AC equipment and spectral scan problem

JoJo · Thu Sep 18, 2014 7:45 pm

Hi all,

I am testing the new AC RB921UAGS-5SHPacD and found this:

  MMM      MMM       KKK                          TTTTTTTTTTT      KKK
  MMMM    MMMM       KKK                          TTTTTTTTTTT      KKK
  MMM MMMM MMM  III  KKK  KKK  RRRRRR     OOOOOO      TTT     III  KKK  KKK
  MMM  MM  MMM  III  KKKKK     RRR  RRR  OOO  OOO     TTT     III  KKKKK
  MMM      MMM  III  KKK KKK   RRRRRR    OOO  OOO     TTT     III  KKK KKK
  MMM      MMM  III  KKK  KKK  RRR  RRR   OOOOOO      TTT     III  KKK  KKK

  MikroTik RouterOS 6.15 (c) 1999-2014       http://www.mikrotik.com/

[?]             Gives the list of available commands
command [?]     Gives help on the command and list of arguments

[Tab]           Completes the command/word. If the input is ambiguous,
                a second [Tab] gives possible options

/               Move up to base level
..              Move up one level
/command        Use command at the base level
[admin@MikroTik] > interface wireless spectral-scan range=5200-5300 duration=10 
number=0
failure: this device can not do spectral scan

Of course I'm meaning this error message:
failure: this device can not do spectral scan

Is this a software bug or does this chipset doesn't support this feature?

Thanks in advance,

trizcocho · Fri Sep 19, 2014 8:59 pm

this is a big problem,
is this true? spectral-scan does not work on ac equipment ?

WirelessRudy · Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:50 am

hmm, was it not so that you fist have to print the wireless interfaces?

\intererface wireless pr

and than choose '0' for the spectral scan.

I am not 100% sure but you can at least try this?

trizcocho · Sat Sep 20, 2014 10:46 am

  MMM      MMM       KKK                          TTTTTTTTTTT      KKK
  MMMM    MMMM       KKK                          TTTTTTTTTTT      KKK
  MMM MMMM MMM  III  KKK  KKK  RRRRRR     OOOOOO      TTT     III  KKK  KKK
  MMM  MM  MMM  III  KKKKK     RRR  RRR  OOO  OOO     TTT     III  KKKKK
  MMM      MMM  III  KKK KKK   RRRRRR    OOO  OOO     TTT     III  KKK KKK
  MMM      MMM  III  KKK  KKK  RRR  RRR   OOOOOO      TTT     III  KKK  KKK

  MikroTik RouterOS 6.19 (c) 1999-2014       http://www.mikrotik.com/

[?]             Gives the list of available commands
command [?]     Gives help on the command and list of arguments

[Tab]           Completes the command/word. If the input is ambiguous,
                a second [Tab] gives possible options

/               Move up to base level
..              Move up one level
/command        Use command at the base level
[master@MikroTik] > interface wireless 
[master@MikroTik] /interface wireless> print
Flags: X - disabled, R - running 
 0    name="wlan1" mtu=1500 mac-address=XX:XX:XX:XX:XX arp=enabled interface-type=Atheros AR9888 mode=ap-bridge ssid="XX" frequency=auto 
      band=5ghz-a/n/ac channel-width=20mhz scan-list=5100-5500 wireless-protocol=nv2 vlan-mode=no-tag vlan-id=1 wds-mode=disabled wds-default-bridge=none 
      wds-ignore-ssid=no bridge-mode=enabled default-authentication=no default-forwarding=yes default-ap-tx-limit=0 default-client-tx-limit=0 hide-ssid=no 
      security-profile=default compression=no 
[master@MikroTik] /interface wireless> spectral-scan 0 range=5ghz
failure: this device can not do spectral scan
[master@MikroTik] /interface wireless>

Hi, seems that no support spectral-scan

WirelessRudy · Sat Sep 20, 2014 12:58 pm

OK, that's no good then. Report it to MT.
Does the normal scan also not work? (I can't test it, don't have ac stuff yet...)

blingblouw · Sat Sep 20, 2014 3:58 pm

if I try a freq usage from winbox, my SXT reboots everytime (running 6.20rc10)

LK7R · Mon Sep 22, 2014 1:06 pm

My RB SXT G-5HPacD ROS v6.19 reboots every time i try to use freq usage too.

blue · Mon Sep 22, 2014 3:05 pm

Same problem with my 911G-5HPacD (aka Netbox5) link. Both devices reboots during freq. usage. Firmware is 3.17 and OS 6.19.
Also "Current tx power" is reporting all zeroes for everything!

In "Registration" under "signal" it only measures classic 6-54mbit rate signals. There are no signal for advanced rates!

Macek · Wed Oct 01, 2014 11:54 am

My all RB SXT ac ROS v6.20rc15 FW3.18.1 same problem - reboots during Freq. Usage, snooper

the problem is not with you?

Quicksivler · Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:14 am

Though this was supposed to be repaired.. tried it with 6.21.1 and it's still not working. This really needs to work if the hardware is to be viable

lucky79 · Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:18 am

I guess only the kernel failures have been fixed with 6.21, no news for spectral scan though..

What's new in 6.21 (2014-Oct-30 12:34):
*) wireless - fixed scanning tool crash for 802.11ac interfaces
*) wireless - fixed Nv2 kernel panic on 802.11ac interfaces

Quicksivler · Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:22 am

Use it all the time... how are we supposed to figure out where to set our channels????

Mon Nov 10, 2014 11:22 am

These features are simply not supported by the AC wireless chips, software can't be fixed as the hardware lacks this ability.
Above mentioned Changelog entries apply to Snooper and Scan

lucky79 · Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:43 pm

Hmm, thats not good news

But as far as I know the well known competitor is saying their AC will have the spectral scan feature so its a bit surprise to me that its not supported by the chipset. Howcome atheros could develop a chipset without this...

Mon Nov 10, 2014 1:00 pm

Hmm, thats not good news But as far as I know the well known competitor is saying their AC will have the spectral scan feature so its a bit surprise to me that its not supported by the chipset. Howcome atheros could develop a chipset without this...

I will investigate this and will post more details later today

lucky79 · Mon Nov 10, 2014 7:23 pm

Thanks very much Normis

klukoks · Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:38 pm

on sxt ac, 6.21.1, fw 3.17, for me scanning and frequency usage works well 4900-6100 just set only-n in wireless band, did not test over AC.
on ac set power to manual, all rates fixed power. does the job. makes it stable witch nv2 for me, link on 500 meters high noise.

Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:42 pm

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

lucky79 · Tue Nov 11, 2014 4:30 pm

Thats great news, thanks very much Normis

Lognet · Sat Dec 13, 2014 5:41 pm

Will you also include the TX POWER feature available again for AC?

We also found NV2 to be less stable than the other protocol with Atheros AC ships, up and down a lot.

jcbergmannjr · Sat Apr 25, 2015 3:55 pm

Meanwhile await eagerly. The AC technology is already being widely used by Internet service providers, at least here in Brazil.

WirelessRudy · Mon Apr 27, 2015 12:27 pm

Not having the ability to do a spectrum scan and not the ability to read the ac's unit power output makes it very hard to impossible to troubleshoot radio link issues.

I just replaced a rb911 by an Netmetal but I don't have the idea the link actually improved. So, is this now because the power output of the Netmetal is not what the specs promise me? I have no idea. Can't tell because can't read the output.

Or maybe I have too much interference on the link. Can't tell because I can't do a spectral test.
Can I do a scan? Well, although I have a signal in the -60 range, even after an only 3 secs scan on a limited band range in terminal it takes too long for the link to come back so the collected data in terminal is lost each time.

Sometimes, when I do the scan in terminal only 1 or 2 secs, I get the result back in the window but just before I really get the change to read the results the new winbox decides to terminate the window anyway (even the clock of the session already ran! So connection was there!) and all my info is gone again... pfffff.

So all I can do is a 1 or 2 sec wireless radio scan and during the split second the winbox windows stays alive with that info I have to make a window screen dumb before the connection closes to be able to study the results.... (in the screendump info)

And the scan is only for 1 or 2 seconds... hardly enough to find all active radios in a certain band range....

I am getting more and more frustrated about the way new developments are handled by MT.

soulflyhigh · Mon Apr 27, 2015 2:44 pm

We are also missing spectral scan...

@WirelessRudy
It is not a real solution but you can do a remote scan through IP telnet (doesn't work with MAC telnet).
After telneting to the wireless router device (from a pc or some other router) run "/in wi scan 0" and when scan stops (after 20-30 seconds) it will show you results for a moment in telnet session screen so if you're
fast enough hit the printscreen key in the right moment... after that you can paste it and see it
in any photo editor (for example MS Paint).

Regrads,
M.

WirelessRudy · Mon Apr 27, 2015 3:59 pm

We are also missing spectral scan...

@WirelessRudy
It is not a real solution but you can do a remote scan through IP telnet

Well, my first thought was; "that's exactly what I do!"....
But after some thinking....., I usually login with winbox to the remote router and start inside this winbox session a telnet session. But since the winbox session closes I also lose the telnet session.....

But now I tried it your way; Login to the local (well, the unit that stays alive because I enter on the ethernet side) router and from here open an ip-telnet session to the remote unit works much better!

I can do now a scan (set the range first, 300Mhz wide for instance) and

/ int wi scan 0 d=10

works very nice!
(the d=10 means a scan of 10 seconds... long enough for 300Mhz range to pickup even weaker signals)

When the remote units scans the link disconnect. After some secs de link connects again and then it still takes about 30 seconds or so but in the end the ip-telnet session from the 'local' router that has the remote router open is not disconnected and presents the scan result.
So, even after 10 seconds of scan!

That is better than my original modus operandi! In the my previous work methods I could never run a scan longer than 4 seconds because then the winbox session would drop, even on a very good link....

Quicksivler · Wed May 06, 2015 7:09 am

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

Any Idea when this will be done (or on top of the todo list... it's causing us to look at other hardware for the AC gear)

WirelessRudy · Wed May 06, 2015 11:26 am

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list
Any Idea when this will be done (or on top of the todo list... it's causing us to look at other hardware for the AC gear)

I put all ac purchase on a hold just because of that. How can I install devices if I can't even perform proper spectral study? Wondering how long it will take. I'm not waiting too long. Presently studying other vendor (not ubnt = crap) to see how the deliver....

boardman · Sun May 10, 2015 9:31 pm

BUMP

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list
Any Idea when this will be done (or on top of the todo list... it's causing us to look at other hardware for the AC gear)
I put all ac purchase on a hold just because of that. How can I install devices if I can't even perform proper spectral study? Wondering how long it will take. I'm not waiting too long. Presently studying other vendor (not ubnt = crap) to see how the deliver....

vozglobal · Mon May 11, 2015 8:08 pm

Hello

I have problem with a RB922uags with shipset model QCA9882-BR4A-R, The spectral scan not found an show this message: failure this device can not do spectral scan

anyone have any official response on this topic?

Thanks

n21roadie · Tue May 12, 2015 2:11 pm

I put all ac purchase on a hold just because of that. How can I install devices if I can't even perform proper spectral study? Wondering how long it will take. I'm not waiting too long. Presently studying other vendor (not ubnt = crap) to see how the deliver....

Any clue to who the other vender is ........

Tue May 12, 2015 5:06 pm

I put all ac purchase on a hold just because of that. How can I install devices if I can't even perform proper spectral study? Wondering how long it will take. I'm not waiting too long. Presently studying other vendor (not ubnt = crap) to see how the deliver....
Any clue to who the other vender is ........

At the moment I dont see a .ac ptmp solution which is working fine. MT has not done the SW to make it perform good, UBNT has a .ac only solution without backward compatibility, mimosa announced for late summer so I guess it will be january, for epmp nothing is announced.

WirelessRudy · Tue May 12, 2015 9:52 pm

I put all ac purchase on a hold just because of that. How can I install devices if I can't even perform proper spectral study? Wondering how long it will take. I'm not waiting too long. Presently studying other vendor (not ubnt = crap) to see how the deliver....
Any clue to who the other vender is ........
At the moment I dont see a .ac ptmp solution which is working fine. MT has not done the SW to make it perform good, UBNT has a .ac only solution without backward compatibility, mimosa announced for late summer so I guess it will be january, for epmp nothing is announced.

It seems to me some other 'legacy' vendors that missed sort of the boat in the last years are now trying to regain market share.
They only stand a change when they bring something new or better than what we have at affordable prices:

Been at the ASLAN in Madrid some weeks ago and the red line is "interference suppression" and high capacity wireless networking.

Its all about how complete is the OS and how matured the devices and how inventive the duplexing methods used...

I am looking at eCambium with the new ePMP range of devices. They come very interested prices, have gps sync, FDD (OFDM) and built in QoS with scalable up and download spectrum usage. The ePMP range is formfactor with ubnt airmax and airfibre antenna's which give them a wide range of radio-antenna combinations.

http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/products/epmp

I am also very much delighted by the new series of RF elements "simper" radios and antennas. They work both with MT, UBNT and ePMP radios but also have their own TM-ROS based radio development. Superp antennas.

Top of the bill range is RADWIN with their (mimo 'n') based TDD/FDD OFDM beamforming units. Very pricely though.

The new line of ubnt's (and I am NOT a fan of them!*) Airfiber AF5 with the new AF5X is very interesting for backhauls.

But basically they all are trying to find a way to create the best spectrum usage compared to plain 802.11a/n/c product range.

If you'd like to configure it all yourself and the spectrum is not too saturated MT is still a preffered product, also for its price.
But if you just want to grow and deliver better quality and speed than the competition in congested areas I think MT is running behind.....

MT ac (to be honest I don't know about other vendor's 'ac') can't do a spectral scan and is not showing power levels.
You are sort of driving in the fog...
Automatic power adjustments for usage demand is embedded in some vendor's OS but with MT that is all to be done manually (maybe some 'script kiddie' can do a nice job)
GPS sync is still not something MT has to offer. But it is clear that in very congested and overused spectrum environments you need to reuse frequencies, even on the tower, which makes it a demanded tool.
According some eCambium sales their radio protocol also guarantees 'remote tower' sync. So basically all AP's in a region will be in sync, that's a good thing.

Beamforming like it becomes a feature in the second wave ac is nice, but RADWIN (like some other high-end vendors as Ruckus (=forerunner in this), Aruba, Cisco etc.) is already offering in mimo 'n' technology and together with their propietarity protocol guarantees even nLOS or NLOS working, even for moving objects like in trains etc. Impressive.

Both eCambium and Radwin soft of nodded that over time during this year they will also come with ac based product line which with their experiances in prop. protocol and interference mitigationg technology will by no means outperform any MT product range if they go on in the speed of developement like they are now.....

*I'm not so much a fan of ubnt product range because specially the bottom range of products are not always that good in quality and the OS has definately limits.
But their development speed and goal is something MT might once have dreamed about but is a passed station for them. I don't think MT simply has the finances to meet ubnt in developments.

Motorola (eCambium) and RADWIN have a much bigger financial backbone so they can invest big in trying to snoop back some market share they (special motorola) lost to ubnt. And they are doing good! ePMP has a price range a bit higher than MT but its partialy compatible in the use of external antennas (so makes a system swap more fiable) and their OS features and protocol capacities with spectral use is much better imho than you can ever achieve with either MT or ubnt. (And for MT you need to work hard. You have to do it all yourself!

My only questionmark I still have; How would ePMP product peform in a fully congested tdma (airmax/nv2) environment.

I'm beeing told; "If you with your MT stuff have issues with interferences, you'll bet on ubnt its worse!" So now I am looking at a product that is both affordable and can maintain a high quality level in fully used spectrum.

Most of my thinking goes towards ePMP now. I only hate it to say MT farewell.....

Tue May 12, 2015 10:53 pm

At the moment I dont see a .ac ptmp solution which is working fine. MT has not done the SW to make it perform good, UBNT has a .ac only solution without backward compatibility, mimosa announced for late summer so I guess it will be january, for epmp nothing is announced.

