We are looking at standing up a Cambium tower for the first time. Previously we were using ubiquiti and doing 30° horns. I was going to do the same thing here, but wasn’t sure what the best approach would be. Is there a benefit to using the 3k in split sector over individual 3000L per sector? It appears the throughput of the 3000l is half of the 3000 so I’d assume it’d be a very similar outcome except the 3000l can fit in a twist port adapter instead of needing jumpers. The drawback I see is the 3000l doesn’t have a fiber port, but for this particular site it’s not important since the switch will be 50ft away.
The environment you’re in is going to determine what is more beneficial. If you’re in a high interference area, going split sector allows you to use less channels with more clients verses putting up a bunch of 3000L. Are you covering 360deg around tower? Is power consumption going to be a concern?
If the area is high density I think a better debate might be using a 60deg Dual Horn with ePMP 3000 verses two 30deg horns and two 3000L.
-Chris
So the 3000 is vastly superior to the 3000L in almost every possible way except one… antenna options and there it lacks horribly. The 60° Cambium horn for the 3000 is only 12dBi gain at best just so you know. We have tried using it in a few places but really the low gain just kind of kills it. The 90° sector has good gain but really it’s more of a 60° sector with really bad falloff (not fast enough for 60° but to fast for 90°) at the edges. However that “90°” sector is also the only option for using the “beam steering” antenna as far as I know (would it work if you mounted it under the dual horn ? Do the beam steering antennas even work correctly on 3000 yet ? Do they even really do anything when they are working ? Maybe someone else can chime in).
There is a 2 60° sectors covering 120° in one shell antenna. We currently have deployed 4 of them. They work pretty good as far as we can tell but they are very difficult to work with / very poor physical design
There are also some people using 2 RF Elements horns with the 3000 but it has drawbacks. Here is a thread on the subject and some feedback from Cambium:
Also keep in mind :
3000 has dynamic filtering 3000L does not
3000 is 56v 3000L is 36v
3000 and 3000L have sync but 3000L can not sync over power.
3000 can do beam steering 3000L can not
3000 has about 2dB better RSSI to MCS rate then the 3000L.
Personally I hate the 3000L’s they have caused us nothing but grief and angry customers but the 3000’s lack of antenna options really makes it hard to deploy 3000 in a lot of situations.
Hey Chris,
Thanks for the response! We are covering 180° on a rooftop with a high density of clients surrounding the area. Power consumption is not a concern, but RF is currently an unknown. We are going to the site next week, at which point I’ll have a better idea of what that looks like. I think the epmp3000 sounds like the better option. Itll now be a matter of which antenna is best. Split sector 30° RF Elements, use 3x 90° Sectors antennas(as 60°) with the beamforming antenna, or use dual a dual horn configuration.
@brubble1 Has some other key details if you weren’t aware as well. I glossed over your Ubiquiti experience so depending on how much experience you have with Cambium, I’d be sure to read his response very carefully.
With the 180deg coverage area, there should be enough spacing to support multiple ePMP3000 APs. With the added benefit of MU-MIMO gain, assuming your not using split sector, you would have quite a bit of capacity at the site. I’d also be sure to look into doing gps sync over power verses using the GPS puck.
The KP performance kppa-5ghzhv4p65-17 is a 17.5db gain 65 degree sector which works very well with the epmp3000.
Its 17.25 inches tall, 11 inches wide, 4 inches thick and has a 3.5 inch adjustable stand-off pipe mount.
Originally intended for the Mimosa A5C series, I can affirm that this antenna works very well and despite being rated as 65 degrees you can count it as closer to 90 degrees @ 15db gain.
We are in the process of upgrading a tower with 4 epmp3000s and these sectors from a 3000Ls with 90deg 15db sectors (capacity issues with the 3000Ls as they dont really have the oompf much after 35 clients unless you have all clients being light users)
Split sectors when using the 3000 is for using one 3000 to service front and back sectors or horns in adjacent but not overlapping sectors. It is important to not overlap the sectors when doing split sectors.
What you can do is use two dual port 120 degree sectors side by side to get a 180 degree sector and still benefit from the mu-mimo that the 3000 has, leave split sectors off. But the antennas need to be at least 3m (10ft) horizontally apart, need to be aimed 30 degrees left and right from sector center and you will have extra losses from the longer RF interconnects, which need to be exactly the same length. And with all that, you are still limited to the total throughput of a single AP, though for getting service up in an affordable, upgradeable method it is do able.
In short though possible, the headache and complexity do not lend themselves to using a single AP in this configuration and this will be noticed most when you have ten or more heavy users on large 50 to 100mbps packages.
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