PMP450x System Release 24.2.2 is now available at https://support.cambiumnetworks.com/files/pmp450 and it will be available on cnMaestro cloud within 24hours.
Further details can be found in the release notes, attached.
PMP 450 Series_Release Notes_Release 24.2.2.pdf (1.3 MB)
Hi,
we have a mix of old P12, P13 and P14 APs, with old PMP450 and newer PMP 450b SMs. We upgraded all our P13 and P14 APs to fw. 24.2.2 and the old P12 APs to 24.1.1; we’d like to upgrade the SMs to a firmware that will allow them to connect to all our APs without any issues, while mantaining their full operational status (they are all currently running fw 22.1.1, Large Data Channel Q disabled); Our sites usually have a mix of all the APs aforementioned.
We updated a pmp450 SM(P11) from 22.1.1 to 24.2.2 connected to a mu-mimo (fw 24.2.2) in production with no issues; but trying instead to update another sm to 24.2.2 (pmp 450b high gain) connected to a P12 AP (fw.24.1.1) no only resulted in a failure, but caused the AP to reboot eveytime the updated sm connected to the AP.
As we mentioned before, we do not use the large data channel Q, so to us this was unexpected behaviour. Given that we’d like to have all our SMs running the same fw version, which fw do you recommend in this case? If we update all the SMs to 24.1.1 will there be any performance issues on the APs running 24.2.2?
On a side note, we’ve read in the 24.2.2 release notes that on 24.2.1 and 24.2.2 there’s a limited supportfor P12 APs, but we weren’t able to find the release notes where the limited support was described in detail, can you tell us where to find the info? Thanks in advance.
Hello MW_WISP,
First, on your stability observation on your P12 AP running 24.1.1 while the SMs have been upgraded to 24.2.1. I’m assuming you were running 2.5ms frame size and a bandwidth of 20MHz or smaller? Assuming so, yes, you can get past this by upgrading the AP or changing the configuration as explained in the NOTE - the first bullet, on page 5 of the 24.2.1 release notes. This issue has also been fixed in 24.2.2 SM software, so another option to avoid this is, if you wish to upgrade SMs before the AP and you don’t want to change your configuration, just upgrade those SMs from 24.1.1 all the way to 24.2.2, skipping over 24.2.1.
Regarding your question on the limited support for P12 APs in 24.2.2 and 24.2.1, see the second bullet in that note on page 5 of the 24.2.1 release notes. You can take all your SMs up to 24.2.2. IF your P12 sector has mostly 450 P11 SMs, you are better off not upgrading the AP. Leave that AP on 24.1.1 due to performance concerns. If your P12 has mostly newer SMs such as the 450b/retro, you can upgrade your P12 AP to 24.2.1 or 24.2.1 due to the VC depth improvements. Those depth improvements should give you close to or possibly slightly better sector aggregate throughput as compared to older releases. Note however that when upgrading your P12 AP, the maximum number of Virtual Circuits supported in the sector has now been reduced from 118 in 24.1.1 to 59. In other words, for example, if half of your SMs only have a single low priority data channel configured, but half of them also have a high priority data channel configured, then the maximum number of SMs that can register in the sector is 39 SMs. An attempt to register a 40th SM would put you at 60 virtual circuits, and that 40th SM will fail to attach on the air interface. Again, this reduction in maxium VCs supported only applies to the Legacy P12 AP.