Hi,

Can anyone suggest the best sector for Basebox 5 (or Basebox 2) from my selections.
1. 120 degree UBNT Sector - 19 dbi.
2. 120 degree RF Elements sector - 16.4 dbi.

Also,
i) for a complete 360 deg. coverage do I need 3 120 deg. sectors and four BaseBox?
ii) Which config. is better?
(a) Attaching a 5 GHz mini PCIe card to a basebox and add another sector with it. (2 sectors in a basebox)
(b) Buy separate basebox for each sector.
iii) How many clients can connect to a basebox at the same time?
iv) Is there any specific range till which basebox works best?
v) Will SXTLite work well with basebox?

hello,

if you have no interference and nearby clients (no more than 20-30) you can even start with omni antenna.
(UBNT's MIMO omni is a good one - but DO NOT go for the highest gain in with omni, unless you really know what you are doing!)

In our experience, the quality of antenna (i mean the data thruput) is in the following, decreasing order:
UBNT Titanium, UBNT, RF Elements.
The Titanium sector really worth it's price.
If you have multiple radio cards nearby - it's always bigger chance to self interference... IMHO the best is one board+one radio in a metal box. Of course, it's the most expensive as well.
Well, a sector can easily serve 30+ clients. Our problem usually, that much less client needs much bigger bandwidth than a cell can serve - so we split up the cells.

(A single cell can serve around 40mbps MIMO, 20mhz - 40users with with 5mbps downlink, 1mbps uplink - if 10 of them do torrent, all used up)

Ok, so I will go with UBNT Sectors.
Just 30 clients per cell !!! Then I'm going to need many cells for 100+ users!
Basebox has a gigabit interface, hope it will be useful in serving the heavy bandwidth demands of the clients.

Suppose the range of the sector ends at a distance of around 5 Km.
Say, I have a client at a distance of 4.5 km. Instead of SXT as his CPE, I can attach a Basebox with another 5 GHz PCI card installed in in it. As this can help me both make a backhaul link with my main cell (Using rocket dish) site and also attach a sector to cover another 5 kms?

Just 30 clients per cell !!! Then I'm going to need many cells for 100+ users!
Basebox has a gigabit interface, hope it will be useful in serving the heavy bandwidth demands of the clients.

The system can handle more than 30 users /cell (i'm not sure if 100 connected radio can download in the same time...).
As i said, the problem on the bandwidth side, and not on number of clients.
If you sell only 512kbps, it's no problem. If you sell 5mbps average, with 10mbps burst, and 10 of 50 users are using it in the same time (on the same sector) you need to be able to push 50mbps downstream (plus ~10-20mbps upstream). I think, you will need 40mhz for this (since not all (if any) client will go with optimal radio communication).

(keep in mind, in P2P, 40mhz, MIMO you can push ~200mbps TCP data. 20Mhz a little bit less than half. and still optimal radio environment, highly focused high gain antenna, good radios. You will want to spend much less than this for client side, so you will go for SXT - and ofcourse that will not give the same quality for you)

Thinking like above, if you want to serve 100 nearby customers with 50mbps aggregated - go for a single omni.
If you want to give 3x50mbps aggregated - than go for 3x120deg sectors. that will give bigger coverage too.
If you need more bandwidth / cell, and/or bigger coverage, split up again to 4x90 or 6x60. That will give 4x50 (200mbps) or 6x50 (300mbps) site thruput.

You also have to feed this site - so go for licenced or 24ghz or fiber uplink.

If some clients are bigger distance than average, use 60cm MIMO dish antennas (for example with 912 board).
Keep in mind, if a client has low signal, it can take off airtime from the others!!!
(i mean, if most clients can go with 48mbps and some can go with 12mbps, until the slow can download 1mbyte, the faster could download 4mbyte - but cannot, since airtime used up)

If you want to give 3x50mbps aggregated - than go for 3x120deg sectors. that will give bigger coverage too.
If you need more bandwidth / cell, and/or bigger coverage, split up again to 4x90 or 6x60. That will give 4x50 (200mbps) or 6x50 (300mbps) site thruput.

This suggestion is really helpful.

If some clients are bigger distance than average, use 60cm MIMO dish antennas (for example with 912 board).

Basebox 5 with UBNT rocket dish. What say??

And yes my sites will be connected with optical fiber cables.

well, it can be basebox with ubnt dish, however:
- mikrotik now makes it's own dish, what is (they said) better than ubnt's and cheaper too
- basebox is a plastik box, with AP licence. for AP, i would go for it, but (immediately after being available) if would change to plastik box for RF elements's stationbox metal
- for client side the basebox is OK, but a 912 maybe cheaper.

if you have multiple clients nearby, maybe it's a good idea, to install a local repeater site (rb433GL with 1 uplink and 1 omni antenna). So the nearby clients will not need big antennas to the far base.

for client side the basebox is OK, but a 912 maybe cheaper.]

Can u plz. share the link of the 912.

http://routerboard.com/RB912UAG-5HPnD

i think, it's the same board as BaseBox has - but only client licence.