Mimosa A5 series? thoughts

[rebelwireless]

Anyone played with the Mimosa A5 gear yet? NDAs should be dropping off, would LOVE to hear about real-world. Ubiquiti AC gear is a modest improvement to M5 series, and Cambium is both expensive and not on the market with an AC/next gen solution.

[mike99]

Was not impress by B5, too much affected by noise. I use Airfiber and SAF for backhaul.

For distribution, I like better ePMP for low end radio. Don't really care about AC if instead I can have less noise, back to back frequency reuse and a gard band of 5 mhz for none back to back radios. Soon, ePMP will also have APs with beam stearing.

[rebelwireless]

Was not impress by B5, too much affected by noise. I use Airfiber and SAF for backhaul.

For distribution, I like better ePMP for low end radio. Don't really care about AC if instead I can have less noise, back to back frequency reuse and a gard band of 5 mhz for none back to back radios. Soon, ePMP will also have APs with beam stearing.

That's interesting, because I've seen AF5X more affected by noise. I know of one particular link that the AF5X flat wouldn't work because of noise and the B5c was able to push well over 100Mbps. Same link, a RocketM5 was doing about 20Mbps and the RocketAClite was doing just slightly better at ~25Mbps'ish.

ePMP is better is some ways, others it shows it's 'legacy' with static tdma timings and 'n' radio.

What sucks is that the ubiquiti AC gear is fan-effing-tastic in rural areas with low noise and low-budget backhauls. PBE-AC-620 is serving me extremely well out in the rural areas. Get the signal to >-60 and it screams. It's a bit back and forth with M5 gear in a bit of noise though. It still runs circles around it in noise if your are -55, but at -70 with some noise the M5 gear is much better. ePMP on the other hand is pretty solid through most of this, though losing out on throughput big time to AC in 'good' conditions. ePMP's tdma timing really limits single client throughput. if you are doing the low-client, high-rate model then ubnt-AC will outperform ePMP's in throughput every time assuming -55 signal..

The point of that mini-rant is that it's impossible to deploy both M5 and AC gear well to get the best of both because of spectrum limitations. It doesn't make a lot of sense to deploy ePMP and ubnt-AC. I'm really REALLY hoping to see Mimosa as a best-of-both-worlds between ubiquiti-AC and Cambium.

Mimosa is bringing beamstearing (real beamstearing, not selective reception like most products using that label) and GPS sync on AP and Client, and allow for back-to-back channel re-use.

The only thing I'm seeing ubiquiti have here is prism. Plus, rumor is that their GPS on Rocket-5AC-PRISM will not be compatible with AF*. That might not be such a big deal, but Mimosa's AP and Backhaul are compatible with each other.

[sirhc]

I have a tower with a LOT of M5 APs and private NanoBridge M5 PTP links.

Replaced a Rocket M5 10 mile backhaul with an AF5X. (changed the Rocket cover box with the new one that works with AFX radios)

As long as the cover is on the back of the Rocket dish covering the AF5X the link is solid but as soon as you pull the cover down exposing the AF5X the AF5X link drops drops.

No M5 radios overlapping AF5X but they are right up against the channel with no guard band.

This is why we redesigned the UDK25 Dish kit now called the UDK25X as it will properly fit any Rocket and the AF5X.

This sort of surprised me, I expected the AF5X to play havoc with M5 but it was the other way around? weird

[rebelwireless]

I see the same thing Chris. M5 tollerate, AF5X freeks out. I don't have any shields on at the moment, have been putting it off because we need to upgrade to something else, maybe AF11X or B11.

[sirhc]

You should have put shield kits on. THey make a difference.

I only use the original RD-30 dishes with the slant 45 adapters and shield kits but I am making a box cover for their cheaper AF-30 dish that they can use with ISO Beam for the front and the box on the back or we may also make a version of their ISO Beam for that dish that saves you a few bucks.

I only make kits that I need in my WISP or needed in the past and only sold them to the public if I saw a performance increase.

If I wanted to just make money (and I do want to make money) I would have made a lot of useless kits over the years and preyed on people.

Like the 900 MHz sector kits, I tried UBNT 900 and needed the kits to get any type of performance but soon abandoned the 900 gear with my WISP as it SUCKED even with kits but the kits did help so I sold them. THey are for people in real RURAL areas that are happy to deliver any sort of bandwidth better than dialup.

[rebelwireless]

I have rf armor at a few places, works great. The main backhaul site only has 3 AF5X and 1 AF5 on it though, and in different channels so the need to shield isn't really there. Also, really getting all that can be expected of AF5X. Longer links that can't go 10x, and they are right on the edge of 8x on 2' dishes and 3' dishes just aren't an option. I'm sure I could squeak out a bit more on them, but I'm not needing just a bit more. Really wondering what it's going to take to get the AF11X licensed up. Mimosa is handling a lot of that on the B11, but the AF5X is a bit better than the B5c, so I'm naively assuming the AF11X > B11 AND the AF11X is way cheaper.

[rebelwireless]

as far as ubiquiti 900Mhz, we have some deployed, it's not good. It's "works in a pinch" hardware. We've been really considering a trial of the Cambium 450i, reviews look very promising...but it is *expensive* compared to ubnt hear.

[sirhc]

I'm naively assuming the AF11X > B11 AND the AF11X is way cheaper.

Well one thing that might be nicer about the B11 over the AF11X is the duty cycle.

The MIMOSA will use the bandwidth in either direction whereas the AFX radios are hard coded 50/50 or 75/25

I have sent emails to Robert complaining about the need for Auto Duty Cycle for AFX radios...like he listens to me though.

[sirhc]

as far as ubiquiti 900Mhz, we have some deployed, it's not good. It's "works in a pinch" hardware. We've been really considering a trial of the Cambium 450i, reviews look very promising...but it is *expensive* compared to ubnt hear.

I would love to see AF9X