Need recommendation for outdoor wireless bridge.

[Cooky]

Can someone please recommend a business-grade wireless bridge product, and possibly good installer in the San Diego, CA area?

We've been using Proxim's Tsunami bridges, which have been very problematic.
Tech has come out to make correction/adjustment multiple times, but problem keeps coming back.
We're not exactly sure if the issue is w/ the tech/installation partner, or if it's w/ the product itself.
It keeps breaking, and we're willing to try something new - new platform and/or new partner.
Even if the new product can only do 100M or below, as long as it's stable, we'll use it.

Has anyone had experience w/ Exalt's outdoor bridges?
How did you like them, and who did you use to deploy them?

I already asked...no, we don't have the options to do dark fiber, MPLS, metro-E, or whatever else in between the two buildings.

TIA

 

[Drummerdude]

I've had a lot of success using products from Engenius. I've made quite a few outdoor wireless setups with their equipment. I can't recommend any one device from them, because very honestly, they have a lot of good quality stuff for your needs, and if you give customer support a call, they're very knowledgeable, and can recommend the best product for you.

 

[Cooky]

Thanks; do their outdoor AP's support bridging?
Can they be managed individually, w/o a wireless controller?
Was looking at their Neutron series, which doesn't mention bridge, and it says they're "managed" AP's.

 

[Drummerdude]

Thanks; do their outdoor AP's support bridging?
Can they be managed individually, w/o a wireless controller?
Was looking at their Neutron series, which doesn't mention bridge, and it says they're "managed" AP's.

Absolutely. The majority of their equipment supports not only bridging, but repeating as well. If you're wanting a simple point to point bridge, they'll do it no problem. And yep, they can be managed individually via ip. And once you have the network up, you can manage each from within the network. Example, the last outdoor setup I did using their equipment, I built an outdoor network for a christian campground ( 4 units set as repeaters ), complete with poe injectors, etc. 3 of the units were setup on poles mounted atop each camp " shack ", the 4th and now that I'm remembering it, and 5th set on the precipice of the dormitory. I set each units ip address ( something like 172.16.0.254 and going down ) and once the network was up, I could access each devices configuration from my laptop, regardless of my position in the campground. And with them being POE, I could, if needed, leave a weather protected pigtail ( cat5/6 cable, ending with a spool in an outdoor weatherproof box ) to each device, so I can plug into the individual unit with my laptop, troubleshoot, fix, then disconnect from there.

 

[drebo]

What kind of distance are we talking about?

Also, Engenius are like the mikrotik of the wireless world.

I've used Ubiquiti Rocket M bridges for 12 mile links @ 120mbps effective throughput. I've used their Nanobridge M for 10 mile links @ 20mbps effective throughput.

If it's a relatively short link (less than a mile with good line of sight) then you should seriously consider Ubiquiti Airfiber. San Diego is almost the perfect environment for 24ghz wireless bridge.

Cambium are the gold standard of wireless bridges, but they're extremely expensive. I would try Ubiquiti first. Rocket M5 Titanium with a 2' dish is like $1000 for the whole bridge, versus ~$7k for a PTP400

If you want something with really good uptime and performance over a long distance, you need to go licensed frequency. I would avoid Trango in this space. Personal experience with them as a company wasn't great, even if their products did perform decently well. I did a 20+ mile 11ghz link with them that got about 100mbps on 2' dishes. I also did an 8 mile 18ghz link that got about 300mbps (it should have got more and the active/active IDU/ODU pairs didn't work for shit.) There are other options that are likely better.

If you're looking at the 5ghz space, though, Ubiquiti is your best bet by far.

As far as a good installer goes, no, I don't know of one that far south. You may invest in a wireless survey (or just buy a wi-spy and do it yourself) to determine which frequencies you'll want to use. Also, don't use a guy that typically does non-data RF...they don't usually know what they're doing. They're used to much lower frequencies which have much higher tolerances to interference and obstruction.

 

[drebo]

Also, what frequency are they using? Have they given you the RSSI they're seeing (anything less than -50 on a wireless bridge is not acceptable, and higher than -40 could mean the signal's too hot)? What is the noise floor for that frequency (higher than -95 could be causing issues)?

 

[JackMDS]

The latter part of the page.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]NanoBridges, [/FONT]and the Rocket line.