Read 2 stories and have nightmares

This is my personal thread to share practices that have served my WISP well
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sirhc
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Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Tue May 19, 2015 11:27 pm

So i read two stories on the UBNT forum tonight that make me cringe.

First this one which highlights just how far 5Ghz will propagate:
http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airFiber-S ... 8731#M1447

And then this story to see how people will just point and shoot with no understanding of the ramifications or impact of their actions to others:
http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airMAX-AC/ ... 8758#M6316

I mean come on -17 dB.

This was my fear with AF5 but sells of AF5 were much lower then anyone expected. I like AF5X better then AF5 for many reasons the most being it supports UNI-I. I wish both units only supported UNI-I then I could love both units.

Or better yet I would love AF3.65 or of course AF11/18/23

I still say we are playing with fire making such devices. It's like a nuclear bomb, sure glad we had one back in 1945 but even more glad we have been able to not use them in anger since. Just like the engineers that worked on the nuclear bomb projects of WWII Ubiquiti has some of the industries bests minds in Chicago, I just wish they were not playing with 5 GHz.

And UBNT is obviously targeting consumer/IT as much or more than the WISP industry which is scary. AF5 and AF5X is a "great" well designed tool in the right hands yet dangerous as hell to WISPs everywhere.

Do I have use for this device....YES but so will a lot of people some maybe near me or as shown not so near to me but still could be a problem too!!
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sirhc
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Follow up

Wed May 20, 2015 9:12 am

And to be fair yes Mimosa, and "any" other manufacturer using more then 40 MHz of 5 GHz spectrum per link scares me just as much.

AF5X I think is limited to 50 MHz, but I could be wrong, which is not to bad?? (do not know as I do not have one, I did ask for one)

Now I like AF5X better then AF5 because I think it is only 50 MHz and it support UNI-I. I wish Chicago would just make their radios quite down when not in use meaning not send FULL streams all the time. I am sure there is a reason other than just to display real time actual capacity? Most links are silent more often then they are talking unless you are filling the stream all the time even when not being used.

I do pick on UBNT more then the others about this 5 GHz spectrum but that is because they are the industry leader and they are the ones with the most ability to push the trends.

Also if they would make 11/18/23 affordable with AF24 capacity this would help protect WISPs from interference as they could move their back-hauls to licensed if an inexpensive alternative existed which would make it easier to move sector channels around if the need arises from hostile interference.
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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Wed May 20, 2015 3:58 pm

Yes, AF5X is limited to a single 50Mhz channel.

In the 3.0.2 firmware there are some power level stairs so for example, you can back off the radio automatically by up to 4dB at 8x, 6x, and 4x. 8x flat out doesn't work at 100% output, you need to back the radio down by 3dB to get 8x. 6x and 4x can run at full power though. This is a nice feature because you can back it down a bit but then up the juice if you have some weather fade or something going on. I wish this was more like 6-8dB of allowance though. I also wish it was an automatic (as in it didn't need explicitly configured) feature.

What I'd really like to see is the radio start at the top or bottom of it's channel and use a smaller chunk based on needs. So, if you put in 50Mhz and you aren't saturating what 10Mhz would do, just use the bottom 10Mhz and let the other sit. A 'professional' wouldn't need this, but all the half-ass installs would be better. Then they'd only hit that when they were doing a throughput test to make themselves feel good. day-to-day it would sit where it needs to be.

I happen to know that a local competitor only has 100Mbps uplink, but they have 3x AF5 on the roof shredding the spectrum. They probably have 1.5Gbps capacity shoved into a 100Mbps uplink. lame. lower, friendlier defaults *and* automatic adjustment to friendlier settings would be very very welcome.

that said, with only a few minor annoyances, the AF5X is a spectacular radio, I've got a gut wrenching amount of money out for pre-orders.

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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Wed May 20, 2015 4:31 pm

What channel width do they allow and what do you see as throughput on them?
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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Wed May 20, 2015 6:55 pm

10-50 in 10mhz steps. My tests have it scaling very linear, 20mhz was like 40Mbx80Mb. Keep in mind that's in unii1 and h/v pol with some interference.

