Introducing the new ePMP Force 400 Series!

In my opinion - I think we should all look back at what happened when the first AC units came out. Cambium released the Force 300’s (which were SMs) but the first versions of the firmware were PTP versions, since the 3000 AP’s weren’t out at that point in time. The PTP version of the firmware is much simpler and quicker to get to market, compared to a MultiPoint AP version, and compared to something with forward/backwards compatibility, etc, etc,etc.

So (IMHO) I think we will see the products you people are talking about, but I think that first AX model out of the blocks, we are going to see a Force425 (which is at heart an SM) and we will see it with PTP software version out of the blocks, the same as what we saw with the first Force300-25’s when they were first released.

If you think about how complex the ePMP 4000 AP is going to be – what is it? 8x8 MU-MIMO download, 4x4 MU-MIMO upload, and it’ll want to be compatible with Force400 and Force300 and older SM’s… so that’ll probably be a very complex scheduler, and I would guess we wouldn’t see that until the end of the year maybe? I don’t know - just a guess.

AND, I would expect that we will maybe see an AX Version of the ePTP550 too. Again, maybe so, maybe not. BUT, we can’t see all those products, all fully finished, all released on the same day.

So (IMHO) Cambium has two choices. Either hold everything back and wait until the full 4000 series product line is completely finished in a year or whenever - or they can release the first models of the new AX gear with PTP firmware now. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
  • That was tested with Routerboard 4011’s
  • That was almost twice as fast as the Force300’s I removed.

I have a lot of screen capturers. I spent a couple days testing the Force300 and recording things, and then another couple days testing the Force400 after I swapped them. I also have an AirFiber backhaul between the same towers, so I spent a couple days testing those back to back as well.

So, I’ll get around to uploading all the images and test results as soon as I can – but not today. :slight_smile:

1 Like

At least make a GPS model that we can put on our towers so that this product is useful in 2021, not 2022 and beyond when ePMP 4000 / 4000L eventually turns up.

I understand your points, but it is plainly said that there isnt a synced version on the horizon yet. So if enough of us squeal for one then it will happen else they will put R&D time elsewhere.

For a ptp link in this price/performance range, the AP side needs some fundamental features not just an SM that can act as an AP. GPS sync is a major feature that makes the epmp3000L even viable, so to say that one isnt planned IS a major issue as I can not put a $1000+ epmp4000 in an area that can not economically support it. This is the same reason that we didnt go epmp2000 and once the 3000L came out at half the price then we got one and a few force 300 SMs to try and test.

We are waiting to see but it is nice to know that yes one is in the works but not ready yet or to be told that it will not be happening. This is also the time to point out what they should be looking at for hardware features on possible variants. Eg internal gps=ok but not able to have a common sync source is with the onboard as a backup (epmp1000L style) was a poor decision.

1 Like

The Force 400 is an attempt to fix the infamous result over the ubiquiti Airfiber
According to the test and reviews, Airfiber is a better device that has GPS sync.
It’s been around for a few years.
Of course with the Ubiquiti device the GPS works constantly while with the cambium you are never sure.
That is my opinion and I do not want to impose it on anyone.

2 Likes

Well, I have an AF5xHD and a Force400c link side by side, so I’ve compared them head to head. There are pros and cons to each of them. The Force300 wasn’t much of a threat to the AF5xHD, but the Force400 is MUCH faster.

Since Cambium discovered that the GPS problem wasn’t actually a GPS firmware problem (actually a bus/driver problem or something like that?). Since they found and fixed that, we haven’t had any ePMP GPS issues either. We are running 4.6 firmware and no GPS issues at all.

2 Likes

We have results of working Force 425 at 9 km link from fiber POP to village with 600+ residential users ( PON and Cambium ePMP access ) with real live commercial traffic.
Configuration


Throughput max Download 735Mbps +Upload 100 Mbps= 835 Mbps UL+DL.

Latency at full traffic load
10.202.18.104 ping statistics — 30 packets transmitted, 30 received, 0% packet loss, time 29046ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 2.633/4.950/10.429/1.751 ms
This is the same 9 km link at Force 425 at 40 MHz channel, Througput 450Mbps UL+DL live traffic

At 20 MHz channel
230 Mbps UL+DL live traffic

4 Likes

I am interested in a test on a 40 MHz channel and TCP traffic
The UDP says nothing

A post was split to a new topic: Are ePMP GPS issues resolved?

Awesome Vyacheslav. Those are good, real-world results. That’s similar to what we are seeing. Over 400 Mbit in 40Mhz widths, and over 800 Mbit in 80Mhz widths - with real-world customer data.

1 Like

Wow

How is 230Mbit possible with 20Mhz QAM1024 if Force 300 at QAM256 is not able to push 150Mbit ???

I’m curious about the signal levels, SNR and modulation levels during the test…

Hi Guys, these are nice radios…
My test scenarios:
11.8Km, 80 Mhz, -54dbm
80 Mhz: 545mbps aggregate(real throuput!)
let me get some images…




2 Likes

And to do a test with medium or small packages, he would say more about real internet traffic.

It is possible as there is an encoding scheme in between 256 and 1024. You dont hear of it too often but qam512 exists and is used just not as common.
The force 300 uses qam256 and has the ability to do 384Mbps, with some loss due to link overhead and protocols. If each coding scheme adds half again the bandwidth then qam1024 should do 896Mbps minus overhead and protocols.

Finding a clear enough 80Mhz channel is a feat in itself, just being able to have the same bandwidth with a 20Mhz channel is the important change. This increases your bits per Mhz and thus is more efficient and faster.

Which is better between Force 400 and Air fiber?

That depends. Currently the force 400 is not gps syncd so if you need that then the air fiber is “better” but if you want a homogeneous network the the force 400 is better.

This is a point of opinion and the truly better is measured after it is replaced with something else.

The problem is that as we increase QAM rates the capacity increase is less and less. Each doubling of QAM adds 1 more bit/Hz. Going from 64 to 256QAM increases from 6 to 8 bit/Hz. Going from 256 to 1024 goes from 8 to 10.

Hey Bruce,
Another great product. Thank you very much! Hop we will have a GPS version as well as it will fill the gap in the portfolio.

I remember Force 400 series would be compatible with GPON. Is it out yet in this version? When do you plan to release that feature?

Since GPON is more like vendor specific, what are the compatibility issues we can expect when using 400 series with GPON?