It seems to me some other 'legacy' vendors that missed sort of the boat in the last years are now trying to regain market share.
They only stand a change when they bring something new or better than what we have at affordable prices:

Been at the ASLAN in Madrid some weeks ago and the red line is "interference suppression" and high capacity wireless networking.

Its all about how complete is the OS and how matured the devices and how inventive the duplexing methods used...

I am looking at eCambium with the new ePMP range of devices. They come very interested prices, have gps sync, FDD (OFDM) and built in QoS with scalable up and download spectrum usage. The ePMP range is formfactor with ubnt airmax and airfibre antenna's which give them a wide range of radio-antenna combinations.

http://www.cambiumnetworks.com/products/epmp

I am also very much delighted by the new series of RF elements "simper" radios and antennas. They work both with MT, UBNT and ePMP radios but also have their own TM-ROS based radio development. Superp antennas.

Top of the bill range is RADWIN with their (mimo 'n') based TDD/FDD OFDM beamforming units. Very pricely though.

The new line of ubnt's (and I am NOT a fan of them!*) Airfiber AF5 with the new AF5X is very interesting for backhauls.

But basically they all are trying to find a way to create the best spectrum usage compared to plain 802.11a/n/c product range.

If you'd like to configure it all yourself and the spectrum is not too saturated MT is still a preffered product, also for its price.
But if you just want to grow and deliver better quality and speed than the competition in congested areas I think MT is running behind.....

MT ac (to be honest I don't know about other vendor's 'ac') can't do a spectral scan and is not showing power levels.
You are sort of driving in the fog...
Automatic power adjustments for usage demand is embedded in some vendor's OS but with MT that is all to be done manually (maybe some 'script kiddie' can do a nice job)
GPS sync is still not something MT has to offer. But it is clear that in very congested and overused spectrum environments you need to reuse frequencies, even on the tower, which makes it a demanded tool.
According some eCambium sales their radio protocol also guarantees 'remote tower' sync. So basically all AP's in a region will be in sync, that's a good thing.

Beamforming like it becomes a feature in the second wave ac is nice, but RADWIN (like some other high-end vendors as Ruckus (=forerunner in this), Aruba, Cisco etc.) is already offering in mimo 'n' technology and together with their propietarity protocol guarantees even nLOS or NLOS working, even for moving objects like in trains etc. Impressive.

Both eCambium and Radwin soft of nodded that over time during this year they will also come with ac based product line which with their experiances in prop. protocol and interference mitigationg technology will by no means outperform any MT product range if they go on in the speed of developement like they are now.....

*I'm not so much a fan of ubnt product range because specially the bottom range of products are not always that good in quality and the OS has definately limits.
But their development speed and goal is something MT might once have dreamed about but is a passed station for them. I don't think MT simply has the finances to meet ubnt in developments.

Motorola (eCambium) and RADWIN have a much bigger financial backbone so they can invest big in trying to snoop back some market share they (special motorola) lost to ubnt. And they are doing good! ePMP has a price range a bit higher than MT but its partialy compatible in the use of external antennas (so makes a system swap more fiable) and their OS features and protocol capacities with spectral use is much better imho than you can ever achieve with either MT or ubnt. (And for MT you need to work hard. You have to do it all yourself!

My only questionmark I still have; How would ePMP product peform in a fully congested tdma (airmax/nv2) environment.

I'm beeing told; "If you with your MT stuff have issues with interferences, you'll bet on ubnt its worse!" So now I am looking at a product that is both affordable and can maintain a high quality level in fully used spectrum.

Most of my thinking goes towards ePMP now. I only hate it to say MT farewell.....[/quote]

Yes. ePMP is the best affordable 11n ptmp gear at the moment. We've them running. But it is only 11n and there might be no upgrade to .ac. Nevertheless this gear is not without problems.

The gear most promising at the moment is the mimosa solution. The ptp is very good and as ptmp is based on the same chipset I expect a good solution. But as they miss their milestones by some months in the past I expect there is nothing to deploy this year.

WirelessRudy · Wed May 13, 2015 8:15 pm

Yes. ePMP is the best affordable 11n ptmp gear at the moment. We've them running. But it is only 11n and there might be no upgrade to .ac. Nevertheless this gear is not without problems.

The gear most promising at the moment is the mimosa solution. The ptp is very good and as ptmp is based on the same chipset I expect a good solution. But as they miss their milestones by some months in the past I expect there is nothing to deploy this year.

I'm planning to attend a 'road show' of ePMP next week, hope to learn more on their gear but especially how they intent to tackle '3rd party' (tdma or airmax) interferences and what they consider to be the best strategy.

At the same time I've been notified and reading about mimosa. Actually this white paper http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Backhaul/TDMAexplains not only how they approax today's challences but it could (and 'should') be used as a guideline for every WISP, no matter what make, on how they should and can setup their networks. Hence I post it here. I think it makes a very good tutorial for fellow MT members too. And hopefully MT staff reads it and start to realize they need to improve their product and manuals a lot just to keep pace with the market developments...
And about missing milestones..., well, as MT users we know all about that.......

Regarding 'ac' on ePMP, the sales I spoke and asked for; "and what about 'ac'?" nodded sort of that he expect them to have it implemented somewhere end of this year.
And indeed, I think every manufacturer in the end will start to come up with 'ac' products. In the end it has better capacities and more room to play than 802.11a/n and for marketing anything that is not 'ac' in a year or two is 'outdated' and un-sellable.

Wed May 13, 2015 9:12 pm

Yes. ePMP is the best affordable 11n ptmp gear at the moment. We've them running. But it is only 11n and there might be no upgrade to .ac. Nevertheless this gear is not without problems.

The gear most promising at the moment is the mimosa solution. The ptp is very good and as ptmp is based on the same chipset I expect a good solution. But as they miss their milestones by some months in the past I expect there is nothing to deploy this year.
I'm planning to attend a 'road show' of ePMP next week, hope to learn more on their gear but especially how they intent to tackle '3rd party' (tdma or airmax) interferences and what they consider to be the best strategy.

At the same time I've been notified and reading about mimosa. Actually this white paper http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Backhaul/TDMAexplains not only how they approax today's challences but it could (and 'should') be used as a guideline for every WISP, no matter what make, on how they should and can setup their networks. Hence I post it here. I think it makes a very good tutorial for fellow MT members too. And hopefully MT staff reads it and start to realize they need to improve their product and manuals a lot just to keep pace with the market developments...

I also recommend the documentation from cambium. Esp. the ABAB deployment paper where Spectrum reuse using GPS is explained. This is interesting stuff a Wisp should read regardless what equipment he uses.

And about missing milestones..., well, as MT users we know all about that.......

Yes. This is normal behavior. Sales/marketing is faster than development. But we have to take this into account. Only equipment on stock can be deployed.

Regarding 'ac' on ePMP, the sales I spoke and asked for; "and what about 'ac'?" nodded sort of that he expect them to have it implemented somewhere end of this year.

Translate this to: "I dont know anything but tell me what you want to hear ....".

And indeed, I think every manufacturer in the end will start to come up with 'ac' products. In the end it has better capacities and more room to play than 802.11a/n and for marketing anything that is not 'ac' in a year or two is 'outdated' and un-sellable.

But it might not be compatible with the existing stuff or might work bad in a mixed environment. UBNT AC does not work with any other gear from UBNT. So you might end up to need a complete replacement.
We are a burned Cambium PMP320 User. At some point there were no updates and no error corrections (and there are a lot).
What I want to say. You get what you buy. Any sales promise is just that.

WirelessRudy · Wed May 13, 2015 10:48 pm

Regarding 'ac' on ePMP, the sales I spoke and asked for; "and what about 'ac'?" nodded sort of that he expect them to have it implemented somewhere end of this year.
Translate this to: "I dont know anything but tell me what you want to hear ....".

lol, true!

UBNT AC does not work with any other gear from UBNT.

Is that the case? Tjee, that's a bummer. But not for me. It means my competitors won't be changing their networks soon into ac. Most of the recent ubnt stuff I see is only 2/3 years old and with present rates hardly made any money for them yet....

You get what you buy. Any sales promise is just that.

Hence I try to understand and discover the basic technologies of the different makes. I long thought with MT I can do it all but to be honest, supposed you can it's too time consuming and not self learning nor adjusting. And with the complicated spectrum situacions coupled with the ever ingreasing demand I am looking for alternatives to stay in the league. Sticking with MT is more and more a path less appaeling to me... So if I go for something else I first need to know what works best for me.

If you feel like giving me some tips in the eCambium directions that goes a bit out of the idea of this forum don't be hesitated to send me a private message.

n21roadie · Thu May 14, 2015 3:02 pm

No doubt until someone invents a tunable bandpass filter that will only allow the desired channel bandwidth through, we will continue to purchase antenna's and test, some will work OK - depending on location placement / frequencies in use,etc. - others will not be worth the financial investment and time lost in testing?

WirelessRudy · Thu May 14, 2015 3:19 pm

No doubt until someone invents a tunable bandpass filter that will only allow the desired channel bandwidth through, we will continue to purchase antenna's and test, some will work OK - depending on location placement / frequencies in use,etc. - others will not be worth the financial investment and time lost in testing?

That's the problem a bit.
If I want to buy a smart phone I can buy a magazine or browse the internet and find that all the latest models have been testes by many, from the professionals towards the dumps that try if a drop from a plane in a vulcano make the new gadget malfunction.....
But on Wifi there is little real life tests and comparing done. We all have to guess and hope that what sales/tech of a product is making us to believe really pays out in your real day by day usage.

The only thing you can do is extensive study and understanding of many principles of use combined by just plain asking 'the other guy' (not seldom your competitor) how his experiences are.
A lot comes down to just 'try and fail, or not' yourself against expenses you might really not want to spend on failures.....

n21roadie · Thu May 14, 2015 4:25 pm

...........
But on Wifi there is little real life tests and comparing done. We all have to guess and hope that what sales/tech of a product is making us to believe really pays out in your real day by day usage.

The only thing you can do is extensive study and understanding of many principles of use combined by just plain asking 'the other guy' (not seldom your competitor) how his experiences are.
A lot comes down to just 'try and fail, or not' yourself against expenses you might really not want to spend on failures.....

Yes very true with little or no real world tests published, no before and after results at a site in their "case studies" apart from quoting technical information on the equipment installed.

Quicksivler · Sat Sep 12, 2015 12:09 am

Old topic but still important.... After a year is there any movement to get ac spectral scan and power working? Its a necessary thing and our network is now being forced into ac (not duemto,bandwidth or ac itself... Just need the gig ethernet port).... Installing without a spectral scan is installing blind. I interfere with my own equiptment half the time when installing these

andressis2k · Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:39 am

No answer from 1 year ago.

Your "to do" list must be quite extensive

WirelessRudy · Sat Sep 12, 2015 2:12 pm

I think to remember someone somewhere explained that the atheros chipset presently in use by mainstream radio manufacturers is not capable of performing a scan....

Hence you won't find such feature in Mikrotik, Ubiquity, TP-Link or all the other using same atheros chips.

I found some vendors making some high end 'ac' protocol Wireless systems that incorporate spectral scan functions that can even do permanent scanning while the link is not broken.
After some investigating I found they actually use a 2nd radio for it or can use one of the 'chains' to do a quick scan in using one of the 'multi antenna' setup for the scan.

So I don't think we will see such 'spectral-scan' feature soon in MT's product lines.

What I do though; When I replace 'n' type AP's or Backhaul radio's for newer more powerful 'ac' type of products I leave the 'old' n type units in place. (Ok, I need some more cables and switches etc.) and leave these as standby (switched off when not in use) and can use them for a scan when needed......
Now I can even run a spectral scan without shutting down the main radio!

andressis2k · Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:12 pm

I think to remember someone somewhere explained that the atheros chipset presently in use by mainstream radio manufacturers is not capable of performing a scan....

Hence you won't find such feature in Mikrotik, Ubiquity, TP-Link or all the other using same atheros chips.

I found some vendors making some high end 'ac' protocol Wireless systems that incorporate spectral scan functions that can even do permanent scanning while the link is not broken.
After some investigating I found they actually use a 2nd radio for it or can use one of the 'chains' to do a quick scan in using one of the 'multi antenna' setup for the scan.

So I don't think we will see such 'spectral-scan' feature soon in MT's product lines.

What I do though; When I replace 'n' type AP's or Backhaul radio's for newer more powerful 'ac' type of products I leave the 'old' n type units in place. (Ok, I need some more cables and switches etc.) and leave these as standby (switched off when not in use) and can use them for a scan when needed......
Now I can even run a spectral scan without shutting down the main radio!

Is Powerbeam AC400 a "high end" product?

Is slighly cheaper than Dinadish5... and can do Spectral Scan (even without disconnecting the link)

Even NBE-5AC-16 can do it, and I seriously doubt that a 70$ CPE has double radio...

Quicksivler · Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:12 pm

If you read earlier in the thread....

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

So... Mikrotik can implement Sepctral Scan... just havent reached it on their to do list.... Althrough this was posted Nov, 2014, (hence why I said it's been almost a year). Maybe it fell off the to-do list.

WirelessRudy · Sat Sep 12, 2015 6:49 pm

Is Powerbeam AC400 a "high end" product?

Is slighly cheaper than Dinadish5... and can do Spectral Scan (even without disconnecting the link)

Even NBE-5AC-16 can do it, and I seriously doubt that a 70$ CPE has double radio...

A Powerbeam AC400 I can't find on the ubnt website. But what comes similar as the Dynadish5 is the PowerBeam 5AC-500.

Here in Europe the latter cost € 142,- where the Dynadish is available for € 115,-

The PowerBeam 5AC-500 has indeed a second radio, hence it can do 'real time' scanning.
The Dynadish is a plastic dish, where Ubnt uses metal. That's a disappointment on behalf of MT.

So, for the 27€ extra you get a metal antenna with one dB less than the Dynadish but with a second radio for the scan.
MT has ROS (Although that is not always an advantage!

)

Imho it is not possible to do a spectral scan on any device if it doesn't have a second radio. Because a radio circuit can only do one thing at the time. Send (=speak) or Receive (=listening) and therefore it cannot Send/Receive to associate station and at the same time 'listen into the whole spectrum'.

And I fully agree with anyone believing that MT is loosing it when it comes to wireless. Would they embrace and spend more on wifi radio technology they could have been an easy choice for network builders. Now new players will not go for their products where the ones that ever started with them are sort of tied into them (propietairy tdma!) and look with 'regrettable eyes' to what the competition brings...

Sat Sep 12, 2015 8:29 pm

Is Powerbeam AC400 a "high end" product?

Is slighly cheaper than Dinadish5... and can do Spectral Scan (even without disconnecting the link)

Even NBE-5AC-16 can do it, and I seriously doubt that a 70$ CPE has double radio...
A Powerbeam AC400 I can't find on the ubnt website. But what comes similar as the Dynadish5 is the PowerBeam 5AC-500.

Here in Europe the latter cost € 142,- where the Dynadish is available for € 115,-

The PowerBeam 5AC-500 has indeed a second radio, hence it can do 'real time' scanning.
The Dynadish is a plastic dish, where Ubnt uses metal. That's a disappointment on behalf of MT.

So, for the 27€ extra you get a metal antenna with one dB less than the Dynadish but with a second radio for the scan.
MT has ROS (Although that is not always an advantage! )

Imho it is not possible to do a spectral scan on any device if it doesn't have a second radio. Because a radio circuit can only do one thing at the time. Send (=speak) or Receive (=listening) and therefore it cannot Send/Receive to associate station and at the same time 'listen into the whole spectrum'.

And I fully agree with anyone believing that MT is loosing it when it comes to wireless. Would they embrace and spend more on wifi radio technology they could have been an easy choice for network builders. Now new players will not go for their products where the ones that ever started with them are sort of tied into them (propietairy tdma!) and look with 'regrettable eyes' to what the competition brings...

The Quantenna chips do a background scan with one radio (B5 Lite). So seems to be possible. While the results are not opimal yet. We still see the own signal as foreign signal. So not only MT has wireless work to do.

