ePMP 4500 Wi-Fi Mode?

Products ePMP
1

Will ePMP 4k support WiFi mode like the early models did?

I’d really like to transition some Mimosa networks to ePMP, and running in WiFi mode would make that transition much easier since I could switch all the Mimosa hardware to run in WiFi mode until we are able to swap all the SMs.

I kept finding excuses not to do this with ePMP 3k because I could never quite justify the significant effort to change over a whole AP all at once (As ePMP 3k no longer had WiFi mode like earlier versions). I’m hoping for Wi-Fi mode to help ease this transition.

Thank you, Chris

1 Like
2

Anyway, the fate of this is probably already decided and nowhere in the presentations or trainings was there any mention of the wifi mode on this family of APs.

4

The refrain was always something about how Wi-Fi mode just didn’t perform well. Despite my general complaints about Mimosa, I argue that Mimosa got Wi-Fi mode to work well for small scale / microPoP situations. I would further argue that I would have transitioned my Mimosa networks to Cambium ePMP 3000 a while ago if Cambium implemented Wi-Fi mode.

1 Like
5

WLR mode is a heavily modified version of WiFi that is proprietary, so you’re not going to be able to use 3rd party radios with it.

4 Likes
6

I’ve been told that it will take significant development resources to implement a standard WiFi mode on the new AX platform. It would further delay important features like e1k/e3k backwards compatibility and the possibility of development of a 2.4GHz AX radio.

From a business case standpoint, I believe you’re the only operator that I’ve seen so far that has come forward saying you want to transition from Mimosa to Cambium. I’m not seeing a lot of Mimosa operators wanting to jump ship in this forum or on FaceBook. I think if there were a lot more Mimosa operators publically requesting a conversion path, then there would be a greater possibility of a WiFi mode being added. As it stands, there’s just not enough potential market to justify the dev time.

2 Likes
7

7 posts were split to a new topic: Any chance of new 2.4GHz ePMP?

8

Well, to some degree, Cambium sets themselves up for self-fulfilling prophesies too. I would be interested in a Wifi mode to help transition non-Cambium clients, but I’ve stopped asking because I thought Cambium was hard/closed to the idea. I mean… I don’t really know how much of a market that is or isn’t (so Cambium might be correct), but I’m just saying that people might not be asking because they think 1) the ship has sailed or 2) that Cambium doesn’t read/care about feature requests.

Hard to say… maybe it’s just 2 WISPs that would use the feature, maybe it’s 200 WISPs?

10

This idea makes me wonder how many WISPs were requesting a custom firmware to convert their UBNT and MikroTik gear to operate with proprietary ePMP communication mechanisms before Cambium considered it.

1 Like
11

I understand. I am small and may not be representative.

I always picture the Wi-Fi mode being a by-the-book sort of implementation with these chipsets. I know it is less straight-forward, but I expect it is much easier to implement Wi-Fi mode than legacy ePMP mode. In fact, ePMP 1000 units with Wi-Fi mode would be able to work with ePMP 4500 right now if it had Wi-Fi mode.

13

Why you can not just mount E3K on the same pole with your old AP and simple swap SM one by one in own tempo?

1 Like
16

It is just space and time. This is reasonable in many circumstances where access and spectrum are reasonable (Although any time a Mimosa problem arises they ask if you have any other radios within 10’). I’m sure we could find a way to coordinate it, but all of our microPoPs are homes, and most of them were concerned about visual footprint. It is easier to just keep using Mimosa for now.

22

Hi!

Standard Wi-Fi mode is available for configuration via SNMP and CLI.

wirelessInterfaceProtocolMode  OBJECT-TYPE
		SYNTAX	   Integer32 (1..5)
		MAX-ACCESS read-write
		STATUS	   current
		DESCRIPTION
	   "Protocol Module Mode:
		   1 - TDD
		   2 - AP/SM WiFi
		   3 - PTP.LL
		   4 - TDD PTP
		   5 - WLR
	   Device Allocation: AP/SM"
   DEFVAL  { 1 }
		::= { wirelessInterface 51 }

We would appreciate if you could try and provide your feedback.
We are reviewing the option to open it on UI in the further FW versions.

Thank you.

6 Likes
23

That is excellent! I will try it as soon as the 4500 is generally available.

I’d be interested to know the results from others who already have it.

24

But be aware of distance limitations! 30 km we do because PTP and TDD features. We estimate less for Wi-Fi Longe Range. And it has patches for distance extension compared to blank Wi-Fi.

25

Just curious how this worked out? I have several Mimosa deployments of the A6/C6x variety and have absolutely lost my patience with them. Heck the latest beta released from Mimosa is not even usable. The C6x clients associate and then disassociate every couple minutes regardless of distance/signal levels/SNR. Going on 9 months and still dont have a stable/GA firmware and Betas are taking around 6-8 weeks to come out. Anyway, customers are pissed off and we have to pull it down. Being able to hang the Cambium 4500 and get everyone connected so that i can transition everyone over in the coming days would make the transition much better.

We need to replace 7 of the A6 and a little over 110 of the C6x.

2 Likes