Now that people are getting their hands on 3000 APs, anyone using it with antennas other than the Cambium sector? We have some areas that we have to use omnis. The only one I see that might work here is the Mimosa N5-360? We also use a ton of horns and I get that I loose MU-MIMO with a horn but I should still retain the benefits of AC… Most our mini-pops can’t fit the sector but we don’t want to keep buying 1000 APs.
@Au Wireless wrote:
The only one I see that might work here is the Mimosa N5-360?
I have an Mimosa Omni on the way to test with our ePMP3000 AP. We have a couple small subdivisions with about 15 homes only, so an Omni makes financial & physical sense there. I don't expect this will be an optimal solution by any means, but we will see how well it works out.
Cambium said only their sector works properly with beamforming.
Yes for sure. I don't expect the Omni to be a good solution for sure, and yes, I do understand that the 4x4 Sector was specifically designed and optimized for the MU-MIMO features, and that it's the only supported solution.
However, lots of people have curiosity on how well an Omni will work (thus this thread...) so I thought I'd order one and put it through it's paces. It might well be a paperweight... or it might only function decently in a 2x2 mode.. or it might work wonderfully... or a couple firmwares down the road it might work... but just letting the community know that I've ordered one and I'll have a look at how well it functions (or not).
I’m looking at doing the same test. Keep us informed on what you learn. I could care less about beam steering but want to take advantage of the AC and MU-MIMO capabilities with a mini-pop.
Cambium's working on adding support for 3rd party antennas, including horn antennas along with split sector support. Obviously MU-MIMO and BSA performance may not be optimal or even usable when using these alternate configurations.
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@ethoplex1 wrote:Cambium said only their sector works properly with beamforming.
I wonder if that's actually true. As far as I can tell from the spec sheet, there's nothing particularily special about their sector. It appears to just be a 2x vertical + 2x horizontal sector... unless it somehow makes use of the particular patterns in that sector, I don't see why any 4 port sector with similar specs wouldn't work. Of course I don't see any good reason to use anything other than the Cambium sector at this point anyway. I guess there could be some advantages to using two 2x2 sectors instead (especially if we get into horns), but I don't see any obvious advantages to any of the other 4 port sectors that are currently out there.
I'm planning on trying the Mimosa omni too... I don't expect them to work anywhere near as well as the sector, but I figure it's gotta work better than just using a 2x2 omni)
@Mathew Howard wrote:
@ethoplex1 wrote:Cambium said only their sector works properly with beamforming.
I'm planning on trying the Mimosa omni too... I don't expect them to work anywhere near as well as the sector, but I figure it's gotta work better than just using a 2x2 omni)
For what it's worth, I'm not expecting the Mimosa Omni to function as MU-MIMO at all, at least not with the first early firmware. I think that the Cambium Secret Sauce in the AP has to group the clients into ones which are and aren't MU-possible, and I think it needs to know where they are in the antenna's beam pattern. So, I'm guessing that firmware will have to be tuned to support each antenna, which is probably why Cambium said "only our sector supported at first". I think that mainly they don't want people to expect that they can order any 4x4 antenna and then report MU-MIMO sucks, when it's likely just an antenna that Cambium hasn't tuned their 'grouping algorithym' for at that point in time.
So, I've ordered a Mimosa Omni mostly for giggles, and we'll see what we results we get, but I won't be surprised or disappointed by a negative result. I've also ordered it just thinking that maybe 6 months down the road, Cambium might have a 3K firmware which they need testing with the Mimosa Omni, and having one on hand that day in the figure will be handy. :)
You might want to check these out.
I have used some of their coax cable and weatherproof boxes for a few projects. Seemed to be of pretty decent to good quality. I have not used any of their antennas.
@CWB wrote:You might want to check these out.
I have used some of their coax cable and weatherproof boxes for a few projects. Seemed to be of pretty decent to good quality. I have not used any of their antennas.
Those are interesting - they're 4 overlapping 90 degree sectors, rather than 4 overlapping 180 degree sectors, like the Mimosa... I'm thinking that's probably not going to work as well, but it would be interesting to see what it does. With that setup, you're basically only going to ever be getting a good signal on one chain (unless you happen to be right at the point where two of the sectors overlap), as opposed to the Mimosa, where you should always be seeing a reasonable good signal from two of the sectors (but not always the same two).
