I’ll have to answer in more detail when I have more time – I have a LOT more real-world of comparisons done now. We have a number of AF5xHD and Force300c links up – PLUS I also have some Force400c & Force425 (AX) links up now as well. Each have their strong points, and we do use them all in different places.
The AF5xHD are more flexible - with basically all the features we’ve been asking Cambium for over the years already built into the AF. The AF5xHD have intermediate Channel widths, such as 30 & 50 MHz channel widths for example. They also do seamless channel changes. The AF5xHD’s spectrum analyzer is real time / full time – and we can see both the Local and Remote SA results from either radio’s GUI… so it’s much MUCH easier to quickly pick a channel which is good for noise on both sides, and MUCH easier to test that channel without dropping the link for a couple minutes every time you change channels to test. The whole AF5xHD GUI is so so much better in displaying a wealth of info on a single pane of glass - so that I don’t have to keep flipping back and forth to different screens to see all the info I need to manage the radios. OH, and management… the AF5xHD is so much better designed in that regard too… you can set them up in ‘Managed Master’ and “Managed Slave” mode, so that certain features (such as changing channel widths for example) can be done on the Master, and that change is ‘pushed’ to the slave. Just a wealth of usability features - basically every feature we’ve been asking for, for the last number of years, are all already in the AF5xHD and working well.
That being said - the F300c are still a pretty good value for the price. We have a number of F300 links of 27 km link and 31 km and 34 km – and they typically carry about 310 Mbit aggregate in a 40mhz channel. For a radio which is under $190, the Force300c are working great for us in certain areas. Plus - we love flexibility options - and we have places with a Force300c on one side, and Force300-25 on the other side of the link due to size constraints. That’s a great flexibility option. Dollar for dollar, even if the F300’s aren’t quite as fast or as feature filled as an AF5xHD - the F300c perform really well and the “bang for the buck” is still pretty good out of a Force300.
On the flip-side, a negative mark for us is Cambium’s decision to remove the TDD AP mode from the Force300 SM lineup. That’s removed a fundamental flexibility feature of ePMP product line, and removed the flexibility of being able to stock single ePMP SKUs which could be used as a PTP Master, a PTP Slave, an UnSynced TDD AP, and a TDD SM… all with one SKU. To us, there is lots of benefit in the flexibility that the ePMP lineup always had - grab any ePMP radio, and use it in any role. They have decided to remove that flexibility, so the whole Force300 series and the whole ePMP lineup has lost that benefit prospect. (PS - I hear Cambium is planning on selling that feature back to us via yet another ‘License Key’ scheme in a later firmware - But I understand that’ll be limited to just the 300c and not available on the 300-19 or other Force300’s. So it’s further confusing if Cambium are our partner, of if they see us as prey?) Anyway, that was another reason we were using ePMPs as backhauls (in the past, we had locations with a Force200 as a client SM, a Force200 as an ePTP Master/Slave, and Force200 as an unSynced TDD AP for a small MicroPOP) and that flexibility has been removed.
And then there is the new Force400 series in the mix now. The F400c and F425 do 450 Mbit in a 40Mhz channel, so head to head, they are about 50% faster than a Force300csm link speed wise, they’ll certainly give the AF5xHD all they can handle in a head-to-head race. The fastest test we’ve done using MikroTik 4011 to push data between two Force400s, showed 478 Mbit aggregate in a 40Mhz channel. However, Cambium has also chosen to price them higher than the AF5xHD - and they still don’t do Master/Slave management, they still don’t do seamless channel change and instead entirely drop the link with basically any change in either radio - still has critical information not shown in the GUI, or spread across multiple different screens. So we will see - the Force400 series certainly is fast, but we will see what features the ‘business majors on the sales team’ decides we can have and which we can’t have.
So in summary - for us the end result is we’ve changed most of our Force300c links out and are no longer an exclusively Cambium shop anymore. Mainly the removed TDD AP feature lost a fundamental flexibility feature, and the lack of seamless channel changes and the lack of a single pane with all the required GUI info, make the Force300 lineup unsuitable or unattractive for our needs in most places.
But – I need to stress the positive – for places where 300 Mbit is fast enough, the F300’s work really well for us, especially bang-for-the-buck at sub-$190. And they’ve been very stable for us. And the F400’s are an absolute BEAST at moving bits; extremely fast. If Cambium’s “sales team” could get out of their own way, they would have a clear winner on their hands.