I’m opening a new market and plan on 4 sectors of ePMP on this first tower.
I expect about 30 SM’s per sector, max. What is the realistic SM limit for 3000L? I’ve seen a hard limit on 2000L but haven’t seen a published limit for 3000L.
Second, considering performance and reliability, would this group recommend 2000 or 3000L?
I intend to use 40 MHz channels in ABAB so GPS is important.
3000L has limit 64 users
3000 has limit 128 users
@PFR thanks for that info. That means 3000L will work for the needed capacity.
I’m leaning towards the 3000L since the latest releases seem to now be somewhat stable.
the 3000L has a hard limit of 64 but a soft limit is based on channel size, bandwidth use, frame ratio and frame size. We had a 3000L with 20 connections using 20MHz channel and 2.5ms frame size on a 50:50 that would struggle to keep frame utilization down and would be using 100%cpu. Switched to a 5ms frame size and it was happy again. This replaced a 1000 that was unable to talk to F300 SMs (we think it was a firmware issue at the time)
You have said that GPS is important, consider that the 3000L only has internal GPS sync then having a backup GPS system should be considered. The 3000’s have the ability to sync over the ethernet cable, the 3000L’s do not.
Further, what kind of bandwidth and SLA plans are you going for? the 3000L can only serve one SM at a time, but the 3000 can serve two concurrently.
There is also the idea of using two 90deg sector antennas fed off one 3000AP (depending on your channel plan, back to back). This will be the same cost as having 4 3000L’s but have the savings of not having a small sector limit and the benefit of only having to sync two radios. If you need to add more radios to the tower then you simply split the sectors then.
@Douglas_Generous - Thanks for the comments. Using 2 3000 units is an interesting idea.
I have run 3000 with the Mu-Mimo antennas and I notice the second antenna set is only used with high loads. If I connect 2 antennas, back to back then both will be used simultaniously? I guess the box sees that customers are only seen by one of the antennas?
That is interesting for a few reasons. I won’t have to keep 3000L spares for one. Plus the GPS should be better. I guess I just need 2 3-4 feet coax leads and the second antenna is done…
The mu-mimo antennas are actually two sectors in one, what your looking at is chain use which only two chains at once until loaded is normal but all four radio ports are used at the same time.
You would be better to place your radio on the tower and run four longer cables all the same length to keep the cable resistance as close to the same across all ports.
You would loose smart antenna functionality but gain cost effective sectoring.
You could also get a mu-mimo omni and use a single radio, but that depends on clutter and distances that you need to reach.
Dont spend money on four port antennas unless your going to dedicate a radio to it.
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