I bought three links of 820s'. The first link went in without issue and has been on line for months without any issues.
The second link was staged in the shop and when we saved a configuration change to the radio, it never returned to service. The red light would flicker every minute (resetting) so we opened a case. Since we had the unit over 30 days, we had to get an RMA. It took ~45 days from the time the case was opened to return of the unit to us, and it was a exchanged unit, not the one sent in. So we have installed the link and we cannot get data to pass through it. Both units see each other, link is up, MSE is -38. I will be opening a case tomorrow on this link, again.
Finally the third link worked for a couple of days then stopped passing data. We restarted the links and got another few hours out of it. We determined the RSL levels were good, one side of the link showed up, the other side show good RSL too, but the MSE was 99. We opened up a case and they have determined the unit that is at fault and has issued an RMA. Hopefully it will take less time...
So, right now for me, the 820s has not been the product I was hoping for. Anyone who has any ideas why the second link does not pass data, I'm all ears.
Sorry to hear abou the recent PTP820 problems. For your second link with MSE of -38, were the services configured and were you able to pass traffic through it at any point? Is the interface manager configured for the appropriate ethernet port to be enabled? Thanks.
Tech support looked at it and said there was a configuration issue with the ethernet services. Not sure what it was, but the link is working now. We checked the configuration with a working link line by line, so not sure what we missed, but the good thing the link is working. Now on to the next link. Thanks Tech Support. Dan
Well, it has been two weeks now and the link has been performing poorly. Right now I am seeing ping times >3secs, the web management keeps droping every time I try to select an item in the menu, and a major alarm exist stating it has a remote communications error, but payload traffice is still happening. RSL and MSE are good. This is the same radio that was sent back from repair as a replacement of a DOA radio, AND, I have another one that is on its way to Cambium for repair. Am I the only one having issues with these 11Ghz 820s radios?
Please feel free to contact me or Brian off-forum so that we can review your Ethernet services, management approach (in-band or out-of-band), and VLAN approach.
(You can use the forum to send us a private email--this will keep your proprietary network specific details off the public forum.)
WE have had issues with PTP820 11Ghz radios as well. Your not alone! Our issues have revolved around a radio locking up and requiring a power cycle/rest. This has occurred on three different PTP820 links for the past 4 months. One of the links we only sourced for our client but didn't do the installation so Support can't blame us for that one!! We installed our first PTP820 links back in May of 2015 and at that time Cambium hadn't changed the original firmware much. Those links went in flawlessly and we haven't had any issues. The next few links as I mentioned earlier have been a challenge!
We are still wrestling with Cambium support on these issues. Again, your not alone on the PTP820 issues!!
We are still working through our issues with the 820s. We have not seen the lockup issue yet, our issue is the MSE on one side of the link goes to -99. Loop back test indicated one transmitter is throwing out garbage. So far, field recovery is not an option.
I usually won't respond to my messages, but the time has come. The 820s units I bought and installed last year have NEVER worked correctly, or for any length of time. Tech support for this product is, from 1-10 a 0! 30 plus days for service, constant run a round and blame game. Stay away from this product! I am going to write the CEO of Cambium and ask him if he would like some very expensive paper weights.
I usually won't respond to my messages, but the time has come. The 820s units I bought and installed last year have NEVER worked correctly, or for any length of time. Tech support for this product is, from 1-10 a 0! 30 plus days for service, constant run a round and blame game. Stay away from this product! I am going to write the CEO of Cambium and ask him if he would like some very expensive paper weights.
Very disappointed with Cambium.
Dan
So if the other radio is throwing out garbage, that sounds like it's a bad radio and it's time for an RMA? I know you said in the previous message the radio in questions is 'inaccessible' but tech support can only do so much remotely. Did you bench/lab test the radios before deployment, or did you just throw them up in hope that they'd work? I know you're frustrated, but bad radios do happen, and I don't know of any manufacturer that has a warranty/support plan that includes replacing radios at tower sites. If they did, it would be so incredibly expensive you'd probably never buy one.
Links were setup and tested in the shop before deployment.
Warranty support for out of the box failures is 30 days, but waiting for license pretty much guarantees this time will be exceeded.
30+ days for repair/exchange is not acceptable for warranty.
Your field engineer was here and verified issue. Then tells me that they want a picture of the install? You have a bad product, you know it as you have replaced three other units for the same issue, and told me you had vendor issues. OK, replace all units with the bad vendor part in it.
No, I have not started an RMA, I have to go to the mountain and take a picture for you...
"I know you're frustrated, but bad radios do happen, and I don't know of any manufacturer that has a warranty/support plan that includes replacing radios at tower sites. If they did, it would be so incredibly expensive you'd probably never buy one."
Under warranty, I expect the manufacturer to repair the unit in a reasonable amount of time, 30+ days does not meet that requirement. Cambium is on the lower end of this stat. Also, remember, these units have NEVER passed the 30 run time. You would have replaced them had I had the license in hand and installation done. NO other equipment at these sites fail! So installation is not the issue
So yes, I am frustrated that I bought these links from you and have very little useage of them.
BTW... I don't work for Cambium... I'm just a forum regular... that being said, sounds like you have a legitimate issue that Cambium should take note of and try to rectify. Have you PM'd the support manager, David Hensley?
I believe you mentioned that you had problems with power surges, so I wanted to verify that you were using the proper surge protection at the base of the tower.
I apologize if no one asked you this question before now.
You should already have those pictures as part of your installation documentation; there's no need for a trip to the tower (or up the tower!) to take more pictures.
The power issues we had occured at the other end of a link. One end of the link had been replaced under an RMA. We had a power pole grounding issue so the electric company came and sut off the power to the site to repair the line. When the power was restored to the site, the 820s would not re-establish the link. We rebooted, defaulted the unit, the link would not re-establish. Trouble shooting the issue lead us to believe (and your techs) that the OTHER END TX was failing. This end was never powered down during the original outage. This was the second time this same senerio happened, but to different sites. Power levels were at -43dbm wile MSE at failed end was to -99.