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My thoughts as well. BUT when I expressed my thoughts on certain antennas in the past it didn’t go well so I shared these antennas and left my thoughts out. Glad to see someone thinks the same.
I'm still trying to figure out how you can make 360 degrees with 4 overlapping 90 degree sectors...
Any testing yet? Our 3000AP says "early February" before I think we will see it and be able to test this but I have no choice but to use an omni at this location.
Well, 4 90 degree sectors will cover 360 degrees just fine (90*4=360... not exactly overlapping, but they obviously don't have a perfect 90 degree beam, so there is going to be overlap), the problem is, the only place you're going to get an equal signal on both polarities, is when you're right between two sectors... most of the time, you're effectively going to have a 1x1 system, and only get a signal (good) on one polarity. I guess that could theoretically be an okay thing with MU-MIMO, if it meant that you could be transmitting to 4 different clients at the same time, but I have no idea if the ePMP 3000 is capable of that.
The Mimosa omni is four overlapping 180 degree sectors, which means that you're covering all 360 degrees with both polarities, but any two of those sectors together are only covering 90 degrees.
Any update on the n5-360? I am interested to see how this will work with the ePMP 3000. My speculation is that it will work just fine. And with future firmware updates from cambium, I think it will just get better.
We are running it now (no MU-MIMO) with 2 SMs and are adding 17 more SMs to the AP over the next 2 weeks. So far, we are very pleased with the performance. Looking forward to 3rd party antenna support (and DFS).
@km4lkx wrote:Any update on the n5-360? I am interested to see how this will work with the ePMP 3000. My speculation is that it will work just fine. And with future firmware updates from cambium, I think it will just get better.
Hi. I have one of these in the shop, and we have not deployed one in the wild yet. However, I don't expect that this particular OMNI will work very well.
I would like to be surprised and proven wrong, but Mimoso describes it as having 4 connectors, with each connected attached to a single pol 90 degree element. So, going around the dial, there would be an 90 degree H, then a 90 degree V, then a 90 degree H, and then a 90 degree V. So... it would seem that there would be very few places where you have a well matched H & V dual pol to any clients.
Of course, no antenna falls of exactly at the edges of the beam... so there would certainly be some overlap of each element. BUT, if you have a client in the exact center of the 1st 90 H, then the two adjacent 90 V's would be pointed 90 degrees to the side of the client, and would likely be 6 db or more attenuated.
Of course, Cambium folks have very large brains, and do some very clever things - but it feels like a more effective design for a 4x4 Omni might be more like 2 back-to-back 180 degree dual pol sectors, rather than 4 single pol 90 degree sectors like the Mimosa Omni says it is.
The Mimosa -is- (4) 180 degree overlapping sectors. The Altelix is (4) 90 degree overlapping sectors.
As long as 1 SM can see all 4 sectors (Mimosa N5-360) it -should- be able to take advantage of beamforming with up to 3db of extra gain. The two vertical chains and two horizontal chains will shift phase to add in a constructive way, appearing as one combined vertical signal and one combined horizontal signal at the SM.
If 2 SM's can see all 4 sectors and have enough angular difference, they -should- be able to trigger MU-MIMO. Kind of works in the opposite way of above. The vertical and horizontal chains shift phase to make a peak at the SM it is talking to and a null at the one is not...and vice versa.
This all depends on how the 3k AP sounding technique works with these antennas. Even if Cambium developes the software to work with these types of antennas, the chances of 3db gain to a single unit or MU-MIMO to 2 units is not as high as one 90/60/45 degree sector with internal integrated overlapping sectors (such as the Cambium 3k sector).
@CWB wrote:
The Mimosa -is- (4) 180 degree overlapping sectors. The Altelix is (4) 90 degree overlapping sectors.
OH, sorry - I must have gotten the data sheets mixed up. That's good to know, that changes things a bit. :)
Mimosa's first omni used 4 90 degree sectors (it had an integrated radio, so it's not really relevant to the ePMP 3k anyway)... you may have been looking at the specs for that, but yeah the N5-360 uses 4 overlapping 180's, so you should always be seeing at least two sectors (and three fairly often).
I just put up an ePMP 3000 on an N5-360, but so far I've only connected one SM to it, so I have no idea if MU-MIMO is going to work at all. I plan on switching on connecting several more to at in various directions over the next couple of weeks to see what it does.
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