I see Mimosa as the real competitor in the future as they do not use the same Atheros Chipset as MT,UBNT,Cambium.

Quantenna has .ac Wave 2 chipset running and announced Wave 3.

Just announced:
Integrated AP chipset for dual-band (5GHz and 2.4GHz), dual concurrent operation and management
• 160MHz channel support for 5GHz networks. When combined with 8x8 MIMO configuration, this offers 4x the capacity of 80MHz 4x4 MIMO networks
• Unique adaptive MIMO configuration
• Up to 1024 QAM modulation for 2.4GHz and 5GHz transmissions
• Supports rich set of interfaces to external hosts such as PCIe Gen3/Gen2, RXAUI, RGMII, and others

So it will be possible to build an AP with one card connected to 4 dualpol sectors doing MU-Mimo.

n21roadie · Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:27 pm

The Dynadish is a plastic dish, where Ubnt uses metal. That's a disappointment on behalf of MT.
.

What is the advantage of metal ? Metal rusts? I thought is was the parameters of the Parabolic reflector was one of the most important parts of the dish ?

Imho it is not possible to do a spectral scan on any device if it doesn't have a second radio. Because a radio circuit can only do one thing at the time. Send (=speak) or Receive (=listening) and therefore it cannot Send/Receive to associate station and at the same time 'listen into the whole spectrum'.
.

I really wouldn't have much faith in the results of a spectral scan done in close proximity to a radio antenna that is simultaneously transmitting (tx) and receiving (rx), also if the wireless"scan" was set from "Default" to for example to match the AP frequency then only results for AP frequency will be displayed?

And I fully agree with anyone believing that MT is loosing it when it comes to wireless. Would they embrace and spend more on wifi radio technology they could have been an easy choice for network builders. Now new players will not go for their products where the ones that ever started with them are sort of tied into them (propietairy tdma!) and look with 'regrettable eyes' to what the competition brings...

I agree totally with this and its a pity as there is a considerable WISP market out there, I read that maybe MT is going to
concentrate on home WiFi market which sadly they are going to lose as they cannot compete on price?

n21roadie · Sat Sep 12, 2015 9:33 pm

The Quantenna chips do a background scan with one radio (B5 Lite). So seems to be possible. While the results are not opimal yet. We still see the own signal as foreign signal. So not only MT has wireless work to do.

I see Mimosa as the real competitor in the future as they do not use the same Atheros Chipset as MT,UBNT,Cambium.

Quantenna has .ac Wave 2 chipset running and announced Wave 3.

Just announced:
Integrated AP chipset for dual-band (5GHz and 2.4GHz), dual concurrent operation and management
• 160MHz channel support for 5GHz networks. When combined with 8x8 MIMO configuration, this offers 4x the capacity of 80MHz 4x4 MIMO networks
• Unique adaptive MIMO configuration
• Up to 1024 QAM modulation for 2.4GHz and 5GHz transmissions
• Supports rich set of interfaces to external hosts such as PCIe Gen3/Gen2, RXAUI, RGMII, and others

So it will be possible to build an AP with one card connected to 4 dualpol sectors doing MU-Mimo.

Is the minimum of 160Mhz channel bandwidth requirement for this of any use if you don't have clean air on 5GHz band?

Sat Sep 12, 2015 11:36 pm

The Quantenna chips do a background scan with one radio (B5 Lite). So seems to be possible. While the results are not opimal yet. We still see the own signal as foreign signal. So not only MT has wireless work to do.

I see Mimosa as the real competitor in the future as they do not use the same Atheros Chipset as MT,UBNT,Cambium.

Quantenna has .ac Wave 2 chipset running and announced Wave 3.

Just announced:
Integrated AP chipset for dual-band (5GHz and 2.4GHz), dual concurrent operation and management
• 160MHz channel support for 5GHz networks. When combined with 8x8 MIMO configuration, this offers 4x the capacity of 80MHz 4x4 MIMO networks
• Unique adaptive MIMO configuration
• Up to 1024 QAM modulation for 2.4GHz and 5GHz transmissions
• Supports rich set of interfaces to external hosts such as PCIe Gen3/Gen2, RXAUI, RGMII, and others

So it will be possible to build an AP with one card connected to 4 dualpol sectors doing MU-Mimo.
Is the minimum of 160Mhz channel bandwidth requirement for this of any use if you don't have clean air on 5GHz band?

Minimum ? It is the maximum and will only be useful in seldom situations.

n21roadie · Sun Sep 13, 2015 12:15 am

Minimum ? It is the maximum and will only be useful in seldom situations.

http://www.mikrotik.com/download/share/ ... onTouw.pdf

Slide 15 - Check the actual RF Bandwidth being used

And what does ".....the maximum and will only be useful in seldom situations" actually mean ?

Quicksivler · Sun Sep 13, 2015 12:19 am

Imho it is not possible to do a spectral scan on any device if it doesn't have a second radio. Because a radio circuit can only do one thing at the time. Send (=speak) or Receive (=listening) and therefore it cannot Send/Receive to associate station and at the same time 'listen into the whole spectrum'.

I agree its not possilble to do a live scan without 2 radios. However, I can live without a live scan. I use the scan feature to select the best freqency when installing the units. If I need to do another scan usually it isn't a problem to take it offline in the middle of the night. The problem with mikrotik's ac is that there isnt even the possiblity to do a scan at all.

I find UBNT's radio software too limiting for most things. I do like RouterOS when it doesnt have bugs

Sun Sep 13, 2015 9:02 am

Imho it is not possible to do a spectral scan on any device if it doesn't have a second radio. Because a radio circuit can only do one thing at the time. Send (=speak) or Receive (=listening) and therefore it cannot Send/Receive to associate station and at the same time 'listen into the whole spectrum'.
I agree its not possilble to do a live scan without 2 radios. However, I can live without a live scan. I use the scan feature to select the best freqency when installing the units. If I need to do another scan usually it isn't a problem to take it offline in the middle of the night. The problem with mikrotik's ac is that there isnt even the possiblity to do a scan at all.

I find UBNT's radio software too limiting for most things. I do like RouterOS when it doesnt have bugs

It is possible to scan in background with one radio.

Gesendet von meinem SM-T705 mit Tapatalk

WirelessRudy · Sun Sep 13, 2015 3:43 pm

The Quantenna chips do a background scan with one radio (B5 Lite). So seems to be possible. While the results are not opimal yet. We still see the own signal as foreign signal. So not only MT has wireless work to do.

I see Mimosa as the real competitor in the future as they do not use the same Atheros Chipset as MT,UBNT,Cambium.

Quantenna has .ac Wave 2 chipset running and announced Wave 3.

Just announced:
Integrated AP chipset for dual-band (5GHz and 2.4GHz), dual concurrent operation and management
• 160MHz channel support for 5GHz networks. When combined with 8x8 MIMO configuration, this offers 4x the capacity of 80MHz 4x4 MIMO networks
• Unique adaptive MIMO configuration
• Up to 1024 QAM modulation for 2.4GHz and 5GHz transmissions
• Supports rich set of interfaces to external hosts such as PCIe Gen3/Gen2, RXAUI, RGMII, and others

So it will be possible to build an AP with one card connected to 4 dualpol sectors doing MU-Mimo.

Well, I'll tell you, I am already waiting for Mimosa. I had contact directly with the manufacturer because the promised release date for their AP's has been delayed until Q1 2016 here in Europe. They first want to fix some issues that came up on their B5 range of products. (Maybe the one you mentioned?)

2 years ago I did a outdoor test with Ruckus but at these days (only 'n') and their limited power combined with their high pricing and licensing policy I dropped them. Mimosa has several of Ruckus's promising technologies combined in their new antenna range and is focusing on the outdoor Wifi market. Together with their choice of chipset supplier and the pricing I think they are a very interesting alternative for MT. 'If you have to change your network you might as well go for the best affordable you can get...'

I've been with some Mimosa presentations and with all their documents I basically already made the decision to go for their stuff as soon as it hits the market. Until then I just have to survive with MT......

WirelessRudy · Sun Sep 13, 2015 4:07 pm

The Dynadish is a plastic dish, where Ubnt uses metal. That's a disappointment on behalf of MT.
.
What is the advantage of metal ? Metal rusts? I thought is was the parameters of the Parabolic reflector was one of the most important parts of the dish ?

For receiving yes. But for rejecting unwanted signals from other direction nothing beats metal..... I have some backhauls sitting just 25 meters away from the competition's AP's. Or I have other backhauls that for certain units are 90 degrees in their path. Basically the lesser noise I can get on the receiver the better.... microwaves just run through the plastic if the signal is strong enough...

I really wouldn't have much faith in the results of a spectral scan done in close proximity to a radio antenna that is simultaneously transmitting (tx) and receiving (rx), also if the wireless"scan" was set from "Default" to for example to match the AP frequency then only results for AP frequency will be displayed?

I agree. I also don't know how exactly they do it. Maybe the scan is only performed on the moment the main radio is listening? I don't know.

And I fully agree with anyone believing that MT is loosing it when it comes to wireless. Would they embrace and spend more on wifi radio technology they could have been an easy choice for network builders. Now new players will not go for their products where the ones that ever started with them are sort of tied into them (propietairy tdma!) and look with 'regrettable eyes' to what the competition brings...
I agree totally with this and its a pity as there is a considerable WISP market out there, I read that maybe MT is going to
concentrate on home WiFi market which sadly they are going to lose as they cannot compete on price?

Yeah, that would probably the beginning of the end. How can they aver beat SE Asia. I can already buy TP-Link routers in bulk for less than a € per unit...... (Ok, I have to buy a container full...)

No, I don't see a long lasting future for Mikrotik. Their Wifi will die first. Their routers and switches will probably survive somewhat longer but as long as they don't improve their sales (and software releases issues) they will be passed by much bigger competitors, or in the end bought.... I give them 5 more years and then they probably are gone.....
So if my network has to survive longer I have not so many options:
1. Stay with Mikrotik and loose in the end.
2. Go to ubnt which means a big change out of the network with all its problems and hardly any improvement.
3. Go for eCambium which also means a big cainge-out with same problems but since Motorola is bigger than ubnt I think in the long run it might be a better choice (Motorola has much more resources than ubnt. They probably one day might buy ubnt...)
3. Go for a really higher level of Wifi. This leaves me with only 2 options:
3a. LTE. But with the high investments and licenses for frequencies its a station to far for me....
3b. ac MU-Mimo. Mimosa has good cards in this. Radwin is there already doing the same, but if you look at their prices then they are not an option....

One thing you have to remind with Mikrotik is 'economic value' of your network. Although you might make money on your network, if you ever plan to sell it, who wants it? Exactly.........., their is not a lot value in that case.....
So its better to go for a system that really is the future and can make money for many years to come.... and that will than also increase your networks economic value.

WirelessRudy · Sun Sep 13, 2015 4:11 pm

Imho it is not possible to do a spectral scan on any device if it doesn't have a second radio. Because a radio circuit can only do one thing at the time. Send (=speak) or Receive (=listening) and therefore it cannot Send/Receive to associate station and at the same time 'listen into the whole spectrum'.
I agree its not possilble to do a live scan without 2 radios. However, I can live without a live scan. I use the scan feature to select the best freqency when installing the units. If I need to do another scan usually it isn't a problem to take it offline in the middle of the night. The problem with mikrotik's ac is that there isnt even the possiblity to do a scan at all.

I find UBNT's radio software too limiting for most things. I do like RouterOS when it doesnt have bugs

You hit the nail on its head twice!

WirelessRudy · Sun Sep 13, 2015 4:21 pm

Just look at this;
http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Access-P ... tions.html

and you start drooling....

If MT is not willing to loose it in Wifi over the next years than this is where they have to go... but they have to be fast....
We already made some calc's. One AP of theirs can take over the clients of presently 4 MT AP's. Since I have over 30 AP's in a 20 km radius with as many backhauls in going to Mimosa I will safe lots a spectrum. Combined with their advanced GPS sync it becomes even better.
This is not Mikrotik so should not be on this forum. But maybe they can learn from it to their, and our benefit. Mikrotik is so running behind if they don't come with mayor improvements on Wifi in the next year....

Sun Sep 13, 2015 5:29 pm

Just look at this;
http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Access-P ... tions.html

and you start drooling....

If MT is not willing to loose it in Wifi over the next years than this is where they have to go... but they have to be fast....
We already made some calc's. One AP of theirs can take over the clients of presently 4 MT AP's. Since I have over 30 AP's in a 20 km radius with as many backhauls in going to Mimosa I will safe lots a spectrum. Combined with their advanced GPS sync it becomes even better.
This is not Mikrotik so should not be on this forum. But maybe they can learn from it to their, and our benefit. Mikrotik is so running behind if they don't come with mayor improvements on Wifi in the next year....

Let's see how long Mimosa needs to get things done. They needed a long time for B5 and it is good but not perfect yet. So MT still has time. May be simper from rfelements helps. These antennas claim very sharp antenna patterns and some of them amazing FB Ratios. This might allow to increase the number of radios per tower and overcome scaling effects. I ordered 2 with .ac radios to test them back2back.

n21roadie · Sun Sep 13, 2015 7:57 pm

Just look at this;
http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Access-P ... tions.html

and you start drooling....

If MT is not willing to loose it in Wifi over the next years than this is where they have to go... but they have to be fast....
We already made some calc's. One AP of theirs can take over the clients of presently 4 MT AP's. Since I have over 30 AP's in a 20 km radius with as many backhauls in going to Mimosa I will safe lots a spectrum. Combined with their advanced GPS sync it becomes even better.
This is not Mikrotik so should not be on this forum. But maybe they can learn from it to their, and our benefit. Mikrotik is so running behind if they don't come with mayor improvements on Wifi in the next year....

Very interesting reading, great news for PTP and AP's but CPE's are a different story as the total replacement cost of all the CPE's with more expensive units on the network is going to be very high and another important consideration is the cost increase for new installations as usual customers want more speed for less money

Sun Sep 13, 2015 9:08 pm

Just look at this;
http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Access-P ... tions.html

and you start drooling....

If MT is not willing to loose it in Wifi over the next years than this is where they have to go... but they have to be fast....
We already made some calc's. One AP of theirs can take over the clients of presently 4 MT AP's. Since I have over 30 AP's in a 20 km radius with as many backhauls in going to Mimosa I will safe lots a spectrum. Combined with their advanced GPS sync it becomes even better.
This is not Mikrotik so should not be on this forum. But maybe they can learn from it to their, and our benefit. Mikrotik is so running behind if they don't come with mayor improvements on Wifi in the next year....
Very interesting reading, great news for PTP and AP's but CPE's are a different story as the total replacement cost of all the CPE's with more expensive units on the network is going to be very high and another important consideration is the cost increase for new installations as usual customers want more speed for less money

We have an always running update cycle. We have still rb133c boards with 11a single pol at customer sites. At the moment we install sxt 11n dual pol for normal and QRT ac for bigger/business customers. At some sites with higher density we have epmp. So when mimosa comes we won't drop everything at once. We take the available working equipment and slowly migrate where neccesary.
When there is work at a site we renew other stuff. So when we need an additional sector at a site we replace the feeding rb750up with a netonix switch and install the new sector with .ac. Then maybe the feeding uplink is to slow we install a B5 or SAF if we expect growth.

Quicksivler · Mon Sep 14, 2015 12:22 am

We have an always running update cycle. We have still rb133c boards with 11a single pol at customer sites. At the moment we install sxt 11n dual pol for normal and QRT ac for bigger/business customers. At some sites with higher density we have epmp. So when mimosa comes we won't drop everything at once. We take the available working equipment and slowly migrate where neccesary.
When there is work at a site we renew other stuff. So when we need an additional sector at a site we replace the feeding rb750up with a netonix switch and install the new sector with .ac. Then maybe the feeding uplink is to slow we install a B5 or SAF if we expect growth.

