for this. By inputting all of the SM locations within the sector, you can model the expected capacity in the current (or proposed) sector, then swap to a 450m using MU-MIMO, and see what the new capacity is predicted to be. I would highly encourage everyone to model this, in order to set the proper expectations before purchasing this product.
Dear
Thank you for the reply
When you mean the SM you refer to the ubiquiti CPE I have already deployed?
Are they compatible with the Cambium AP?
Regards
@Delsio Caba wrote:
When you mean the SM you refer to the ubiquiti CPE I have already deployed?
Are they compatible with the Cambium AP?
SM or 'subscriber module' is Cambium's name for a client radio. CPE or 'customer premise equipment' is another common name used by manufacturers to refer to a client radio or device. The use of these names does not denote compatibity, only the general roll of the device.
Cambium's PMP450 radios are NOT compatible with ANY Ubiquiti radios. Cambium's ePMP radios, when configured for WiFi mode, can be compatible with certain Ubqiuti radios, and with other manufacturers radios when also configured for WiFi mode.
SM = Subscriber Module
CPE = Customer Premise Equipment
Eric - I was going to just edit your post, but didn't feel right about it...
@CambiumMatt wrote:
Eric - I was going to just edit your post, but didn't feel right about it...
Thanks for the correction Matt... feel free to edit in the future.