I can't quite get 8x yet, I'm hoping to after I re-aim and switch to spent pol.

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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Wed May 20, 2015 7:34 pm

sirhc wrote:...

Or better yet I would love AF3.65 or of course AF11/18/23 ...



Might find this interesting ...

http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airMAX-Gen ... 699#M49401

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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Wed May 20, 2015 8:56 pm

JustJoe wrote:
sirhc wrote:...

Or better yet I would love AF3.65 or of course AF11/18/23 ...



Might find this interesting ...

http://community.ubnt.com/t5/airMAX-Gen ... 699#M49401


Well lucky me we already have our license! - LOL

Yea I know 3.65 is up in the air if not GONE but you get the point, anything other than our PTMP bread and butter band!
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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:31 am

Joshuanuby wrote:Ok, so I read the whole thread but I'm still a little confused...

I can set this up by following the instructions in the first post, but then what do I have to do to make it work?

Is this ready to go mainstream yet? I'm hoping to get this PBX up and running within a few weeks, so I'm itching to tinker.


You totally lost me Josh????
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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Mon Jun 06, 2016 1:13 pm

I know that this is a real old post but I can give you some info on your first post about the 140 mile link.

I am the one that setup the link, installed the antennas, aligned the paths etc. I did have some help from Alex at UBNT who was onsite to assist with the software/firmware side of things. UBNT did provide the hardware and everything was straight out of the box just like anyone else could have purchased.

The path although very long is actually over a very lightly populated area. I would guess that over the entire path our signal passed over less than 2000 people in total. The populated areas that would extend past the path are not affected due to the height required to make the link work. The mountains that these links are on would shield anything on the other side from the RF signal. I also made sure when we installed the equipment that we did an AirView scan on each end to verify that we were not causing any interference issues. This is our standard practice on all links. I am also aware that it can only tell you what the spectrum is like for a short period of time when the scan was run.

As a practice all of our AirFiber units are using the smallest channel sizes available that will provide the data throughput needed. We don't have any in service that are using more than a 20 MHZ wide channel at this time. We have the spectrum available at some of our locations where we could use 40 or 50 MHZ wide channels but our bandwidth needs do not justify using wider channels.

I do think that the problem with all of the equipment in service is that they are all using fixed channel widths. There is no reason for a radio to be constantly sending out signals across a channel when they have little or no payload to send. Even the wifi radios such as the Airmax, Mimosa etc will still send out beacons and other traffic at wide channel widths even when they have no payload to send.

The real solution is to require that all radios use dynamic channels widths so that as bandwidth needs increase so does the channel width. The other part that should be required is that equipment should be required to use automatic transmit power control to reduce power to only the level needed. This would of course have to be a smart system that could also recognize that as the channel width increases if packet retries due to interference start to have an impact then the channel would then reduce in size. The AirFiber radios automatic power backoff is a start in the right direction but it is not mandatory.

As a side note I posses a valid FCC General Radio Telephone license with the Ship Radar endorsement. The license does not mean that I know everything about RF but that I did have enough knowledge to pass the FCC test. When I took the FCC General Radio Telephone license test in 1990 the failure rate for first time trying was 85%. I passed the first time. I think that in the US there should be some sort of license requirement for people that put up outdoor links. As a bare minimum each business should have at least one certified individual that will take responsibility that all equipment is operating within the legal requirements.

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Re: Read 2 stories and have nightmares

Mon Jun 06, 2016 7:01 pm

I have to argue the channel size backoff... yes, it makes 'sense', but fat chance I'm letting a slightly idle radio dial back the channel so the a-hole setting up on a Sunday afternoon when there isn't a lot going on sees the edges of MY channel as free...... I'll need that spectrum come 6pm. It doesn't actually make any sense to give up that spectrum during idle times....because they are needed during the peak times.

Unless there was a strong case for those idle times being otherwise usable ie traffic goes across radios A<>B during business hours and radios C<>D during prime time and letting them 'share' some channel would be valid..

What I'm saying is that I'm perfectly happy with a 100% duty cycle radio. I just wish that I could have the TX duty cycle be dynamic based on needs like an 802.11* radio effectively is.

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