I agree.... We only once have replaced network equiptment outright (going from 802.11b to trango.... That was over 12 years ago). We then moved from to trango to 802.11g, then 802.11n, now 802.11ac, all running nv2. at this point all our clients have moved off g for speed reasons. But we keep the old running with the new. The way Mikrotik is running with software updates (Im in the process of downgrading to 6.27 as anything higher we loose packets and 30% of our speed) and lost features like spectral scan and power levels, I can see using something else for our 5th gen network.

I dont mind running our current mikrotik aps and new aps together as long as spectrum permits (and with 80-160mhz channels thats getting harder). The nice thing with migrating with mikrotik is everything is backwards compatible. Will have to see where things go in the future

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:19 am

Let's see how long Mimosa needs to get things done. They needed a long time for B5 and it is good but not perfect yet. So MT still has time. May be simper from rfelements helps. These antennas claim very sharp antenna patterns and some of them amazing FB Ratios. This might allow to increase the number of radios per tower and overcome scaling effects. I ordered 2 with .ac radios to test them back2back.

I learned about the simper antennas this spring on a wifi event in Madrid. They also showed their carrier sectors. I have one sector of theirs in use and indeed it does outperform anything else I used in same place before.
Indeed the new cone shape antenna are walhalla to me, but it took half a year for the other sectors to become available and last time I checked (last week) in Europe or on their Facebook site not a sign of end user availability yet on the simpers....
I just checked and only the same guy I saw in Madrid is now (10 sept) showing a first review.... nobody sells them yet as far as I know. But indeed, with these we have a step forward.
But no MU-MIMO and no gps sync if you'd stay with MT.

Basically our idea was to swap to eCambium because they could benefit from the simpers as well. At least they have GPS sync and some better propietarity protocol (I believe) than MT/UBNT. But I also asked head of sale Europe in regard to MU-MIMO and ac and by the looks I have been given they were in a development fase with that at best. (Probably a sales strategy; They have a higher end line of product (=mucho mass dinero!) that first will come with these developments and probably first need to gain market share in the Wifi industry like we are in. That needs low cost outdoor Wifi and hence they chose not to bring out the best they can do yet.....)

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:32 am

Just look at this;
http://mimosa.co/home/Products/Access-P ... tions.html

and you start drooling....

If MT is not willing to loose it in Wifi over the next years than this is where they have to go... but they have to be fast....
We already made some calc's. One AP of theirs can take over the clients of presently 4 MT AP's. Since I have over 30 AP's in a 20 km radius with as many backhauls in going to Mimosa I will safe lots a spectrum. Combined with their advanced GPS sync it becomes even better.
This is not Mikrotik so should not be on this forum. But maybe they can learn from it to their, and our benefit. Mikrotik is so running behind if they don't come with mayor improvements on Wifi in the next year....
Very interesting reading, great news for PTP and AP's but CPE's are a different story as the total replacement cost of all the CPE's with more expensive units on the network is going to be very high and another important consideration is the cost increase for new installations as usual customers want more speed for less money

Well, that is the situation we're in. Go on with MT is cheapest option but definitely not the best. And in the present market it has no capital value since 90% of the market in Europe is not MT.....
So if you don't foresee a long future any longer, you have ample options:
- Sell your customers. Since any new party needs to give them new CPE's your customers by themselves are not very valuable.
- Change the network yourself as long as you can finance it. Now you can go different options. Go for ubnt or eCambium which make your network more valuable but not any better in competing with others. So it has to happen fast and cash your network before its too late.
Or you can change your network and go for something new, like Mimosa. Time will tell if it makes your network valuable for sale, but it definitely will put you ahead of the competition so you can gain more customers at the expense of the competition and thus increase the capital value of your network.
But it has to happen within the next half a year. They rolling out LTE in Europe fast and we can only keep pace with their contracts if we can at least offer 25-30Mb without data limits etc. So we need high capacity networks. MT and ubnt will have problems in serving more than 15-20 CPE's per AP with these speeds. That's not going to do it.....

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:43 am

We have an always running update cycle. We have still rb133c boards with 11a single pol at customer sites. At the moment we install sxt 11n dual pol for normal and QRT ac for bigger/business customers. At some sites with higher density we have epmp. So when mimosa comes we won't drop everything at once. We take the available working equipment and slowly migrate where neccesary.
When there is work at a site we renew other stuff. So when we need an additional sector at a site we replace the feeding rb750up with a netonix switch and install the new sector with .ac. Then maybe the feeding uplink is to slow we install a B5 or SAF if we expect growth.

I just removed the last 802.11a RIC unit two weeks ago. But we still have some AP's running single chain with some 5% of my CPE's still running single chain 'n' NV2. We just installed the first 'ac' P2P links with some netmetals and high gain antennas. And indeed, I also have 1 Netonix in use and 4 more in boxes ready to be installed. They are sooo nice...

Indeed we'd plan to start replacing only there were its needed first and where we can afford it.
Up to now our business plan is based on monthly surplus revenues only available for investments. Because of the crisis its almost impossible (and if it is very expensive..) to finance big time upgrades of hardware. So it goes little by little.
But we are now looking at leasing and even some dealers start to offer financial arrangements now. (This made eCambium very interesting). The idea now can be you replace some of the bigger AP networks at once. 2/3 weeks of hard work and done and after that you pay the next 2 or 3 year off what you installed. That's opposite to what we do now.

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:14 am

Wifi in Europe and US and Asia is definitely changing. Some lessons I 'tasted' in the ASLAN Madrid spring 2015 is that Wifi as an end user solution for bringing internet to the remote ('rural') home and village is big business nowadays.

Technology is advancing and the average turnover in technology use in networks has a 4 year life time.
I started in 2003 with b/g went for a while to Horizontal polarization, then to 'a', further to 'n' and tdma (NV2) and now we have already some 'ac' units. But spectrum becomes more and more crowded. When I started we had only one or two 'other' small players in my region, and Wimax at small scale. Now we have at least 6 providers with in total over 40 AP's apart from the first LTE AP by Vodafone and more to come, all in a valley of only 20km's in surroundings......

At the same time subscription fees fell from € 50,- a month in 2003 to around 20€ where we offered 1Mb in 2003 which is now 10Mb at least!
The only positive to us in all this is that Wifi products and services become cheaper all the time, and are more capable. Backbone capacity I get now for less than 6/Mb symmetric. In 2002 I paid 450€/m for a 2Mb satellite line! Best I could get my hands on in these days were 4 coupled 8Mb ADSL lines! Now I can get Gb fibre if I want.....

One of the major issues that seems to be bothering all WISPS and thus the hardware manufacturers is interference and getting the best out of the spectrum. Hence all these new developments. Several manufacturers and even so many approaches.

Also, in the beginning of this century some big names let the low end of the wifi market ('last mile solutions' they called it. like it is of lesser importance....) for what it was; 'low benefit'. But now this part of the industry is probably becoming a bigger money maker, or at least of the same scale, as the high end and thus do we see some big players coming back into wifi... look to eCambium (=Motorola). And some other new players must have seen how fast ubn grew over the last years so they want a piece of the cake too. Hence we see more and more profesional players starting to eat away a bit of the market share that ubnt made over the last years. (honestly, their sales exploded..)

At the same time licensed LTE from old (the cell operators) or new (some new players do LTE only, for fixed connections only) are trying to get a piece of that same cake.
So, although the cake in some countries is still growing, there are more and more wanting to eat it. And the cake has to be more feature rich with bigger nutritious value in it... The next year will be very interesting to see what happens in (South-) Europe. And what happens with my network.......

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:15 am

By the way, any of you guys going to Madrid MUM this October? Would be nice to meet in person.....

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 1:15 pm

Well, lets see. I never bought with them because they are 5-10% more expensive than my house provider from Poland. And how come they can list something not even on the ubnt website nor seen anywhere else? But ok. One of the issues is that in the past I had poor experiences with ubnt. And every time again when I try something new from them I end up with a disappointment. Their sales talk, even in their official documentations, doesn't always meet in real life production use. And last, but not least. Although ROS is at times troubled with bugs, I just happen to prefer it 1000% above a pure web based approach. If you have some IP conflict or otherwise no IP connectivity you're lost..... with mac winbox (or telnet) we can still correct things. A priceless advantage.....

We're still installing Mikrotik CPEs. When you finished replacing them with new gear, I'll already recovered the investment.

Me too. After all, we still are getting new clients on board and with SXT's we have a good, cheap CPE.

Years ago, if you install a customer, he remained with you for many years. Today, people change operator every two years on average.

So you need a CPE that carry out its function, and very economical, so you can quickly recover the investment.

This is not the future? Mimosa, Cambium, etc either. Future is fiber.

I agree on the investment recovery. That's why the CPE stays our property. When the clients cancels we just take it back, revise it and use it again with a new client.
I don't agree on the fiber. In rural area it is just too expensive. Even in many urbanised areas in Spain its not an easy (=cheap) solution since streets are usually paved in concrete, buildings and houses usually have their utilities (power, phone lines and TV cable etc.) coming 'by air'. To deploy fibre here is expensive and you need permissions. To deploy you need to invest but still don't know how many subscribers you will actually get.... With wifi you need an AP and then each subscriber basically pays for his installation (direct or per monthly fee). Depending on what contract we have our investment recovered within 6-8 months.
Yeah, some people want 50+Mb download and streaming 3D UHDI TV receipt in the campo for € 20,- a month. Well sorry, that's not possible unless he pays a couple of K's to get his private fibre from nearest town to his house....

If I'd want the best, I'd go with PmP450 but... how can I amortize a 200$ CPE when a customer pays 15$/month in average?

Mikrotik gives us a powerful, stable, quite resistant to noise, and cheap CPE. It's all that I need today

True. MT is relative stable and good and cheap. I would prefer it in any situation where interference is not such an big issue. But like I said before, we are really having issues with throughputs on both PtMP and P2P networks due interferences. We need better systems to fight it. Sync, better protocols, circulair polarization etc. There are some very interesting developments in the market. Its just a pity MT is not advancing in that respect....

n21roadie · Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:26 pm

Well, that is the situation we're in. Go on with MT is cheapest option but definitely not the best. And in the present market it has no capital value since 90% of the market in Europe is not MT.....

The question I would ask is 90% of the domestic market prepared to pay an extra say 200% increase in CPE cost ?

So if you don't foresee a long future any longer, you have ample options:
- Sell your customers. Since any new party needs to give them new CPE's your customers by themselves are not very valuable.
- Change the network yourself as long as you can finance it. Now you can go different options. Go for ubnt or eCambium which make your network more valuable but not any better in competing with others. So it has to happen fast and cash your network before its too late.
Or you can change your network and go for something new, like Mimosa. Time will tell if it makes your network valuable for sale, but it definitely will put you ahead of the competition so you can gain more customers at the expense of the competition and thus increase the capital value of your network.
But it has to happen within the next half a year. They rolling out LTE in Europe fast and we can only keep pace with their contracts if we can at least offer 25-30Mb without data limits etc. So we need high capacity networks. MT and ubnt will have problems in serving more than 15-20 CPE's per AP with these speeds. That's not going to do it.....

There is another possible option in that WISP's move away from 2.4/5.8 unlicensed bands to a licensed band and finally get clean air for 80/160++Mhz bandwidth currently required for higher throughput?

n21roadie · Mon Sep 14, 2015 2:52 pm

We have an always running update cycle. We have still rb133c boards with 11a single pol at customer sites. At the moment we install sxt 11n dual pol for normal and QRT ac for bigger/business customers. At some sites with higher density we have epmp. So when mimosa comes we won't drop everything at once. We take the available working equipment and slowly migrate where neccesary.
When there is work at a site we renew other stuff. So when we need an additional sector at a site we replace the feeding rb750up with a netonix switch and install the new sector with .ac. Then maybe the feeding uplink is to slow we install a B5 or SAF if we expect growth.

I wouldn't class replacing AP's + CPE's as "update cycle" but would call it a major financial and network change,
Another consideration is that existing equipment may not co-exist with the new equipment, do you stop or proceed to change 100% of your wireless equipment on a busy site rather than in stages, I expect there will be a lot more of "wait and see" done by WISP's?

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 3:07 pm

The question I would ask is 90% of the domestic market prepared to pay an extra say 200% increase in CPE cost ?

No, but it is the operator that has to find a way of financing it. We still manage to charge the 'light' users for installation fee. (to cover a bit on the expense of the CPE) but many operators don't charge anything anymore. Router wifi, antenna, installation, all for free and no contractual term.... You can only do this if you have enough financial resources and go for the long term.... Big players don't need to make a profit, as long as they grow their bank is happy, their shareholders are happy and they just pump more money in their network to get bigger market share. And one day they either will be taken over for millions (and everybody happy, except maybe the client) or they are that big they take others (=growth again and again bank and shareholders are happy...)
I mean, we have a national player that is offering similar services as us, but no install costs, no hardware costs, no contract terms but still they pay 8 months worth of monthly subscription fee to the external installer. They probably only make money on a client after 2 years...... But that doesn't matter, the are growing and that is what financers want......

There is another possible option in that WISP's move away from 2.4/5.8 unlicensed bands to a licensed band and finally get clean air for 80/160++Mhz bandwidth currently required for higher throughput?

There is not enough spectrum available. So price is high thus only nation wide (or international) players can afford that. Its cheaper to stay in the unlicensed bands. But it depends a bit per country I suppose. Here in Spain some (coastal) regions are really overcrowded with Wisps but going into the centre of the country it's different. I asked Landatel where they make most of the sales and 90% is in coastal regions. Spain interior is still greatly a desert when it comes to WISPs.
My home country Holland is also different. 2-4 big national (international) players have 95% of the internet market. Only in remote areas some niche players are around. And they have the 5Ghz band almost only for themselves! But heho, initiatives are now made for financial grants and solutions to get even the most remote farms connected to fibre.... The aim is 100% coverage of highspeed internet (+100mB!) for everybody... Here in Spain I don't see that happening in the near future. Or it must be new wifi technology with new spectrum will become available that can do the same.. Not soon I believe...

Quicksivler · Mon Sep 14, 2015 3:16 pm

I remember way back when "n" came out that the guys at mikrotik said they were working on being able to sync the ap's to be able to reuse frequency. A soon to be released upgrade would allow card on the same routerboard (ie a 433) to sync across cards and later firmware would allow communication between routerboards for syncing. I remember I was excited about this.

Firmware came and went may times over and no syncing... What happened guys?

Wow.... Thread is really off topic from "wheres the spectral scan, and when can we see it implemented" I hope spectral scan isnt going to be like the syncing... Teasing us then nothing happens.

Oh, and while I think about it..... When will we be able to sync across APs?.. Answer from mikrotik either way would sure be nice.

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 3:27 pm

I remember way back when "n" came out that the guys at mikrotik said they were working on being able to sync the ap's to be able to reuse frequency. A soon to be released upgrade would allow card on the same routerboard (ie a 433) to sync across cards and later firmware would allow communication between routerboards for syncing. I remember I was excited about this.

Firmware came and went may times over and no syncing... What happened guys?

Wow.... Thread is really off topic from "wheres the spectral scan, and when can we see it implemented" I hope spectral scan isnt going to be like the syncing... Teasing us then nothing happens.

Oh, and while I think about it..... When will we be able to sync across APs?.. Answer from mikrotik either way would sure be nice.

haha... well, I hope to see some of the guys in Madrid next month. Will be asking about wifi in particular. I already asked normis to bring his boxing gloves. We have some sparring to do about their soft/firmware upgrade policy....

I hope lots of other read this tread too. The more users join in our point of view the more chance is MT might listen to us..
It might look like we are criticizing MT and pointing to other solutions but in the end the hope is MT will come up with better stuff in Wifi land..... They don't have to invent the wheel themselves always. Just look at what other are doing...

I am a Mikrotik fan but they need some critics at times to move....

Mon Sep 14, 2015 3:46 pm

Well, that is the situation we're in. Go on with MT is cheapest option but definitely not the best. And in the present market it has no capital value since 90% of the market in Europe is not MT.....
The question I would ask is 90% of the domestic market prepared to pay an extra say 200% increase in CPE cost ?

