ePMP3000AP Perfomance

On one of our installations we have replaced two of ePMP1000 + Sector antenna 90-120 with two ePMP3000 + Sector Antenna + BSA and we kept the SM of the ePMP1000 series (force 200/190). Sadly to say but we not only gain any performance boost but we loosed almost 50% of our throughput. The latency it seems to improved, this is something i have to admit… The AP was installed on exact same place with same power . The only difference is on epmp3000 could not find the Downlink/Uplink Frame Ratio Flexible option. FYI the software version is 4.5.6 and the SNR and modulation type is the same like epmp1000.

Hello,

The Flexible frame ratio will be introduced in 4.7 for ePMP3000.
How many SMs do you have connected and what is the usual distribution of traffic between DL and UL?
What TDD ratio are you using on ePMP3000 now?

Thank you.

We have 10 SM on one AP and only 3 on other. The TDD ratio is 50/50. I made some tweaks like reducing Max Downlink rate to DS MCS 7 64QAM5/6 on AP side (as i know force200/190 cannot go higher) and Max Uplink rate to MCS7 64QAM5/6 on SM side (we don’t need more that this). As i have already mention the performance on epmp3000 is lower(almost 50%) compare to epmp1000.

Change the frame ratio to 75/25 and you will see something more similar to what you are used to on downlink.

I doubt the performance is any less than it was before, you are just now using fixed framing, which doesn’t allow more bandwidth in either direction than configured.

I have already gave a try on change of frame ratio. I’m waiting for the official 4.6. In my case epmp3000AP and epmp1000 for SM is not a very good combination.

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Hello, @jdres!

I suggest to upgrade to the latest firmware 4.6.0.1. Link is below.
https://support.cambiumnetworks.com/files/epmp3000/

What about your F200/190 sw versions?

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My SM and AP are on the same version 4.5.6. UPDATE: i updated the AP and SM on 4.6 and the performance is better BUT where is the flexible ratio mode ??

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4.7 has not been released yet.

so, final conclusion (from my side), a combination of an epmp3000 AP with ONLY SM of the epmp1000 series cannot offer any throughput advantage over epmp1000AP. Am i wrong on this ?

You are correct. The SM is still only 802.11n, so can’t do any better than that. MU-MIMO also requires AC SMs.

Cambium has said that there may be a possible performance increase of up to 10% by upgrading to the 3k AP with legacy SMs, I assume because of the better CPU, etc.

The main gains are from 802.11n getting a TX/RX RF boost (3dBm IIRC) from the 4x4 multiplexing on the AP, because they can’t participate in MU-MIMO. 802.11ac clients don’t see these gains when they participate in MU-MIMO groupings.

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Hello Jdres;
OK - here’s my advice:

  1. Try the 4.6.1-RC26 on the AP and on all SM’s. It’s technically a ‘Beta’ I guess, but it’s the Release Candidate Final actually, so it’s basically a release ready version. We are running it on a ton of AP’s and SM’s, some which are pure 3000/300’s, but also on 1000 & 2000 AP’s with 200/300 SM’s, and also one 3000L/3000 AP’s with 200/300 SM’s. I’d be confident in trying the 4.6.1-Release Candidate Final.

  2. Set your ratio to 75%/25% for sure instead of 50%/50%. Using 50/50 basically ‘fixes’ the frame to only use 50% of the frame for download time, so it’s no surprise that you’re seeing 50% throughput. :slight_smile: But if you put it to 75%/25% that should be noticeably better. We run all our AP’s at 75%/20%

  3. The biggest benefit in throughput will be with Force300 SM’s, and when you can get the downlink signals to the -53 or so, where ALL the chains are in the 50’s. That will give you DS9 modulations, and that’s Hella fast. So, basically what we do is to upgrade the highest use clients first… take the top 5 or 10 clients who are the heaviest users, and upgrade them to Force300’s and then reuse their F200/F190s in other places. Talking to those SM’s at DS9 can significantly improve the AP’s ability to service all the others too.

  1. As mentioned above, we generally see about a 10-15% performance boost when upgrading just the AP and the firmware. BUT, we also have also always run our AP’s in 75%/25% for the most stable ping times too. If you’re switching from Flexible to 50%/50% then it’d seem like your throughput has gone down.
  1. Well, in my opinion - that is one of the ‘killer features’ of ePMP. The fact that the whole lineups has a high degree of forward/backwards compatibility. There are some frustrating wrinkles – not everything is capable of 10Mhz channels for example… so there isn’t really compatibility, if we can’t freely mix/match whatever SM on whatever AP. And having ePTP modes be incompatible between the 1000/2000 and 3000 series really complicates backhaul upgrades. And yes - Flex Frame missing in the ePMP3000L/3000 AP’s is a problem for some.

However, lots of gear out there is a total forklift every generation – and will be again in the next generation too. With Cambium, you can have AP’s which are 3000’s, and they can be running a mix/match of Force 300’s, 200’s, and 1000 series SM’s. AND, we’ll be able to upgrade to the 4000 AP next year (or whenever) and plop them into a field of whatever SM’s you have, and they’ll work. The biggest benefits will be seen with Force 400 family of SM’s, but your Force 300’s will work. With most brands, it’s an entire upgrade of everything from start to finish every generation.

Anyway - I hope you try 4.6.1 and try 75%/25% and hopefully find that serves your needs for now. 4.7.x firmware should bring Flexible Frame, which should add that arrow in the quiver as well.

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Thank you all guys for your posts. I know about the throughput lost when we are using 50/50 ratio but right now its not possible to use 75/25 because we have lost a ptp backhaul and we are using one SM as backhaul for the internet

Hi - I’m not certain I understand… Do you mean that you’re using one of the connected SM’s, to feed internet TO the AP, and then the same AP is feeding that to the rest of the SM’s? So, do you mean that both the client SM’s and the Internet backhaul are both connected to the sector? Is that why you need 50/50 - so that your upload 50% that the internet comes in on, matches the download 50% which the rest of the SM’s download on?

Exactly, one of SM serves as the internet feed. As i said this is a temporary solution until we will restore our PTP backhaul. Except that, this topology have been used in another installation with epmp1000 but with flexible ratio and all of our customers were happy with enough throughput.

OK, yeah, that’s a pickle then. That’s an oddball situation for sure. And if you don’t have MU-MIMO capable SM’s (which would allow you to have some ‘extra/free’ download bandwidth) then I’m not sure what to else to suggest. I guess a flexible frame might have helped – but coming in version 4.7.x and we are at 4.6.1 currently, so no immediate help. However, flexible frame as a work around for an AP without a backhaul… that would really be a Band-Aid in this sort of oddball situation too.

Anyway, sorry - I don’t really have any suggestions, other than the obvious… fix the backhaul ASAP I guess. :slight_smile: Best of luck.

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Sorry Ninedd, clicked wrong reply :stuck_out_tongue:

What you are doing is a rebroadcast of all traffic to one SM. This uses all of the single AP resources to manage the buffering of all of the traffic being hairpinned plus any additional bandwith on that tower.

Do yourself and your clients a favor and add a dedicated PTP AP (3000L+dish or a 425) otherwise you will only have approx. 25% of available bandwidth due to the one SM taking all of the available frame space!
If you have enough, clean enough spectrum then you can set the PTP AP to whatever you need, or just sync all to 50/50 and not worry about asymmetric radio timing. But I heavily suggest you keep the AP on the tower and not at the remote site to reduce self interference.

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