You are probably correct. We though about the dish extensions as well. Since they make a CSM for the F400 5 Ghz, one would think a lot of that development work could be reutilized for a 2 Ghz version, but I’m no engineer. In the end though I’m thankful Cambium is doing the 2.4 AX at all. If the 2.4 AX has the same penetration characteristics the the 5 ghz AX, it may work well with the F200 style dish. Just waiting to get my hands on some. Our deployment area will give them a good test and I’ll be able to directly compare to the older ePMP 1000 and PMP450 2.4, as well as 900 Mhz.
I would love to be able to replace at least a portion of our 900’s with AX.
Yeah, I’d also much rather like to be able to choose a whole larger replacement dish option, rather than the janky extender wings.
Those janky wings are:
- janky
- sillyly expensive
- expensive to ship
- and janky
For what it’s worth, I like the design concept that Mimosa had - one radio SKU to stock, and then buy whatever reflector size matches the need. That feels like an efficient way to do things (me also not being an antenna engineer either).
But, either way, I’m excited that they’re doing 2.4 AX. Hopefully there’s no fatal flaws or ‘shoot themselves in the foot’ kind of surprises. I’m excited. 
Yes! I’m hoping to be able to replace all of our 1000 series 2.4, as well as (ideally) replace most of our antique 900 megahertz gear. 
I have to agree! I choked a bit when I saw the pricing for those extenders… A CSM for the 4500 series would be much appreciated so I can pair them with an RF Elements Starter Dish, Netpoint, or one of the other many RP-SMA 5GHz dishes out there without shelling out for another full 4500L.
My intention was more “If you can glue bits to the edge of the 425 dish to add gain, and the 4200 horn can be bought separately… Why not sell a larger one-piece solid dish package?”. But of course, just having one larger dish doesn’t solve the problem of antenna flexibility, especially if we find panels work better or if you want a grid antenna for less wind loading on a lighter duty mount. I expect the current CPE design will still be a significant upgrade despite losing a couple dbm in an upgrade from a larger connectorized antenna, but better antennas will allow us to get the most out of the faster modulation levels and narrower beams could help mitigate some noise issues.
I’m really excited about this product, and will be very anxious to get get my hands on one. I think it would make a great complimentary option to deliver 100Mbps service where a 5GHz 450m AP just can’t perform because of LOS issues. Curious to see a 450Mv in 6GHz, but that’s for 2025 I guess.
The limitation of only 20 or 40 MHz channels is a bit of a disappointment, if we could do 30MHz channels, that would be the absolute best, but I understand why it can’t. Still a bit of a shame. Due to only having 72MHz of 2.4 spectrum in Canada, I can’t do an A-B-A-B configuration using 40MHz channels and 4x 90 degree sectors. However, when using a 20MHz channel, there’s little doubt it will outperform a 2.4GHz PMP450 AP, so there will be a benefit.
Promising stuff. Looking forward to getting some.
We’re seeing e4k radios on 5GHz that are beating high powered PMP450 3GHz radios on the same NLOS paths in terms of stability and throughput… so one can be very hopeful that an e4k 2.4GHz radio will perform even better at nNLOS.
We have a portion of our networks with more than 500 clients Ligowave DLB in 2.4Ghz 802.11n in a suburban zone with a lot of trees ready for change to Cambium AX in 2.4Ghz!
Can’t get here fast enough. It will be a game changer for us!
Us too. We would get 300-500 of them too, if there’s an AX 2.4 SM which is available and works well at a SM price similar to what we’re spending on Force 300’s currently. As long as their aren’t any wild bad surprises, this will be a total game changer for us. Hopefully also available in feedhorn only 10 packs as well which fit Force-200 dish/mount - if that’s possible that’d be a game changer too.
VERY MUCH LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS!
there was talk from Cambium regarding a feedhorn only option for the 2.4AX radios designed to use the F200 dish.
I am looking forward for this product as well, I have a fair amount of 2.4N radios still in use because there is no real option for these sites. The 4500 and soon 4600 options are coming but we are hamstrung by firmware that isnt quite ready enough for our use, I can live with low SM density for a while but fully working GPS timing is a must!
Wish we had more of a timeline to plan towards though!
I agree, a timeline would be nice. We are planning around something available by mid year, i.e. July. We have a lot of 2.4N and 900 still out there because as you noted, no other option. Been following the development of the 4500/4600 closely as it should translate to the 2.4 on its initial release. We’ve been stashing away old F200s based on the assumption of a feed horn SM. Glad that idea was proposed but would love to see a cost effective connectorized radio, but not holding my breath on that one.
No assumption onbthe f200 feed horn compatibility, the f4525 and 4625 are also sold feed horn only.
Very bad need of a timeline indeed. We have ~70 2.4 ePMP 1000 APs deployed with hardly any spares left. We are entering the stormy season as well and are extremely concerned about being able to maintain our towers. Its almost too late at this point, we’re already looking into alternative vendors unfortunately.
Unfortunately e4k 2.4GHz has been put on the back burner for now with no updates as to when development will resume. Best guess we might see some activity on this project later this year… after the bulk of firmware optimization is done on e4k 5/6GHz and those products are shipping in healthy quantities.
Unfortunate news indeed but I appreciate the quick response. Would it be inappropriate to ask what other folks using 2.4 ePMP have transitioned to? We’re in a huge mess now.
Oh no 
We were looking forward to this product family
Oh no. We were really expecting to do a big (well big for us) upgrade of about 300 AX SMs in 2.4 and their APs this year. We will have to transition to something else now - I can’t see the customers waiting with an unknown future. Oh man.
Definitely horrible news. Beginning to wonder if we will see it at all. We were gearing for an initial July/August deployment and will now have to punt.
Like you we are extremely short on ePMP 2.4 connectorized, which we use with high gain dishes. We are down to less than a hand full. We looked at the Ubiquiti 2.4 “AC” and was not impressed. As a stop gap measure We have used PMP450 2.4, also EOL but still used gear available out there. We have to have gathered together some UL SMs and had them connectorized to work with the high gain dishes. Performance has been decent, especially in low noise rural areas. At 256 QAM 8X you can hit 70+ meg to an SM, limited by the processor as there was never a 450i for the 2.4 released. They also have decent modulation at lower signal levels than the ePMP, offer 15 and 30 Mhz channels with 256 QAM, which the ePMP never did. I high noise areas I can say they perform somewhat better than the ePMP if you use the 60 degree sector. Like the ePMP they are solid just old. We had put deploying any more on hold in anticipation of the 4K 2.4, but looks like we will have to dust them off. Also looks like our old 900 will be around for a bit longer as well. Hate investing time and money on old technology, but it is what it is. If anyone has some old 2.4 ePMP connectorized radios laying around, we would definitely be interested in them. P.S. Thanks for the update Eric and selling me your old PMP450 2.4!
@Fedor @Sakid_Ahmed @RayS
Guys, I know this is is not really a hot concern for Cambium, but we are just the vocal few of a group much, much larger. There hasnt been an updated hardware for 2.4ghz but we are on a fourth revision of 5ghz and adding 6ghz. All the other PtMP vendors have abandoned 2.4ghz because the technology was no able to deal with the wifi interference, but this is not true for AX.
I know I am missing something here, but the radio case molds are already in existence (f200AR2-25) and the radios themselves should not be much different from the 5/6ghz varients. Software side it can be a bit convoluted as it is not as simple as adding in a new hardware tage and frequency list. So what is the honest hold up?