So if you don't foresee a long future any longer, you have ample options:
- Sell your customers. Since any new party needs to give them new CPE's your customers by themselves are not very valuable.
- Change the network yourself as long as you can finance it. Now you can go different options. Go for ubnt or eCambium which make your network more valuable but not any better in competing with others. So it has to happen fast and cash your network before its too late.
Or you can change your network and go for something new, like Mimosa. Time will tell if it makes your network valuable for sale, but it definitely will put you ahead of the competition so you can gain more customers at the expense of the competition and thus increase the capital value of your network.
But it has to happen within the next half a year. They rolling out LTE in Europe fast and we can only keep pace with their contracts if we can at least offer 25-30Mb without data limits etc. So we need high capacity networks. MT and ubnt will have problems in serving more than 15-20 CPE's per AP with these speeds. That's not going to do it.....
There is another possible option in that WISP's move away from 2.4/5.8 unlicensed bands to a licensed band and finally get clean air for 80/160++Mhz bandwidth currently required for higher throughput?

One possibility is to use licensed frequency for backhauls. This frees a lot of spectrum and is cheaper than licensing PTMP Frequencies. Another option is to use GPS-Synced Backhauls to reuse frequency. I dont say a product name as my last post got deleted (forgot this is a vendor forum). Other option is to use filtering technic or antenna technic to get more separation and a higher frequency reuse.
We considered LTE in 3,5 (we use MiMAX there) but the only product we got offered is to expensive for what it does and needs a lot of infrastructure due to it's LTE roots.

WirelessRudy · Mon Sep 14, 2015 5:24 pm

One possibility is to use licensed frequency for backhauls. This frees a lot of spectrum and is cheaper than licensing PTMP Frequencies. Another option is to use GPS-Synced Backhauls to reuse frequency. I dont say a product name as my last post got deleted (forgot this is a vendor forum). Other option is to use filtering technic or antenna technic to get more separation and a higher frequency reuse.
We considered LTE in 3,5 (we use MiMAX there) but the only product we got offered is to expensive for what it does and needs a lot of infrastructure due to it's LTE roots.

That will probably the next step for us, licenced backhauls. But with that other brand we spoke about we should be staying out of trouble a bit longer.
I use high gain antennas, even on short distances, for backhauls. Sometimes it needs to tune the radio down a lot.
I am also going to try 45º slant setup to stay even further out of interferences. And last, but not least, we make use of several building/houses and set some backhauls up in such a way they are 'invisible' from nearby radio's.
And on very short link I also play with some triple chain links... more data bandwidth in the same frequency and channel width.

I also looked at LTE, not so much for me, but a competitor has plans of offering it here in the region. They might have some interest in my client base. But I have question marks hanging around in my head;
- They really only want 1 or 2 towers in our region, covering some 5-10 thousand houses... All with one frequency? 30Mb for 20€. Lets say they get 1000 clients in a year? 20:1 usage ratio, 5Mb general daytime client usage. That still means they need to connect 200 clients at the same time and pump 1Gb to these. On average! Peak usage will be much higher. People already want streaming video. Now it is still a bit difficult to get that in the rural area. With LTE it should all be possible and thus people go for it and start to use it..

I have a 4G/LTE mobile from Orange. At times I am impressed, 30 to 35Mb downloads easy! And high uploads too. NLOS still gave me tests of 15-25Mb down. But at regular times, special in the summer with many holiday makers around, but in the same location, it dropped to only 2-4Mbps?
This is a pretty new tower in the region so not a lot of users yet. How is this going to work out when more and more users get 4G phones and start putting their movies directly online where others will look at them..? All streaming, yeah yeah, the sky is the limit. Well, G4/LTE can be good, but not that good......
Cel operators have data limits for their clients, this new company says they have not. They can't do that since they are aiming at the fixed installations for rural wifi like we server now. If they really come with 30Mb downloads for 20€ they conquer the market fast...... to collapse under the load soon after?

I don't know, it looks promising, but still have my doubts....

Mon Sep 14, 2015 6:04 pm

One possibility is to use licensed frequency for backhauls. This frees a lot of spectrum and is cheaper than licensing PTMP Frequencies. Another option is to use GPS-Synced Backhauls to reuse frequency. I dont say a product name as my last post got deleted (forgot this is a vendor forum). Other option is to use filtering technic or antenna technic to get more separation and a higher frequency reuse.
We considered LTE in 3,5 (we use MiMAX there) but the only product we got offered is to expensive for what it does and needs a lot of infrastructure due to it's LTE roots.
That will probably the next step for us, licenced backhauls. But with that other brand we spoke about we should be staying out of trouble a bit longer.

Start with licensed at the central backhauls. You'll love it. We now replace our first 366MBit FDX Link which runs for years without a single problem. We upgrade with 880MBit FDX and move the old link to a new location for the next few years. You forgot these links. They are there and they work.

I use high gain antennas, even on short distances, for backhauls. Sometimes it needs to tune the radio down a lot.
I am also going to try 45º slant setup to stay even further out of interferences. And last, but not least, we make use of several building/houses and set some backhauls up in such a way they are 'invisible' from nearby radio's.
And on very short link I also play with some triple chain links... more data bandwidth in the same frequency and channel width.

For short hops 24GHz is an option. We wait for an unsaid company claiming to bring cheap 60GHz links this year. This is for up to 1km.

I also looked at LTE, not so much for me, but a competitor has plans of offering it here in the region. They might have some interest in my client base. But I have question marks hanging around in my head;
- They really only want 1 or 2 towers in our region, covering some 5-10 thousand houses... All with one frequency? 30Mb for 20€. Lets say they get 1000 clients in a year? 20:1 usage ratio, 5Mb general daytime client usage. That still means they need to connect 200 clients at the same time and pump 1Gb to these. On average! Peak usage will be much higher. People already want streaming video. Now it is still a bit difficult to get that in the rural area. With LTE it should all be possible and thus people go for it and start to use it..

I have a 4G/LTE mobile from Orange. At times I am impressed, 30 to 35Mb downloads easy! And high uploads too. NLOS still gave me tests of 15-25Mb down. But at regular times, special in the summer with many holiday makers around, but in the same location, it dropped to only 2-4Mbps?
This is a pretty new tower in the region so not a lot of users yet. How is this going to work out when more and more users get 4G phones and start putting their blacklisted_site directly online where others will look at them..? All streaming, yeah yeah, the sky is the limit. Well, G4/LTE can be good, but not that good......
Cel operators have data limits for their clients, this new company says they have not. They can't do that since they are aiming at the fixed installations for rural wifi like we server now. If they really come with 30Mb downloads for 20€ they conquer the market fast...... to collapse under the load soon after?

I don't know, it looks promising, but still have my doubts....

The manufacterer offering us LTE for sure make it work. But asking deep questions to them you'll find a lot of promises for the future. A lot of their features are with firmware upgrades still to come. They do 64QAM downlink and lower on uplink. They may scale better due to more engineering and GPS Sync but they do not have a lot of bandwidth to share. You can buy an incredible amount of MT-APs for the price of one of their Sectors. So you sure offer better performance with more smaller sites. Microcells with high performance is the way to go.

n21roadie · Mon Sep 14, 2015 8:50 pm

..........................

Wow.... Thread is really off topic from "wheres the spectral scan, and when can we see it implemented" I hope spectral scan isnt going to be like the syncing... Teasing us then nothing happens. .................

.

This topic like many others has developed into a sort of classroom discussion of related items around the posted topic until
the teachers (MT) comes in to address the class, I hope I don't get a 1000 lines for this

Quicksivler · Mon Sep 14, 2015 11:06 pm

..........................

Wow.... Thread is really off topic from "wheres the spectral scan, and when can we see it implemented" I hope spectral scan isnt going to be like the syncing... Teasing us then nothing happens. .................

.
This topic like many others has developed into a sort of classroom discussion of related items around the posted topic until
the teachers (MT) comes in to address the class, I hope I don't get a 1000 lines for this

Well, I do hope that MT does comment on the posted topic... it's been a while without word from them and again, it's important to a lot of us I'd we are to consider continuing to use MT.

At the moment I'm trying to figure out if I want to use MT with 3.65ghz cards or use ubnt rockets.... unfortunately the ubnt has more features.

Also just to put my two cents in.... we only use 5ghz in our network for ptmp systems as licensed hardware (and licences) are too expensive. However, 90% of our back haul links are licenced or at least outside this range like 24ghz which gives us a lot of spectrum to play with in the 5ghz... 160mhz channels may be possible for a site with 4 sectors

letabawireless · Thu Feb 04, 2016 10:27 am

Hi there

Do any of you know if there is progress for the Spectral Scan on the AC ?

Quicksivler · Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:02 am

Of course they havent, why solve something users are complaining about. they now make an sxt with a 2.4ghz for programming... Why cant they put another 5ghz n radio in for doing a spectral scan...

WirelessRudy · Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:31 am

Its good that this tread is blown into new live again. It looks MT has started to work on wireless again so maybe by crying for it they might consider putting ac spectral scan, ac power output reading, nv2 background scan (or units with 2nd radio for scan) etc.
Wireless is at the moment the bottleneck in MT's product portfolio. We need a lot of improvements or many of us will move to another platform over time.....

letabawireless · Thu Feb 04, 2016 11:41 am

We have now installed some Mimosa links, with quite decent results, but its just a dumb bridge. Mikrotik can do so much more. The spectral scan will be a major improvement already.

WirelessRudy · Thu Feb 04, 2016 2:52 pm

We have now installed some Mimosa links, with quite decent results, but its just a dumb bridge. Mikrotik can do so much more. The spectral scan will be a major improvement already.

I've been look at them and was very enthiousiastic about them. Until I found their introduction of their AP's was delayed by some months (into early 2016 they said for Europe. Haven't heard anything yet...) because they needed to tackle issues they had on their backhaul units.
I also have been reading in some forums about dissapointing results on backhauls and actuall say some test somewhere where ubnt was outperforming them. Even a link with MT's netmetals beat them......

But in theory their's look very impressive. Especial their AP's technology could implement loads of improvements on the PtMP performance, even in crowded environments. But so far not available yet (in Europe at least...) and to use it you need to swap your whole AP network.
So if MT could improve their PtMP performance (even faster chipset, MuMiMo, background scan in ac, frequency hopping, etc. etc.) than I'm sticking with MT.
Swapping a 50 client PtMP MT network for Mimosa would cost me some 8 to 10K (€) and a shit load of work. So if MT could make me the ultimate AP I don't care if it cost me a couple of hundred euros..... at least the clients can just swap like that.....

WirelessRudy · Thu Feb 04, 2016 3:11 pm

hmmm,
Just getting an mail from my national provider; the new ubnt lite beam (5Ghz) is available for less then half the price of an ac SXT!

It has 7dB more gain. It lacks a gigabit port but who wants that on a client...

So MT, please a price drop soon on the SXT-ac and improvements on the AP's. If not I now really start thinking of swapping my network. Would be a pain but economics are king where performance is queen.....

Quicksivler · Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:20 pm

hmmm,
Just getting an mail from my national provider; the new ubnt lite beam (5Ghz) is available for less then half the price of an ac SXT!
It has 7dB more gain. It lacks a gigabit port but who wants that on a client...

So MT, please a price drop soon on the SXT-ac and improvements on the AP's. If not I now really start thinking of swapping my network. Would be a pain but economics are king where performance is queen.....

Is that the SXT-lite5 AC unit? My supplier has them for $52USD and the ubnt lite beam AC for $59USD.. not a big difference in price (although the 7 extra Db is nice).

I've been playing the the ubnt rocket m radios, mostly in the 3 ghz as we have a license. They seem to work fairly well. We do get better RF performace out of them then mikrotik n radios (might also be the frequency) but find that they lack the extra stuff we've come to use on the mikrotik with ROS, where as the ubnt are basically only useful to us as bridges meaning we still need to put a router at the customer location (mikrotik radios have a good full functioning router built in). Moving over to ubnt is not worth the hassel and cost and we are quite happy with the mikrotiks that are running on our network..... ubnt's AC units do have spectral scan though, which makes them appealing

WirelessRudy · Mon Feb 08, 2016 1:14 pm

hmmm,
Just getting an mail from my national provider; the new ubnt lite beam (5Ghz) is available for less then half the price of an ac SXT!
It has 7dB more gain. It lacks a gigabit port but who wants that on a client...

So MT, please a price drop soon on the SXT-ac and improvements on the AP's. If not I now really start thinking of swapping my network. Would be a pain but economics are king where performance is queen.....
Is that the SXT-lite5 AC unit? My supplier has them for $52USD and the ubnt lite beam AC for $59USD.. not a big difference in price (although the 7 extra Db is nice).

I've been playing the the ubnt rocket m radios, mostly in the 3 ghz as we have a license. They seem to work fairly well. We do get better RF performace out of them then mikrotik n radios (might also be the frequency) but find that they lack the extra stuff we've come to use on the mikrotik with ROS, where as the ubnt are basically only useful to us as bridges meaning we still need to put a router at the customer location (mikrotik radios have a good full functioning router built in). Moving over to ubnt is not worth the hassel and cost and we are quite happy with the mikrotiks that are running on our network..... ubnt's AC units do have spectral scan though, which makes them appealing

Well, have to agree I overlooked the SXT5GacD2n-Lite-AC, which is the lite5 AC. It's in fact € 4,40 cheaper than the ubnt LiteBeam.
The gain difference is huge though. 23dBi versus 16dBi = 7 dBi. More than twice the signal!
In nowadays crowdes spectrum gain is important. Also because the higher the gain (and thus s/n ratio) in 5Ghz that means narrower beam so less interfering signals from other direction you don't want (which again improves s/n ratio).
Combined with an airPrism Technology (if it works, maybe not, but it definately doesn't harm...) AP you can get much higher signal levels in your network to the clients or much, much better s/n ratios for the same clients than if they had to be served with SXT's.
The only next MT antenna that is comparable in gain is a QRT or you can build something yourself (RF-elements StationBox-XL5 with a rb911-5HnD) but than you at least pay double the price a ubnt lite beam.

I agree, pure calcutation wise its not economic to swap your hole network to ubnt. But looking at the overal performance, which will have an impact on your client base compared to the competion in a tight competative market Mikrotik really need to improve its antenna systems if it wants to stay in the race (and us with it...)

I really don't see the purpose to have a extra 2,4Ghz interface (only one connection!) embedded on a unit that is going to by use in bulk as CPE. Why would I want to log into a remote CPE by 2,4Ghz if I can by 5Ghz? And if I can't by 5Ghz, I have to go to the client and usually can log in from his premises by cable....
They'd better put 2,4Ghz interface on their netmetals. For AP's and/or backhauls there is a use...

For the CPE's they should come up with some 20-24dBi CPE device that meet the price of ubnt. I'll guess they can't bring their prices that low because they lack numbers..... and that only started years ago when they neglected their energy inputt in radio and antenna technology..... not its too late I am afraid....

Quicksivler · Mon Feb 08, 2016 3:03 pm

Ive been looking at the dynadish and it seems decent and inbetween the qrt and sxt pricewise. For me antenna design is important (why all our sector antennas and dishs are ubnt with mikrotik radios) but I also enjoy the high output radios. At 256 quam the mikrotik radios do 500mw where as the ubnt are around 150mw (If I remember correctly). 2 high power antennas at both ends can get you distance and power through noise. I have found I get better throughput in the 5ghz spectrum with mikrotik vs ubnt. Ive compaired the mikrotik sxt more to the nanostation

Since nothing works well with pure 802.11 protocol (in my experiance) one needs to chose one vendor over the other for the propriatary protocols. Ive liked the features of routeros over airos and if Im concerned about saving $20-30 on a 1 time purchase of cpe equiptment, Im running my isp wrong. CPE equiptment is the least of the expenses we run. Ive found over the last 12 years that so far mikrotik, properly configured, with proper antenna (if needed) out performs anything weve tried to date (in the same price catagory). Their integrated antennas are a little under designed, but the higher power tx makes up for it and one can always put an external antenna on.

