How does the ePMP compare to the new Ubiquiti Airmax AC system


@ste wrote:

@Vyacheslav wrote:

@ste wrote:

@Chris_Bay wrote:

@RFWaveRider wrote:

@Vyacheslav wrote:

@ste wrote:

Yes. Only problem there is no .ac product line announced from cambium. The 11n chipsets are limited in what can be done.


Cambium  will   make  PTP and PTMP ePMP,  based on 802.11ac chipset. It will have:

- 802.11 ac wave 2 with MU-MIMO 

- full  interoperability with ePMP 1000 ( 802.11n) in point to multipoint 

- TDMA protocol with GPS Sync and Frequency Reuse.

At the same time  current ePMP 1000 802.11n  point to multipoint  solution  outperforms  twice Ubnt 802.11ac with:

- max quantity  CPEs  per sectors

- max sector (  8+ active CPEs) throughput in 10/20/40 MHz channel bandwidth 


How do you figure that current ePMP1000 outperformes UBNT AC?

I've got UBNT gear wirh 30 and 40 CPEs per sector pushing easily 25-30megabits to clients.   There are no limits on the number of associated CPEs on UBNT gear.

UBNT has a limit, they are not upfront about it.   cambium has always been one to advertise its limits rather than let customers find out the hardway, like us.           M gear seemed to be 1 CPE per MHZ to have a sector run decent and rarely could we break that rule.   I could only imagine the RSSI and SNRs you've got to be trying to maintain in order to see those speeds.   what kind of performance do you see cumulatively ?   we've got epmp sectors that sit over 100 mpbs during peak.   
we've got customers getting over 60 mpbs durring peak hours from EPMP

It needs some time to mature. This was the same with first 11n gear. UBNT has built interesting stuff into their gear. They add some filtering to improve uplink, they integrate additional hardware to speed up TDMA protocol and they added a second wireless card to do a background spectrum scan. So there is a lot of potential for the future. Repeat: Still beta.


 All new AC features - filters, background scan, hardware ( TDMA ???) accelerator  are not be considered  as  key competitive advantages.   Total Airmax redesign   is   required  for ubnt AC solution. It  must be proper  true TDMA implementation.   But  main  problem of ubnt AC solution is wrong way of product development. Current AC Wave 1 chip is EOL. Development  of AC wave 1  based  gear and provide  interoperability  with 802.11n  is useless,  it does not make sense, it is  dead-end.   


You're talking without any techical background. "proper true TDMA implementation", 


Ubnt Airmax  is asynchronous polling based   protocol of  wireless multiple access. It is the same type of access  as Nstreme/Nv2 Miktrotik, the same as Outdoor Router Protocol of  Proxim and many  others. It was  invented in 1996 by  Doug Karl  from  Karlnet , it was  called as Turbocell protocol, and  was used  instead  of CSMA/CA   in outdoor applications  of  802.11 ( those time non standard WLAN) systems.    Due to  it's asynchronous type GPS sync and Frequency Reuse  feature will never be made for Airmax products. Due to  asynchronous type  Airmax  ubnt  802.11n has in P2MP ( 8+ active CPEs) low sector capacity - total max throughput ( 25-30 Mbps)   and  low max served CPEs per sector ( less 30 ).   Airmax UBNT AC  is the same  as Airmax N. Why Airmax AC will work better then Airmax N? Due to hardware accelerator ? Which scheduler function does it accelerate? It need not be accelerated, it should be completely redesigned  and should become  synchronous protocol, as true TDMA  in ePMP or  Radwin ( both based on 802.11 chipset) ,  or   Readline  or  Cambium PMP450 ( both based on   proprietary chipset). Only  this protocol ( TDMA) of multiple access  is able to be synced and only TDMA  round-robin multiple access   scheduler is able to get   close  throughput in Point to Point  and P2MP   with 100+ CPEs scenarios. 

Test your ubnt sector AC with 30 CPEs when  8+ are active and  these CPEs have  ( before test)    >  5-10 Mbps  total  upload traffic . You will see real  ubnt 802.11AC throughput in P2MP, that even at 256QAM 5/6 is not much higher  then Airmax 802.11n.

What are   promising  functions in UBNT AC?  256QAM,  filters, accelerator, background  scan? All of them  are not able to provide  in 20 MHz  channel key competitive  advantages:  80-90 Mbps sector throughput with 80-120 CPEs on sector with Sync and FR , that  ePMP 802.11n already  has.  

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Not to mention when dealing with Cambium as a company you get actual support. Someone who answers the phone and knows the product day or night. RMAs that don't include games, anyone here tried to RMA an AirFiber 24 yet? They seem to cause you endless delays, demand endless testing before they even consider running an RMA on the product.  On the other hand, I had to RMA a  ePMP radio because I lost power when upgrading the firmware, clearly my fault. Cambium issued the RMA with a 10 minute phone call, and even followed up with me three times to make sure I would send it.

We have been running ePMP gear alongside Ubnt M gear, and we see much better sector density, much better aggregate bandwidth, and many more happy users. Our number one complaint from customers running the UBNT M gear is our internet gets really slow around 5PM. We load all our sectors the same, run the same 20 Mhz channels, similar gain antennas. ePMP gear has given us a new edge in reliability and aggregate sector capacity  that UBNT gear has never offered.

