Hi all, with no news on anyone acquiring the ePMP lineup what is everyone looking to? For us there is no replacement for e3k and e4k out there that can come close to the performance that we are getting out of the ePMP lineup. We were exclusively ePMP with an exception of some Ubiquiti AC PtP and PtMP, but switching everything to Ubiquiti is taking a step backwards and a huge financial burden upon us. I know we won’t be alone in this situation.
Cyber Antennas is working on an affordable Wi-Fi 7 PtMP platform that will include dual-band radios, TDD, TDMA, and GPS synchronization along with the tools you need to build robust and high performance WISP networks.
Wi-Fi 7 includes 4K-QAM for faster speeds, 320 MHz channel widths for massive capacity, OFDMA for better airtime allocation, channel puncturing for improved interference resistance, and enhanced target wake time for increased power efficiency.
On launch Cyber Antennas doesn’t expect it to support MU-MIMO or MLO, but will be working on adding those features. And, of course, it will include high performance antennas and low-loss diplexers. Development time frames are difficult, but we expect to have more info in the coming months.
There aren’t any good alternatives.
We have enough stock on hand that it won’t be an immediate problem for us. Worst case, we’ll have to re-deploy a lot of Force 200 SMs that would have eventually been junked otherwise. Hopefully by the time it does become a problem there will be some better options (but I’m really not too hopefully about that if ePMP dies).
If I had to do a new 5Ghz PtMP deployment now, I would probably use Ubiquiti LTU. 6Ghz is a bigger concern for me right now, and there is no real alternative for that. I’m taking another look at Mimosa, but I don’t much like what I see there. Luckily, I have time to wait and see what happens with ePMP before I need to do anything.
Interesting, thank you.
I feel the same, cant make any major decisions until we know whats happening to this line up.
Different weapons for different enemies. Consider the Ubiquiti Wave AP Gen2 for clients within 7km or less that require gigabit. For long distance links (20km+), you’re probably best sticking with AirMax 5AC. For high capacity in towns with widely varied usage/SM patterns, try the MikroTik NetMetal 5AX. Mimosa A6/B6x could handle very close distance NLoS unlicensed gigabit also with a good range of CPE options. For some clients who want around 100-400 but don’t want to pay anything for CPE’s, we use LTU.
We’ve been playing a little bit with reverting our 5GHz stuff to pure 802.11. Almost the whole AirMax line can be flashed with OpenWRT, which would introduce forward and backward compatibility with AirMax AC and M, MikroTik, Mimosa, and even some Cambium ePMP! I haven’t had the guts to switch one of our long-distance production AP’s, but man would I love to see how some of this stuff would do, like a LiteBeam 5AC XR connected to a NetMetal 5AX AP for example.
In my experience with bankrupted companies, including the Cambium’s ancestors, it’s highly unlikely that you will need to find a replacement for the ePMP line any time soon. I can’t imagine any circumstance where they would stop making a profitable high-demand product when they’re trying to repay their debt. A bigger risk is new management coming along and turning it into another Ubiquiti and Apple-ifying everything.
You are correct. We do not dee any “good” alternatives. Mimosa B5/B6 would be a distant 2nd choice at best. Ubquiti has nothing that can even touch Cambiums 4XXX gear. Ubquitis MLO is going nowhere. Ubquiti is no longer doing anything with LTU that I can see and its just lingering. We are increasing our stock on Cambium now and like you rolling the dice hoping that the ePMP product will survive either still under Cambium or another entity, preferably Cambium
Interesting nobody is saying I’m gonna switch to Airspan 450i/m/v/b. Or pony up the big bucks and switch to Tarana. I thought Tarana was the magic platform that could slay all dragons?
I actually thought Airspan would take over ePMP, if only to migrate the customers and gracefully phase it out, if they didn’t see the value in continuing to develop it. Plus if ePMP finds a buyer, or Cambium emerges from bankruptcy with funding from some VC or PE investor and slimmed down, maybe Airspan will regret leaving a competitor alive. Wait, we could have bought them for how little?
We actually are already using Tarana and 450/m/b (CBRS only) in various areas, but Tarana simply isn’t an option on most of our network, because there aren’t enough customers to ever pay for it. 450 is a little more manageable, but it has the same problem. I can put 3 customers on an ePMP AP and be profitable, the math just doesn’t work with multi-thousand dollar APs.
I think Airspan probably sees ePMP as being an almost completely different market, and one they don’t have any interest in getting back into after Mimosa.
In my opinion, the only good thing Ubiquiti and MikroTik have released so far was the equipment from those manufacturers that could be “elevated.”
I wouldn’t dream of going back to either of those platforms—I’d rather change jobs. There’s a saying in my area: “He who has been bitten by a snake is afraid even of a lizard.”
Are all the subs within 2 miles? Can you use 5 GHz not 3? Then the 450 omni micropop could be an affordable AP. Once you buy the unlock key however it becomes expensive.
I disagreed with Cambium’s decision to limit it to 20 subs and 2 miles. I would have made it 10 subs and no distance limit. Nonetheless I have several of them.