But Mikrotiks still dont have AC spectral scan.

And I agree... The 2.4ghz in a cpe doesnt seem that useful, but only option I have is to plug into computer as I cant connect to a tdma 5ghz network with my laptop, so maybe slightly useful (havent bought any sxts with the 2.4ghz programming radios, so I dont know how useful they would be)

WirelessRudy · Mon Feb 08, 2016 5:19 pm

Ive been looking at the dynadish and it seems decent and inbetween the qrt and sxt pricewise. For me antenna design is important (why all our sector antennas and dishs are ubnt with mikrotik radios) but I also enjoy the high output radios. At 256 quam the mikrotik radios do 500mw where as the ubnt are around 150mw (If I remember correctly). 2 high power antennas at both ends can get you distance and power through noise. I have found I get better throughput in the 5ghz spectrum with mikrotik vs ubnt. Ive compaired the mikrotik sxt more to the nanostation

Since nothing works well with pure 802.11 protocol (in my experiance) one needs to chose one vendor over the other for the propriatary protocols. Ive liked the features of routeros over airos and if Im concerned about saving $20-30 on a 1 time purchase of cpe equiptment, Im running my isp wrong. CPE equiptment is the least of the expenses we run. Ive found over the last 12 years that so far mikrotik, properly configured, with proper antenna (if needed) out performs anything weve tried to date (in the same price catagory). Their integrated antennas are a little under designed, but the higher power tx makes up for it and one can always put an external antenna on.

But Mikrotiks still dont have AC spectral scan.

And I agree... The 2.4ghz in a cpe doesnt seem that useful, but only option I have is to plug into computer as I cant connect to a tdma 5ghz network with my laptop, so maybe slightly useful (havent bought any sxts with the 2.4ghz programming radios, so I dont know how useful they would be)

My Polish supplier is asking € 114,- for a Dynadish and he is one of the cheapest I can find. That's not a price I'd consider for a CPE unit!
I have two of these, one for a long time client that really needs high throughputs in a difficult situation and another the same that actually feeds 2 clients....
I can make an RF elements StationBox5-XL with routerboard for around € 80,- and only loose 1dB compared to the Dynadish. I think it's really only interesting when they can bring the price considerably down....

High power outputs is nice, but since most traffic goes AP => Client, the best signal has to be at the client. So receive gain is more important on CPE side than reverse. Whereas the AP usually already has lower output since the radio has to deliver its power to a sector or omni meaning that to get high receiving signal at the client we need more receive gain at the CPE than vice versa.
Also; when high gain CPE is used it is better in omitting disturbing signals from other AP's (that are most probably not y ours...)because it has a smaller beam.
PtP is another story. Here MT has not so much to fear. I buy the highest gain antenna's I think appropiate and with the netmetals we have plenty of power. Money is not such an issue here.

After a failed project with nanostations some years ago I focussed on MT (due the propiatairy tdma) but later realized that the dish designed CPE's from ubnt actually deliver better results when it comes to receive gain. Also ubnt was first in delivering stable airmax AP's with high power output on higher output antenna systems. These days of poor NV2 with relative lower signal levels than the competition cost me a lot of market share...
Its only that with fine tuning and the smart use of frequencies (a big jigzaw puzzle at times!) we could still manage to deliver reasonable throughputts at the clients and luckily the NV2 platform finally matured.

We, like many other WISP's we know, and there must be hundreds of them, are a relative small WISP. A couple of hundred users. With the tough competition that is actually fought out with 'who delivers the cheapest' internet, value of investment is very important to us. 5 Euros difference on a 600 client network means we have € 3.000,- more expenses than the competition if we are going to upgrade for instance from 'n' mimo to 'ac' mimo. And if you have to follow the technology and bandwidth demand trends, according some articles the WISP industry changes its technology every 4 years! (I am not far behind....)

High power SXT's with their standard 25 degrees beamwidth is also filling the sky with signals. With some 700 SXT's or Sextants (same issue) we litterly fill the air in our 30km radius valley. (Including ours I'll guess we have some 70 AP-mode working radio's in the same region!)

I think MT sort of gambled on the microstrip antenna's (simpler design) where ubnt choose more on reflective dish design with incorporated radios. When form factor versus hihg capacity and low absolute (no software reduction) noise levels are required a dish always wins imho.
Don't mistake me, I am a Mikrotik fan. I made that choice some years ago and still love the ROS. But at times I see with sad eyes that the industry is advancing on radio and antenna technology where MT is really getting a lag.
By putting these posts over and over again I hope they realize this and they need to put more efford on their Wifi products. It's not only about routing and ROS

boardman · Sat Mar 05, 2016 2:52 am

by normis » Tue Nov 11, 2014 3:42 pm
It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

Got to be a very loooooooong to-do list isn't it?

Quicksivler · Sat Mar 05, 2016 10:36 pm

by normis » Tue Nov 11, 2014 3:42 pm
It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

Got to be a very loooooooong to-do list isn't it?

Considering how necessary this is it should be on the top of the to-do list

boardman · Sat Mar 05, 2016 11:01 pm

Absolutely !!!

WirelessRudy · Sun Mar 06, 2016 3:37 pm

Priority
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Power output reading in ac units. (Needed tool in adjusting actual power levels in heavy congested spectrum and/or troubleshooting on poor looking/performing links.)

boardman · Sun Mar 06, 2016 6:18 pm

Should we keep dreaming ? !!!!

Sun Mar 06, 2016 11:34 pm

Let's keep dreaming but don't fell asleep.

boardman · Tue Mar 08, 2016 12:47 am

Yes indeed !!!

server8 · Tue Mar 08, 2016 12:38 pm

Spectral scan is usefull and we need it but I think the priority are:

1) sync
2) NV3

without this features it's hard to stay on the matket. I hope to ear soon news from mikrotik guys

Priority
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Power output reading in ac units. (Needed tool in adjusting actual power levels in heavy congested spectrum and/or troubleshooting on poor looking/performing links.)

Tue Mar 08, 2016 12:45 pm

Spectral scan is usefull and we need it but I think the priority are:

1) sync
2) NV3

without this features it's hard to stay on the matket. I hope to ear soon news from mikrotik guys

Priority
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Power output reading in ac units. (Needed tool in adjusting actual power levels in heavy congested spectrum and/or troubleshooting on poor looking/performing links.)

With more and more congested 5GHz band a background scan is necessary. We have to operate in DFS Bands as there is no other option so a normal scan on an AP disconnects all CPEs for 2 minutes. CAC time for AP + CAC time for CPE.

WirelessRudy · Tue Mar 08, 2016 2:58 pm

Spectral scan is usefull and we need it but I think the priority are:

1) sync
2) NV3

without this features it's hard to stay on the matket. I hope to ear soon news from mikrotik guys

Priority
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Power output reading in ac units. (Needed tool in adjusting actual power levels in heavy congested spectrum and/or troubleshooting on poor looking/performing links.)
With more and more congested 5GHz band a background scan is necessary. We have to operate in DFS Bands as there is no other option so a normal scan on an AP disconnects all CPEs for 2 minutes. CAC time for AP + CAC time for CPE.

Well, I didn't want to mention the sync option nor NV3 (? what does that mean anyway?) for simplicity. There is so much more in need of improvements.
Indeed, specially the sync option is important too. But you still need to have a proper scan tool before, and after your AP deployment to see how the spectrum is you intend to use. Sync'd or not...

And in regard to the scan / spectral scan/history: The spectral scan would do nice to have a SSID identyfier included. You don't only want to know which frequencies are in use or not, but also what SSID is it that has been hammering your channels. Now you have to run the spectral and also have to run a wireless scan (which need a wide setting in the radio's scan frequencie config) which makes things a bit more complicated.
Every smart phone can be equipped with an simple app that is not only telling me which frequencies are in use, but also what are the SSID's. Why can't Mikrotik not embed something similar?

And where a spectral scan would reveal all kinds of frequencie usage (up to what level?) it would therefore even nicer to know if a bandwidht usage has an SSID attached to it (and thus is wifi) or it might be a source that is not Wifi related.
(Could a spectral scan not also identify bluetooth or other 802.11 protocol using wireless? And are there not other type of protocols that would be standarized but not 802.11?? All it needs is a filter that listens for handshaking protocols of the diferent types. That's just software?)

Anyway, my new priority would now be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.
What comes after this I have no idea. But its 100% for sure MT needs to start developing more and faster its software wireless platform.

boardman · Tue Mar 08, 2016 8:34 pm

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.

server8 · Thu Mar 10, 2016 12:25 pm

The main question is mikrotik developing this features? Maybe we are speaking about hot air....

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.

WirelessRudy · Thu Mar 10, 2016 12:30 pm

The main question is mikrotik developing this features? Maybe we are speaking about hot air....

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.

Well, if they are not, we all might be better start looking for replacement. The wifi industry is ever advancing, if they don't move in not too long they will loose the wifi market. Which would be a pity.

I'll guess we should just keep on complaining and hopefully they hear us. The more complaints, the more change they will do something...

server8 · Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:11 am

Well, if they are not, we all might be better start looking for replacement. The wifi industry is ever advancing, if they don't move in not too long they will loose the wifi market. Which would be a pity.

I'll guess we should just keep on complaining and hopefully they hear us. The more complaints, the more change they will do something...

I 'd like to understand the silence of mikrotik about this questions!!!

Fri Mar 11, 2016 10:39 am

Well, if they are not, we all might be better start looking for replacement. The wifi industry is ever advancing, if they don't move in not too long they will loose the wifi market. Which would be a pity.

I'll guess we should just keep on complaining and hopefully they hear us. The more complaints, the more change they will do something...
I 'd like to understand the silence of mikrotik about this questions!!!

Limited resources.

Quicksivler · Fri Mar 11, 2016 11:26 am

Well, if they are not, we all might be better start looking for replacement. The wifi industry is ever advancing, if they don't move in not too long they will loose the wifi market. Which would be a pity.

I'll guess we should just keep on complaining and hopefully they hear us. The more complaints, the more change they will do something...
I 'd like to understand the silence of mikrotik about this questions!!!

I think we all would!

WirelessRudy · Fri Mar 11, 2016 12:42 pm

Well, if they are not, we all might be better start looking for replacement. The wifi industry is ever advancing, if they don't move in not too long they will loose the wifi market. Which would be a pity.

I'll guess we should just keep on complaining and hopefully they hear us. The more complaints, the more change they will do something...
I 'd like to understand the silence of mikrotik about this questions!!!
I think we all would!

Nobody at the Mum asked the question in private? And could he/she maybe share the answers with us? That would be nice!
(Next week there is a MUM in Russia. Anybody going there??

andressis2k · Fri May 13, 2016 11:23 pm

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.

Totally agree, but don't forget 10MHz support for AC chipsets

We can't install last products (Netmetal, mantbox, dynadish...), cause spectrum here is hardly congested, and we must use 10MHz channel on PtP and PTMP links

"Isn't supported by hardware" isn't a convincent answer. The U brand supports spectral scan (even without disconecting the link) and 5/10mhz channel width...

boardman · Sat May 14, 2016 2:07 am

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.
Totally agree, but don't forget 10MHz support for AC chipsets

We can't install last products (Netmetal, mantbox, dynadish...), cause spectrum here is hardly congested, and we must use 10MHz channel on PtP and PTMP links

"Isn't supported by hardware" isn't a convincent answer. The U brand supports spectral scan (even without disconecting the link) and 5/10mhz channel width...

Not to mention the Mim.. brand

andressis2k · Sat May 14, 2016 2:12 am

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.
Totally agree, but don't forget 10MHz support for AC chipsets

We can't install last products (Netmetal, mantbox, dynadish...), cause spectrum here is hardly congested, and we must use 10MHz channel on PtP and PTMP links

"Isn't supported by hardware" isn't a convincent answer. The U brand supports spectral scan (even without disconecting the link) and 5/10mhz channel width...
Not to mention the Mim.. brand

The Orange M brand has lots of advantages and improvments, but doesn't support 10MHz channels

boardman · Sat May 14, 2016 3:44 am

Totally agree, but don't forget 10MHz support for AC chipsets

We can't install last products (Netmetal, mantbox, dynadish...), cause spectrum here is hardly congested, and we must use 10MHz channel on PtP and PTMP links

"Isn't supported by hardware" isn't a convincent answer. The U brand supports spectral scan (even without disconecting the link) and 5/10mhz channel width...
Not to mention the Mim.. brand
The Orange M brand has lots of advantages and improvments, but doesn't support 10MHz channels

Got it... Thanks for the clarification

WirelessRudy · Sat May 14, 2016 11:05 am

"U brand", "Orange M" brand, "Mim brand"; What are you guys talking about?

Quicksivler · Sat May 14, 2016 11:34 am

"U brand", "Orange M" brand, "Mim brand"; What are you guys talking about?

I'm guessing there's a reason why they arn't using the manufacturers names..... dont know why though.. and can't think of "Orange M"

WirelessRudy · Sat May 14, 2016 11:43 am

"U brand", "Orange M" brand, "Mim brand"; What are you guys talking about?
I'm guessing there's a reason why they arn't using the manufacturers names..... dont know why though.. and can't think of "Orange M"

hmm "U-brand" = Ubiquity, "Mim brand" = Mimosa, "Orange brand" = ??? (Orange, mobile phone operator in Europe? Don't think so.) Could be Radwin. They use a lot of orange in their prospects and webpage etc....

So, we've said it....

andressis2k · Sat May 14, 2016 2:10 pm

"Orange M":

Don't forget this is a manufacturer official forum. In most of manufacturer forums, is strictly forbidden mention or write about competitors brands

WirelessRudy · Sat May 14, 2016 2:52 pm

"Orange M":

Don't forget this is a manufacturer official forum. In most of manufacturer forums, is strictly forbidden mention or write about competitors brands

Yes, but this is Mikrotik forum. We discussed others before and name others if of need. This doesn't mean just plain promotion to the other product.
When we name others, we usually should name more than one and in a crictial way.
It's more to show that Mikrotik can do the same or better than others, or give suggestion to Mikrotik staff in what direction they should move to improve their product line....

Just banning the naming of other product would be short sighted and ignorant. Everybody looks somewhere else and compares. Like I need to keep an eye on what my competition does do to adjust my sales strategy. I'd prefer my clients to tell me if the comp is offering better conditions, so I can adjust. Therefore Mikrotik staff should be happy to the mentioning of other, as long as it is done with good intentions.

So relax, name what you want but in a sensible way......

jondavy · Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:15 pm

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.

and
no. 6: 10mhz channel-width

I will download it from the tower and put back the SXT SA5
because I had not good experience with MantBox5

boardman · Mon Sep 12, 2016 9:31 pm

Let's keep praying for this before the hell freezes over ...

Can't be more agree

Priority should be like:
no. 1: Spectral scan / history on ac units.
no. 2: Spectral scan / history in background for ANY wireless unit.
no. 3: Sync
no. 4; SSID (and other) identifying capability included in the same spectral scan process.
no. 5: Power output reading in ac units.
and
no. 6: 10mhz channel-width

I will download it from the tower and put back the SXT SA5
because I had not good experience with MantBox5

letabawireless · Tue Sep 13, 2016 12:07 am

You know what I don't get. Just like Nokia, Blackberry, and many other examples; too little, too late. Mikrotik has something extra-ordinary. If they could only implement these mentioned features, they will be right up there with the big boys. Unfortunately its seems they do not think that this is relevant or important. They feel there is not enough revenue in wireless to continue advancing it. It is sad really. When you have a whole network deployed with 1000's of Mikrotiks, only to come to the conclusion that you are getting all the more closer to hitting the sealing.
The response we get from Mikrotik on this post, is evident of that. I think they replied once ?

IntrusDave · Tue Sep 13, 2016 12:28 am

Poorman's spectrum analyzer?