All that being said, I’m no fanboy here. If a company offers a superior product I’m always interested. We continually test products for our network deployments. But one thing that gives me confidence in the Cambium product line, their product teams ALWAYS think of the current customers, and current deployments when building new products. Not leaving me with a choice of replacing all my SMs to take advantage of a new upgrade. On the downside I think Cambium needs to look into making backhauls for 24Ghz, many companies already have…

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@Vyacheslav wrote:

@ste wrote:

@Vyacheslav wrote:

@ste wrote:

@Chris_Bay wrote:

@RFWaveRider wrote:

@Vyacheslav wrote:

@ste wrote:

Yes. Only problem there is no .ac product line announced from cambium. The 11n chipsets are limited in what can be done.


Cambium  will   make  PTP and PTMP ePMP,  based on 802.11ac chipset. It will have:

- 802.11 ac wave 2 with MU-MIMO 

- full  interoperability with ePMP 1000 ( 802.11n) in point to multipoint 

- TDMA protocol with GPS Sync and Frequency Reuse.

At the same time  current ePMP 1000 802.11n  point to multipoint  solution  outperforms  twice Ubnt 802.11ac with:

- max quantity  CPEs  per sectors

- max sector (  8+ active CPEs) throughput in 10/20/40 MHz channel bandwidth 


How do you figure that current ePMP1000 outperformes UBNT AC?

I've got UBNT gear wirh 30 and 40 CPEs per sector pushing easily 25-30megabits to clients.   There are no limits on the number of associated CPEs on UBNT gear.

UBNT has a limit, they are not upfront about it.   cambium has always been one to advertise its limits rather than let customers find out the hardway, like us.           M gear seemed to be 1 CPE per MHZ to have a sector run decent and rarely could we break that rule.   I could only imagine the RSSI and SNRs you've got to be trying to maintain in order to see those speeds.   what kind of performance do you see cumulatively ?   we've got epmp sectors that sit over 100 mpbs during peak.   
we've got customers getting over 60 mpbs durring peak hours from EPMP

It needs some time to mature. This was the same with first 11n gear. UBNT has built interesting stuff into their gear. They add some filtering to improve uplink, they integrate additional hardware to speed up TDMA protocol and they added a second wireless card to do a background spectrum scan. So there is a lot of potential for the future. Repeat: Still beta.


 All new AC features - filters, background scan, hardware ( TDMA ???) accelerator  are not be considered  as  key competitive advantages.   Total Airmax redesign   is   required  for ubnt AC solution. It  must be proper  true TDMA implementation.   But  main  problem of ubnt AC solution is wrong way of product development. Current AC Wave 1 chip is EOL. Development  of AC wave 1  based  gear and provide  interoperability  with 802.11n  is useless,  it does not make sense, it is  dead-end.   


You're talking without any techical background. "proper true TDMA implementation", 


Ubnt Airmax  is asynchronous polling based   protocol of  wireless multiple access. It is the same type of access  as Nstreme/Nv2 Miktrotik, the same as Outdoor Router Protocol of  Proxim and many  others. It was  invented in 1996 by  Doug Karl  from  Karlnet , it was  called as Turbocell protocol, and  was used  instead  of CSMA/CA   in outdoor applications  of  802.11 ( those time non standard WLAN) systems.    Due to  it's asynchronous type GPS sync and Frequency Reuse  feature will never be made for Airmax products. Due to  asynchronous type  Airmax  ubnt  802.11n has in P2MP ( 8+ active CPEs) low sector capacity - total max throughput ( 25-30 Mbps)   and  low max served CPEs per sector ( less 30 ).   Airmax UBNT AC  is the same  as Airmax N. Why Airmax AC will work better then Airmax N? Due to hardware accelerator ? Which scheduler function does it accelerate? It need not be accelerated, it should be completely redesigned  and should become  synchronous protocol, as true TDMA  in ePMP or  Radwin ( both based on 802.11 chipset) ,  or   Readline  or  Cambium PMP450 ( both based on   proprietary chipset). Only  this protocol ( TDMA) of multiple access  is able to be synced and only TDMA  round-robin multiple access   scheduler is able to get   close  throughput in Point to Point  and P2MP   with 100+ CPEs scenarios. 

Test your ubnt sector AC with 30 CPEs when  8+ are active and  these CPEs have  ( before test)    >  5-10 Mbps  total  upload traffic . You will see real  ubnt 802.11AC throughput in P2MP, that even at 256QAM 5/6 is not much higher  then Airmax 802.11n.

What are   promising  functions in UBNT AC?  256QAM,  filters, accelerator, background  scan? All of them  are not able to provide  in 20 MHz  channel key competitive  advantages:  80-90 Mbps sector throughput with 80-120 CPEs on sector with Sync and FR , that  ePMP 802.11n already  has.  


To make it clear I am no UBNT Fanboy and I do not use it in large scale. And yes. UBNT AC is not ready to use for large scale. My point is that there are some functions I want to see in ePMP. This is 256 QAM, background channel scanning and improved CPU/HW speed.

BTW: I dont know what they changed with Airmax AC. For sure it is changed as you've to update old N Gear to be compatible. I guess you dont know the internals, too. So it is guesswork if it will be syncable and if it will scale once finished. 

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@Eric Ozrelic wrote:

@Vyacheslav wrote:

Cambium  will   make  PTP and PTMP ePMP,  based on 802.11ac chipset. It will have:

- 802.11 ac wave 2 with MU-MIMO 

- full  interoperability with ePMP 1000 ( 802.11n) in point to multipoint 

- TDMA protocol with GPS Sync and Frequency Reuse. 


Not sure where Vyacheslav is getting his information as none of this has been announced from Cambium and I haven't been told any of this through my sources. I think it's more a wish list. 


Add the similar informations about AC gears on a ePMP trainning, that Cambium was waiting for phase 2 of AC chipset but don't remember about MU-MIMO. The also said about interoperability with ePMP 1000.

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