In some cases, that could be an option, but not everywhere.
Every alternative to ePMP has one disadvantage or another.
Pretty much every platform other than ePMP and Tarana seems to be kind of stagnating at this point.
I know this isn’t the time or place, but just have to say that decisions like this are the kind of business decisions that also hurt Cambium long term. One “Lite” AP is 8 SMs, another is 10, or 12, or 20 - or Lite can be rate limited, or distance limited. I know I’m in the minority, but to me, it’s felt like a minefield of gotchas over the years. 
And also must must say, I’m 100% hoping for a good outcome for ePMP and for the remaining Cambium staff. 
We are a 100% Cambium wireless shop, so my business (and house and life and family) is teetering on a good future outcome for ePMP. I’m 63 with a back injury, my whole life is poured into the decision to be a Cambium shop - so I don’t know what else I could do to recover at this point.
Their 60GHz gear is pretty spectacular, but even there they missed a billion dollar opportunity by not making a standalone 5GHz radio.
You’re not in the minority, everyone hated the keys. I’m sure the product managers and sales people got an earful about it.
The worst had to be the 450 SM sustained speed keys, hated so much they finally got rid of them on the 450b. Probably a holdover from the Canopy “Advantage” concept. Also hated were the PTP820/850 keys where every time you had to get a price exception from your RSM which could cut the cost of the keys in half. Lord help you if you had to buy a single radio and pay full price.
I realize their thinking was to help the small WISP just getting started or the one in a rural area, by the time you needed to upgrade from Lite to Full, you had enough revenue from that tower to afford the cost of the unlock key. Also I used to work for companies like Tellabs that sell telecom equipment and we always aimed for 50% gross margin, otherwise you couldn’t cover your R&D and G&A costs. It’s different if you sell consumer widgets by the millions.
Also in pricing strategy I assume they have to decide if they’re selling razors or blades. Cameras or film. This must get tricky on a product like the 450v 4x4 SM which is basically the same HW as an AP.
One of the good things about Cambium is they had (still have) one of the best community forums, and the support and product management people read and participate. So this may actually be the time and place for such discussions. Going forward the newly minted Airspan employees and wherever the ePMP team ends up can probably benefit from customer input so they make good decisions. I mean, sometimes we customers do ask for stupid stuff, or even not buy it when they deliver what we asked for. Sometimes.
I actually liked the ePMP and 450 Lite APs. I mean, sure, I would have preferred it if they’d just sold the fully unlocked APs for the Lite pricing, but that wasn’t going to happen and the 10 SM limit that could be unlocked later was a good compromise. It let us get a lot more ePMP APs online, a lot faster than we would have otherwise. We probably ended up upgrading around 70% of them anyway, but at that point they had already paid for themselves. It would have been nice if they’d kept things a little more consistent through the different generations though.
I also kind of wish they had sold keys to convert any SMs that were identical hardware to their AP or PTP counterparts.
I agree that the speed keys were a horrible concept - that should have never happened. PTP820/850 keys also did seem to be a nightmare, but I only ever did one link, so I pretty much just let our distributor deal with it.
Yeah, I do agree. A full AP was pretty pricey, and being able to start out with a Lite for 10 SMs was not idea, but was better than the higher prohibitive cost of a Full.
I just meant so many policies have been flipped back and forth each generation, so as per your example a “Lite AP” was once “full specs, but limited to 10 SMs” and then became a whole variety of different limitations with each generation or model. We’ve always been a smaller WISP and always with finite resources, so it’s always frustrating to have expensive surprises.
PS: Again though, at this time I’m hoping and literally praying for the best possible outcome for everyone in the ePMP impact zone.
I bought some Tachyon 305x radios to see how badly the wifi7 failover falls over when theres a little noise. Im expecting it to be bad. However; more than half my subs are within 1km of a tower, so the 5ghz failover would only be very rarely used. Im hoping under 1km its never needed so i can deply their 60ghz only cpe, then 60+5ghz for customers further than 1km. It all depends on how far we can go in the rain (as usual with 60) and how bad the failover radio is. Been told a future fw will have 6ghz, so less noise..
Aside from these, id rather buy lots of epmp stock and run on premises cnmaestro or snmp.
Can anyone tell me if theres actually a shut down date for cnmaestro or no one really knows anything - whats this 01/10 date?
Please see this post:
In particular:
Full disclosure: I’m with RADWIN. For anyone running ePMP, PMP or PTP who is still unsure what all this means for their fixed-wireless network: you don’t have to rip and replace. A phased approach usually works better. Keep the stable links running, and move new builds, capacity-limited sectors, and gear that’s due for refresh first. If RADWIN is on your shortlist, the closest equivalents are Alpha PRO (PTP), 2000 E (PTP), JET AIR / JET DUO (ePMP) to name a few. We’re also offering a free, no-obligation migration assessment: send us your current gear, bands, and subscriber count, and we’ll come back with a phased plan. Details are at https://www.radwin.com/wireless-migration to answer questions here or by DM.