Yes, lots of hardware has spectral scan.. but anyone in the business wouldn't use it. If you need to do a real scan, you use hardware designed for that. Hell, even the cheap MetaGeek WiSpy is better than a WiFi radio that has to channel hop to scan.

boardman · Tue Sep 13, 2016 1:24 am

MetaGeek, certainly can do the job. the problem is you have to climb a tower install the spectrum scanner, do your tests, select the best channel, next week all the wireless check-board has shifted, you have to climb again, install the scanner, do your tests, select best channel... 2 months later same story... I'm positively convinced MKtik should have a spectrum analyzer included / embedded.

Best

Poorman's spectrum analyzer?

Yes, lots of hardware has spectral scan.. but anyone in the business wouldn't use it. If you need to do a real scan, you use hardware designed for that. Hell, even the cheap MetaGeek WiSpy is better than a WiFi radio that has to channel hop to scan.

pospanko · Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:51 am

Any news about this?
I would like someone come from MT to my company and try to check links as i do last few months. Without spectral scan we are doomed. It's major tool for us. You should implement futures like this even before putting new chipsets to market.

Quicksivler · Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:21 am

Any news about this?
I would like someone come from MT to my company and try to check links as i do last few months. Without spectral scan we are doomed. It's major tool for us. You should implement futures like this even before putting new chipsets to market.

I agree but this mikrotik seems to ignore us

letabawireless · Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:53 am

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

Hi Normis - 2 years have passed - is this still in the planning or not ? What we need to decide is if we have to forklift our PtMP network and replace it with something that can GPS sync and also spectral analysis. This would absolutely complete the Mikrotik family in my opinion - and save us a truckload of money. Please Mikrotik, we are desperate !!

honzam · Tue Dec 20, 2016 7:32 pm

We also still waiting for spectral scan

networkfudge · Tue Dec 20, 2016 9:01 pm

The absence of spectral scan/history features make working with NetMetal and other Mtik AC radios a bit like a stab in the dark.

Mikrotik: you shone a bright light in the way of achieving wireless perfection with these fine weapons, why did you take them away from us?

How are we supposed to properly fine tune a troubleshoot wireless links on AC?

Let me tell you: With a lot of guessing and a lot of luck!

It's like performing surgery with.. a kitchen knife: Of course it's possible but the result won't be nearly as good as with a surgical scalpel!

All jokes aside, if anyone from Mikrotik reads this: Please prioritize the reinstation of spectral scan/history as a matter of urgency.

Your customers count on them to do their job properly.

honzam · Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:11 am

Any news in 2017? We need spectral-history for AC boards

letabawireless · Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:19 am

Every time I get a reply email, my hopes shoot through the roof ! Only to find the Mikrotik is still M.I.A on this. Such a pity.

pospanko · Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:25 am

I'll start sending invoices to MT for extra cost I have because we don't have this

marrold · Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:29 am

letabawireless · Thu Jan 12, 2017 11:30 am

Hi there

I realise that the forum is not a paid service, however; in 2 years, we have had no real updated response from Mikrotik. We are being unwillingly forced to look at alternatives as we cannot properly utilize the AC products without a spectrum analyzer. The fact is also that the bigger hardware are built only into the AC products, so we are limited in that respect also.

I agree that I as a customer have no knowledge as to what it intales to introduce a spectral scanner in the AC products, but our network consists of 70 highsites, and we have a Mikrotik only network. Now we are stuck as we cannot introduce AC PtMP solutions because of our dense towers.

The only 2 features that seperate Mikrotik from Carrier Class Wireless solutions, are spectral analysis, and GPS sync. It might be too little too late when you finally do it, but it is of great expense into our profit margin when we have to forklift the PtMP Mikrotik network, for something like Mimosa, Cambium and the likes. Also, we really love Mikrotik and would genuinely stay with it ! If we can just utilize the industry standards that are implemented so many other vendors.

I sincerely hope this reaches someone with actual power at Mikrotik, and that you would be able to give us a timeline on this.

Ciambot · Tue Jan 17, 2017 7:52 pm

The only 2 features that seperate Mikrotik from Carrier Class Wireless solutions, are spectral analysis, and GPS sync.

Better filters, MU-MIMO, more flexible wireless (change frequency without lost connections, double frequency, spearate channels...), better wireless protocol, auto-balancing...the work is hard and i don't see the start.

2jarek · Wed Jan 18, 2017 7:00 pm

The only 2 features that seperate Mikrotik from Carrier Class Wireless solutions, are spectral analysis, and GPS sync.

Better filters, MU-MIMO, more flexible wireless (change frequency without lost connections, double frequency, spearate channels...), better wireless protocol, auto-balancing...the work is hard and i don't see the start.

& real fdd 75/25 mode for AP need DL speed for customers no symmetric 50/50

tonymobile · Tue Feb 28, 2017 10:42 pm

It seems clear that mirotik clearly does not want to invest on wireless, MT now wants to sell just ccr

blue · Mon Mar 13, 2017 9:28 pm

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

This post is from 11. November 2014!!!

More than 2 years passed. Sad, very sad

mistry7 · Tue Mar 14, 2017 8:08 am

Mikrotik doesnt interest in this Feature.
This is The hard truth.

We will Never See:
GPS
NV2 with selectable Rates like 75/25
802.11ad
And much more, because Wireless is not longer Main Focus for Mikrotik Products.

We have seen it The Last years, Why SXT ac releases more then 3 years before Omnitik Af or mant15s?
They just dont care!

Mistry7

motorola · Sat Apr 01, 2017 9:22 pm

Scanning does not work spectral-history SXT HG5 ac r2, while the radio mode the ap brige menu tx power shows the void

motorola · Sun Apr 02, 2017 8:14 am

Fix it please

motorola · Tue Apr 04, 2017 6:54 pm

Does anyone else know about this problem?

mistry7 · Wed Apr 05, 2017 9:24 pm

Does anyone else know about this problem?

We are waiting 3 years for that "feature"
mikrotik miss this in AC-Hardware.

taduikis · Thu Apr 20, 2017 10:54 am

Well, with recent competition from mobile operators, for those, who are based on MT-only networks, sad days are comming.. Clients are demanding higher throughput, simply because content dictates the need for it. I've been exploring countless of options of what to do to survive, and currently I came with such options:
- deploy fiber where you can. It's expensive, but less expensive long term, when you don't need to replace radios every 2 years or so..
- use narrow beam antennas, like horns and keep low client count per AP. It works better with N than with AC for me. I use good old RB912s.
- wait for Cambium to complete their Elevate program for MT hardware. I've seen network where only AP's have been replaced and CPEs were left Ubnt. The performace was staggering..

We've already dropped our MT wireless purchases by 80%, and eventually we'll stop buying them, because lots of equipment is left after migration and nothing new to choose from.

I really like RouterOS, The Dude, all the MT good features: 10-30V DC input, PoE in/out ports, SFP, etc.. For years I criticized other vendors web management and adored the power of ROS.. But today I'd do anything for performance, so slowly we're moving to other brand (all the new APs in new territories are installed using non-MT hardware) and waiting for solutions to upgrade our existing network without replacing thousands of MT CPEs on client premises.. What would prevent me from doing that is some wireless miracle from MT side. To my opinion it's not impossible, because others have done it and achieved some increadible results with the same Atheros based hardware. GPS Sync, 75/25 TDD, beamforming, adj. channel filtering is the key components for it. You'd only need to replace AP side equipment to do that, some features, like 75/25 dl/ul ratio, to my opinion, could be done already by software.. So I don't really know what are they waiting for.

But after waiting for AC spectral scan for more than 2 yrs, the message is clear, we're all on our own..

soulflyhigh · Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:47 am

Well, with recent competition from mobile operators, for those, who are based on MT-only networks, sad days are comming.. Clients are demanding higher throughput, simply because content dictates the need for it. I've been exploring countless of options of what to do to survive, and currently I came with such options:
- deploy fiber where you can. It's expensive, but less expensive long term, when you don't need to replace radios every 2 years or so..
- use narrow beam antennas, like horns and keep low client count per AP. It works better with N than with AC for me. I use good old RB912s.
- wait for Cambium to complete their Elevate program for MT hardware. I've seen network where only AP's have been replaced and CPEs were left Ubnt. The performace was staggering..

We've already dropped our MT wireless purchases by 80%, and eventually we'll stop buying them, because lots of equipment is left after migration and nothing new to choose from.

I really like RouterOS, The Dude, all the MT good features: 10-30V DC input, PoE in/out ports, SFP, etc.. For years I criticized other vendors web management and adored the power of ROS.. But today I'd do anything for performance, so slowly we're moving to other brand (all the new APs in new territories are installed using non-MT hardware) and waiting for solutions to upgrade our existing network without replacing thousands of MT CPEs on client premises.. What would prevent me from doing that is some wireless miracle from MT side. To my opinion it's not impossible, because others have done it and achieved some increadible results with the same Atheros based hardware. GPS Sync, 75/25 TDD, beamforming, adj. channel filtering is the key components for it. You'd only need to replace AP side equipment to do that, some features, like 75/25 dl/ul ratio, to my opinion, could be done already by software.. So I don't really know what are they waiting for.

But after waiting for AC spectral scan for more than 2 yrs, the message is clear, we're all on our own..

I completely agree with taduikis.
It seems that switch to new p2mp radio platform is the only option left to survive in today's market.
Nv2 is good but just not good enough because of underlying 802.11 technology.

Regards,
M.

motorola · Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:47 pm

On the same AC chips as a mikrotik, Ubiquiti has a spectral analysis, how is this to be understood?

honzam · Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:38 pm

Please all - write to support@mikrotik.com
It's the only way to get something done. It's promised more than 3 years and nothing is happening ...

Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:44 pm

Since we use our own custom drivers, to support all the stuff specific to RouterOS, it is not easy to add features. Other manufacturers use other drivers.

2jarek · Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:58 pm

Hi normis but it's easy way for spectral scan.....FREQ USAGE + 5mhz step works. Need only graph + time scale nothing more.

blue · Sun Apr 30, 2017 7:22 pm

Spectral scan is not simple as that, but on the other hand shame on You Normis to keep quiet for more than two years about this issue! Give us at least some semi-working / broken / crappy version of spectral for AC, so we could have something to hope for.

nordex · Mon May 01, 2017 1:19 am

normis,
switch to manufacturer driver when scanning spectrum, and then switch back

motorola · Mon May 01, 2017 8:45 pm

normis,
switch to manufacturer driver when scanning spectrum, and then switch back

LifeHack

honzam · Mon May 01, 2017 9:17 pm

normis,
switch to manufacturer driver when scanning spectrum, and then switch back

Or switch to "Other manufacturer" driver which have spetral scan. You certainly know the manufacturer. And then switch back

blue · Mon May 01, 2017 9:24 pm

I only hope that Normis will not be quiet for two years, and since he is alive in this topic maybe that is some kind of a sign that something is coming

taduikis · Mon May 01, 2017 10:51 pm

normis,
switch to manufacturer driver when scanning spectrum, and then switch back

Well, it's not something not seen in other manufacturers implementations. For example Cambium: you have to reboot the device to switch to Spectral Scan mode. This probably suggest they switch the driver just for that mode, hence they've gone the easier way while implementing the feature. After you've done your scans you have to change mode to AP and reboot once again. It's sure inconvenient, presents downtime, but it's still better than putting separate antenna with RB912 just to do spectral scan. And with ROS boot times, the downtime isn't really that bad (having in mind that spectral scan itself is also downtime, so a minute or so doesn't really matter).

MikroTik, we understand your challenges, but please see that this feature holds weight, community need it. Consider this advice and don't be afraid to implement some hack-style functions. We don't really matter if it looks unprofessional, unfinished, drafty, etc.. We need functionality. We do bussiness here, not fashion show or exhibition.. If you need, release the separate package for that. I don't really mind installing the package just for doing spectral scan.

mistry7 · Mon May 01, 2017 11:11 pm

Taduikis we Pray for this about 3 years now, my Hope is gone, The only advice in Noise regions, Dont bye Mikrotik !

letabawireless · Wed May 24, 2017 9:58 am

Normis,

What this whole community is trying to find out is, are we going to get there with Mikrotik, or can we get a definite answer that we won't ? For us, who have proudly had a Mikrotik only network, with about 5000 devices in the field, I think it is just fair to tell us the truth. Give us at least a timeline, a hacked up version like what has been suggested, or at least something ? The fact of the matter is the implications for us are huge - if Mikrotik won't have a solution ever, it means the wireless part of our network - at least the PtMP has to be forklifted and replaced, at our expense, not the clients. Also, clients need to be migrated then to Cambium, Mimosa, and the likes. If you are busy with it, we don't want to run half our network on Mikrotik and the rest on something else. I love Mikrotik, and would battle it out to keep it that way. But we cannot carry on without a definite answer.
Is the development team busy with this ? What are you looking to implement ? What can we expect within the next 6 months ? Please answer us this question. Is there a problem that we need to pay for support, or for development of something like this ? I am sure that if costs are the issue, we could round up a few ISP's to help with that. We desperately need this.
Please answer us ! Hear our cries !
Thank you

lustyffh · Thu May 25, 2017 3:20 pm

There will never be a spectral scan for AC radio unless Mikrotik changes its business positioning. Don't you understand that spectral scan is a premium licensed feature from Qualcomm. If Mikrotik acquires such license it will no longer be competitive on the market. So far Mikrotiks are ~20% cheaper than ubnt if comparing in TOV terms for the overall solution. Qualcomm are not that stupid and understand very well increased business need for spectral scan in AC devices, so they started cahrging for it. BTW, same is for end product price difference between 2x2 and 3x3 devices.

Wireless is not a core capability for Mikrotik anymore. Just look at the software changelog - where do you see most manpower is spent on?

In terms of product roadmap. If you are large enough - go and talk to your account manager. It's no point raising this question here. Be grateful that Mikrotik is supportive enough to keep this forum running for SMB/SOHO users.

CyB3RMX · Tue Nov 28, 2017 7:25 pm

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

more than 3 years and counting

CyB3RMX · Tue Nov 28, 2017 7:32 pm

Mikrotik doesnt interest in this Feature.
This is The hard truth.

We will Never See:
GPS
NV2 with selectable Rates like 75/25
802.11ad
And much more, because Wireless is not longer Main Focus for Mikrotik Products.

We have seen it The Last years, Why SXT ac releases more then 3 years before Omnitik Af or mant15s?
They just dont care!

Mistry7

GPS -- Still a no go.. and honestly, even on the competition the GPS implementation really sucks!. I have a couple AirFibers and PRISMs with the GPS sync disabled, they are really a pain in the ass.
NV2: Selectable rates... Done on 6.40x
802.11ad: Done. Wireless wire and LHG60
..
its easy to be a Forum warrior seeking for the truth, but that attitude of "Prove me wrong" sucks...

Just saying...
Regards.

honzam · Tue Nov 28, 2017 7:55 pm

My secret wish is that 802.11ac wave2 products will support spectral scan

erebusodora · Sun Mar 11, 2018 10:01 am

A few days ago I got LHG XL5AC and disappointed that the Spectral Scan function did not work. I can not understand why the functions that do not exist or do not work do not write them in the technical specifications. The line is true but the funds are wrong. We may have to wait another three years...again

mistry7 · Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:56 pm

Gratulation you buyed a Wave 2 device without Wave 2 Feature Support

For us waiting has ended....

We did internal tests with UBNT, Ligowave and next week we will get mimosa, all have Spectral Scan, and in more and more crowded band this is the only option to operate + Protocol that uses GPS sync.

Ligowave Performance is good, but mimosa C5c fits better in our Antenna concept

We don’t buy Mikrotik outdoor Wireless anymore

WirelessRudy · Sun Mar 11, 2018 8:29 pm

Gratulation you buyed a Wave 2 device without Wave 2 Feature Support

For us waiting has ended....

We did internal tests with UBNT, Ligowave and next week we will get mimosa, all have Spectral Scan, and in more and more crowded band this is the only option to operate + Protocol that uses GPS sync.

Ligowave Performance is good, but mimosa C5c fits better in our Antenna concept

We don’t buy Mikrotik outdoor Wireless anymore

well, hold your horses....

I work with Mimosa, to my satisfaction. 40 users per AP, 50, 100 and 200 Mb contracts and I am a client myself of a 42 station tower and can do 250Mb dowload if my pipes give me room (80Mhz wide channel in SRS mode)
BUT, all stations within 300 meter range. And within a 500 meter radius we have 4 Mimosa A5's but only two syncd. The others just didn't work on the frequencies we'd use for the syncd pair nor could I swap them into the other frequency. One way or another we run into interference with other APs' or Backhaul radio's.
So sync works, but it's not the holy grail..... it still needs a lot of 'search and test' before you find working frequencies.
For longer distances, above 500 meters up to 10km I don't see Mimosa giving same advantages. Mimosa, like any other, needs high S/N ratios to get good MCS rates to get to the high speeds. Since a A5c (you need to start working with directional or high gain beam forming sectors now) has less output then a Netmetal so far we didn't get good results with Mimosa compared to a 'n' working Netmetal.
We need to test more but we loose 3-5dB on the clients with a Mimosa and that makes the MCS drop, that due the distance already are lower then in a <300 meter cell...

I recently did a test with a 5 station (SXT-ac's) P2MP network with an Omnitik-ac and I could run 40-50+ mbps per 3/4 clients at the same time and go towards a total throughput of around (below and beyond) 200Mbps over the AP!

If we now compare a 10 x SXT-AC + Omnitik network costing me some 400 + 80 = a small 500€ towards the same setup for a Mimosa; 10x 135 + 750 = 2100€ then it depends on your business model and strategy which is the way to go....

If you need to compete with fibre in densely populated neighbourhood and can justify the investment, I would go for Mimosa.
If you have like me some 20 AP's in the countryside with customers anywhere between 200meter and 5Km then I would stick with Mikrotik.

In Europe the average monthly return per customer is only about 20€ (or less) per month. The extra investment compared to the little extra speed in Mimosa is not justifiable imho.
We'd rather spend the money in extra robust high capacity back hauls.

Presently we are studying a small town small cell network based upon Mikrotik. A full 60Ghz backbone network and each cell a OmniTik-ad with PoE. (Each Omnitik can supply power to the 60Ghz devices. Simple setup, only one battery pack and charger needed) If we get up to 20 customer per AP and we need some 15 of these our ROI will be short.

If we'd do the same with Mimosa we need extra routers, we need 48V power solution with more batteries etc. etc. We probably more then triple our investment and thus our ROI becomes much longer too......

It's not only about 'what is the best'. Real life means also we need to take a look at the money.....

mistry7 · Mon Mar 12, 2018 11:10 pm

I recently did a test with a 5 station (SXT-ac's) P2MP network with an Omnitik-ac and I could run 40-50+ mbps per 3/4 clients at the same time and go towards a total throughput of around (below and beyond) 200Mbps over the AP!

can you share pictures of this, we could push

85MBit @ 20 MHz
125 MBit @ 40 MHz
TCP with iperf
This speeds was tested with 802.12 because Nv2 gives us smaller bandwidth
And that only in absolute clean Spektrum
Omnitik a/c to SXT ac (not lite)
80Mhz channel is not useable here, we are happy to find working 20Mhz

Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:36 am

Mikrotik doesnt interest in this Feature.
This is The hard truth.

We will Never See:
GPS
NV2 with selectable Rates like 75/25
802.11ad
And much more, because Wireless is not longer Main Focus for Mikrotik Products.

We have seen it The Last years, Why SXT ac releases more then 3 years before Omnitik Af or mant15s?
They just dont care!

Mistry7
GPS -- Still a no go.. and honestly, even on the competition the GPS implementation really sucks!. I have a couple AirFibers and PRISMs with the GPS sync disabled, they are really a pain in the ass.
NV2: Selectable rates... Done on 6.40x
802.11ad: Done. Wireless wire and LHG60
..
its easy to be a Forum warrior seeking for the truth, but that attitude of "Prove me wrong" sucks...

Just saying...
Regards.

You did something wrong with your gps sync tests. Works great for us. Makes a big difference using the same 40Mhz Channel back 2 back.

mistry7 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 6:54 am

Mikrotik doesnt interest in this Feature.
This is The hard truth.

We will Never See:
GPS
NV2 with selectable Rates like 75/25
802.11ad
And much more, because Wireless is not longer Main Focus for Mikrotik Products.

We have seen it The Last years, Why SXT ac releases more then 3 years before Omnitik Af or mant15s?
They just dont care!

Mistry7
GPS -- Still a no go.. and honestly, even on the competition the GPS implementation really sucks!. I have a couple AirFibers and PRISMs with the GPS sync disabled, they are really a pain in the ass.
NV2: Selectable rates... Done on 6.40x
802.11ad: Done. Wireless wire and LHG60
..
its easy to be a Forum warrior seeking for the truth, but that attitude of "Prove me wrong" sucks...

Just saying...
Regards.
You did something wrong with your gps sync tests. Works great for us. Makes a big difference using the same 40Mhz Channel back 2 back.

Maybe it works, please show it with screenshot of pictures, if we do this bandwidth drops more than half ! And this is what most users here report!

Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:16 am

Mikrotik doesnt interest in this Feature.
This is The hard truth.

We will Never See:
GPS
NV2 with selectable Rates like 75/25
802.11ad
And much more, because Wireless is not longer Main Focus for Mikrotik Products.

We have seen it The Last years, Why SXT ac releases more then 3 years before Omnitik Af or mant15s?
They just dont care!

Mistry7
GPS -- Still a no go.. and honestly, even on the competition the GPS implementation really sucks!. I have a couple AirFibers and PRISMs with the GPS sync disabled, they are really a pain in the ass.
NV2: Selectable rates... Done on 6.40x
802.11ad: Done. Wireless wire and LHG60
..
its easy to be a Forum warrior seeking for the truth, but that attitude of "Prove me wrong" sucks...

Just saying...
Regards.
You did something wrong with your gps sync tests. Works great for us. Makes a big difference using the same 40Mhz Channel back 2 back.
Maybe it works, please show it with screenshot of pictures, if we do this bandwidth drops more than half ! And this is what most users here report!

You don't understand how gps sync works. You don't half the performance you have a fixed up/down rate.

mistry7 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:08 am

Does we have GPS sync in Mikrotik, that is what I talking about, I know the benefit, but we don’t have it!

Tue Mar 13, 2018 9:14 am

Does we have GPS sync in Mikrotik, that is what I talking about, I know the benefit, but we don’t have it!

No and we will not get it. You only get it using a product where it is implemented. I need it, so I bought it.

mistry7 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 9:28 am

Does we have GPS sync in Mikrotik, that is what I talking about, I know the benefit, but we don’t have it!
No and we will not get it. You only get it using a product where it is implemented. I need it, so I bought it.

An this is the way i´m walking now.
I buyed for testing:
UBNT, Ligowave, Mimosa, and when i don´t find something i like, i will test Cambium too.

Tue Mar 13, 2018 9:38 am

Does we have GPS sync in Mikrotik, that is what I talking about, I know the benefit, but we don’t have it!
No and we will not get it. You only get it using a product where it is implemented. I need it, so I bought it.
An this is the way i´m walking now.
I buyed for testing:
UBNT, Ligowave, Mimosa, and when i don´t find something i like, i will test Cambium too.

There are different class radios in your testing. Some are wifi based others are not. You may mix them for different applications. Take care they have the same gps-timing if you plan to use them in the same band. They behave different with interference (on channel/neigboring channel). We see the non wifi based products work better with near channel and go up to 1024QAM with good installations.

mistry7 · Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:08 pm

Does we have GPS sync in Mikrotik, that is what I talking about, I know the benefit, but we don’t have it!
No and we will not get it. You only get it using a product where it is implemented. I need it, so I bought it.
An this is the way i´m walking now.
I buyed for testing:
UBNT, Ligowave, Mimosa, and when i don´t find something i like, i will test Cambium too.
There are different class radios in your testing. Some are wifi based others are not. You may mix them for different applications. Take care they have the same gps-timing if you plan to use them in the same band. They behave different with interference (on channel/neigboring channel). We see the non wifi based products work better with near channel and go up to 1024QAM with good installations.

Thats clear .
Comparison SXT to Airfiber eg

But when i compare

SXTsq AC........... / DLB-5-20ac................/ mimosa c5c
This is all ac-Hardware

Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:31 pm

Does we have GPS sync in Mikrotik, that is what I talking about, I know the benefit, but we don’t have it!
No and we will not get it. You only get it using a product where it is implemented. I need it, so I bought it.
An this is the way i´m walking now.
I buyed for testing:
UBNT, Ligowave, Mimosa, and when i don´t find something i like, i will test Cambium too.
There are different class radios in your testing. Some are wifi based others are not. You may mix them for different applications. Take care they have the same gps-timing if you plan to use them in the same band. They behave different with interference (on channel/neigboring channel). We see the non wifi based products work better with near channel and go up to 1024QAM with good installations.
Thats clear .
Comparison SXT to Airfiber eg

But when i compare

SXTsq AC........... / DLB-5-20ac................/ mimosa c5c
This is all ac-Hardware

Yes. And of course the airmax ac stuff. Bad thing is you see a lot of the pros/cons only running them in the field. Esp how they scale with >10 CPEs connected with different conditions. E.g. we tried the epmp1k line (11n based) and had good results with low numbers but ran into problems with more cpes connected. Lot of reconnects even with low load. I know wisps which are very happy with them but I guess my towers where to loaded or it is a interference thing.
So put them on a loaded tower and work with some test customers before ordering higher numbers.

WirelessRudy · Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:23 pm

Bad thing is you see a lot of the pros/cons only running them in the field. Esp how they scale with >10 CPEs connected with different conditions. E.g. we tried the epmp1k line (11n based) and had good results with low numbers but ran into problems with more cpes connected. Lot of reconnects even with low load. I know wisps which are very happy with them but I guess my towers where to loaded or it is a interference thing.
So put them on a loaded tower and work with some test customers before ordering higher numbers.

Isn't that the problem with testing and the claims most vendors make. They all work good in clean spectrum with one or two clients. Probably still with 5 to 10.
But how many Wisps work with such low tower usage?
Most of us will have 20 or more clients connected to a tower and that sits in a heavy uses spectrum.
Now the good will stand out above the moderate and poor.

I use Mikrotik in all kinds of constellations but 30-35 clients is really the maximum. Don't expect speeds higher then 20-25Mbps.
I have one eCambium eMP2000 with beamforming antenna that works absolutely fine. But only 5 clients, amongst two ubiquity CPE's with elevate firmware.
We use them to connect business with 50/50 u/d mbps speeds and that is fine. In a crowded environment. But actually never see 2 or more clients demanding high amounts of traffic anyway... so really not so much to say here about the performance under 'heavy' conditions....

Last year we rolled out Mimosa with 4 A5's and 125 clients now in a 400 meter radius urban area.
There is lots of interference from many backhauls and other AP overshooting the area. All these A5's work in 80Mhz bandwidth and only two sync'd. One unit is in the same band but where the two synch have the upper channel as primary, this one sits in the lower channel as primary. The fourth unit has a slightly shifted band but still overlaps partially both the other units...

95% of the clients have 300mb or higher connection rates and when we test the client after install we won't accept real speeds lower then 50Mbps.
Many units though can easy reach 150 or 200Mbps downloads and I see regular throughput's over the AP's well over 100mbps of combined client traffic.

In any of our Mikrotik based P2MP networks 80mbps throughputt is about the maximum (20/40Mhz bandwidth channels)
But like I said earlier, I did do a test with a 4 sxt-ac P2MP network on a Omnitik-ac and 80Mhz bandwidth channel and also pushed into the 150Mbps throughputs.

But every network has its specifics so its hard to compare and make real life scenario performances on any product I'd presume. It's more a 'gutt'-feeling about the stuff you's use and it's also important to have a good backbone network in Gb connections behind the AP's.

jo2jo · Sun Jun 17, 2018 8:04 am

All the discussion in here are GREAT, really useful, detailed info and stats- thanks!

I hope we can also keep the focus on AC Spectral scan (and when will it come MT??). pls, any kind of ETA or info??

I mainly do APs for end user clients/devices (ie building or apartment wifi), but i can add one of my experiences:

8x Omnitik AC poe's each spread out over a job site, (12ft to 25ft off the ground) (each omnitik was on a pole, and each is poe (af) powering 3 or 4x IP cams on that pole. ~0.2 mbit to 1mbit per cam, thus total BW at AP= 5-15mbit, 24/7/365). 1 of the 8 was the AP, all others station Bridge back to the AP (but for 1 we had to use as a repeater via virtual interface->AP , to power a station that was weak at the AP) . all RSSIs are -40 to -52 tx/rx (all within ~1500ft of each other) this was a very noisy environment (high-rise apartments near by, thus all their own APs, a SSID scan at 5g would show 200 5g APs in a few min, if left scanning overnight, would find 400+ aps !).
We found 5220 @ 20/40mhz eC 2x Chain locked to AC-only worked best for consistency (we didnt have alot of ch choices as USA locked and all are USA outdoor radios).
With regular MT bw test (through the AP via an extra, eth connected MT to AP)
TCP: max to a single client ~100mbit (tx or rx)
UDP: max to a single client 80-160mbit

TCP to all 7x clients, TOTAL ~45-65mbit (ie tcp doing 5-10mbit bw tests to EACH station, simultaneously). not bad, and they have been certainly doing their job for about 1.5 years now (only about 6 monthly left on job).
(+ the 802.3af poe on 4 of the eth ports was SUPER helpful in this case, 1x eth pushing ONLY 48v power from a DC 48v .8amp transformer to the omnitik is all that is needed for 4x ip cams! ( * 7x setups = ~25 easy to deploy/move outdoor "wireless" ipcams, needing only 1 x 110v plug per setup) + i can power reset the cams when needed. all for ~100$ and running directly outdoor/in weather).

anyway, a bit back to the point of this thread, i was VERY disappointed when once these were deployed i wasnt able to run spectral-scan, which i assumed i would be able to- it would make finding a clear freq. / width MUCH easier and more efficient.

mistry7 · Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:01 am

I do not complain for it anymore, we left the Mikrotik train,
We have noisy environments too and with Mikrotik no tools to deal with it.....

Someone here says, buy something else and that is what we do

Quicksivler · Sun Jun 17, 2018 1:07 pm

I do not complain for it anymore, we left the Mikrotik train,
We have noisy environments too and with Mikrotik no tools to deal with it.....

Someone here says, buy something else and that is what we do

If you have moved away.... why keep posting? Ive ended up just using old omnitiks (the originsl ones) at each site to do spectral scans only, since we have them in stock after upgrading. Not as good a solution but it works for now. On our busiest sectors we can reach 300mbps tcp throughput with an sxt ac connecting to a netmetal sector out to 500m, but we are the only wisp in town and dont run into a lot of interference in the cities we operate in. We are just starting to test the 60ghz stuff

dmitrii1402 · Tue Oct 04, 2022 9:18 am

Good day,

I'm currently trying to configure Microtik HAP ac2.
Utility spectral scan and spectral history are not working, showing the following message in the terminal:
failure: this device can not do spectral scan

OS version 6.49.6 stable.

Is it possible to fix it somehow or these functions are not available for this model?

blue · Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:41 pm

Tue 11 Nov, 2014 13:42
It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

Just a reminder. 8 long years. I gave up and switched to Ubiquiti for Wireless. Routing is still on Mikrotik.

pe1chl · Tue Oct 04, 2022 4:35 pm

8 years on the to-do list, and then you do not know if someone has started work on it!
BFD for RouterOS v7 is a "work in progress" for over a year now, that to me that seems much easier to implement than spectral scan.
I would consider it a lost case...

Larsa · Tue Oct 04, 2022 5:53 pm

BFD sad face

BFD-sad-face.jpeg

honzam · Tue Oct 04, 2022 10:09 pm

It looks like we can implement Spectral Scan, but it will take some time. It is on our to-do list

After 8 years. Still on "to-do" list.
Sad