Ubiquiti Wireless PTP

[brucebanner]

I have a client that has moved to a new building, and I need to setup a PTP solution that is compact and allows close to or at Gigabit speeds.

I've been looking at Ubiquiti but I'm not sure what the best hardware would be.

Distance is about half a kilometre.

Any suggestions would be great.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

For many years, I've used Ubiquitis "airMax" and "airFiber" products....for creating point to points, and point to multi point connections. Such as a "campus" of a business...or campgrounds, marinas, even providing internet to a school on an island 6 miles offshore from a Comcast connection on mainland.

airMax are the smaller radios.....airFiber are the larger radios, more bandwidth, greater distances.
Ubiquiti used to have a great guide that I'd frequently post in threads like this, it was very recently removed since they're doing a complete revamp of their UISP products....with the new "Wave" line.

UISP Wireless - Ubiquiti

Deploy scalable fixed wireless networks with thoughtfully designed hardware and streamlined management.

uisp.com

airMax will not meet your bandwidth needs...

UISP Wireless - Ubiquiti

Deploy scalable fixed wireless networks with thoughtfully designed hardware and streamlined management.

uisp.com

airFiber can....

UISP Wireless - Ubiquiti

Deploy scalable fixed wireless networks with thoughtfully designed hardware and streamlined management.

uisp.com

You manage your clients airMax and airFiber radios in a dashboard/portal called UNMS, which you can use at UI.com for free.

However, let's look at a relatively newer product introduced in the Unifi lineup, called the "Building to building bridge"...

Building-to-Building Bridge XG - Ubiquiti Store

A 60 GHz wireless point-to-point bridge with 10G SFP+ uplink for maximum performance.

store.ui.com

You manage these in your Unifi controller for the site...which I love, since I usually have Unifi switches and Unifi APs there also...and sometimes their Unifi gateways since they've been getting good lately.

You purchase these in a kit...they come pre-paired...you just need to mount, power, and aim 'em!

The only question I have....is...what's your actual distance...accurately? Because..at 1/2 a km....you are at the spec'd max of 500 meters...aka 1640 feet. Realize the "up to 6.6 gigs of throughput" is of course at much closer range and ideal conditions. At max distance....the actual throughput can likely still meet your needs...depending on things like....if line of site, other conditions, other interference, how well they're aimed, etc.

With "line of site"...for point to point radios and their links, you have to consider "the Fresnel zone". Picture an elliptical shaped beam between the two radios...what its diameter might be for the specific radios and their setup...and ensure you have a clear path for that beam. Might be just 15', might be 25', might be 30'.

 

[timeshifter]

you have to consider "the Fresnel zone"

Not to be confused with "the friend zone" that a lot of millennials have to deal with

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Not to be confused with "the friend zone" that a lot of millennials have to deal with

LOL...yeah, that's a different types of...."clearance".....

 

[brandonkick]

Do they require those speeds simply because their ISP connection is rated at that? Or because they have a real need to utilize it?

I only ask because I did employ a very similar setup using about $300 worth of ubiquiti gear about two years ago, and it's worked wonderfully. Not too hard to set up for even someone like me who's only knowledgeable enough to be dangerous in the networking arena. Equipment looks great. I couldn't be more pleased for the cost.

I think I used nanobeams. 4 in total, 2 sitting ontop of main building with ISP connection, and two others each sitting on their own building in different directions. The utility folks mounted the poles, mounted the nanobeams, I taught them how to terminate the cat5 toughcable and basically they got it almost perfect in terms of alignment the first go "just pointing them at each other". Good enough I didn't bother to get a man life and do adjustments myself.

 

[alluseridsrejected]

I use a pair of Ubiquiti Gigabeam Plus 60ghz to feed from my building where fiber is installed to my tower that is about 100 meters away. It is for my WISP service. Ubiquiti claims they are good for up to 1.5 km distance and 1.5gbps capacity but I am getting only 91% of rated capacity at 100 meters. Rain fade is the biggest issue to worry about on 60ghz. I never see any fade at all on my link even during heavy down pores but it is only 100m. They definitely require line of site, but Fresnel clearance should not be much to worry about. Unlike 5ghz and lower frequencies, 60ghz radios freznel zone is tiny due to the higher frequency, they shoot in almost a straight line. Just keep in mind that actual throughput is much lower than rated capacity for traffic in one direction. Since most of my traffic is one direction, I can only get at max on my 91% link of around 700Mbps. A perfect link should get 800Mbps in one direction. This is plenty for me and I never need over 600Mbps. They are working very well for me. A screenshot of my link:



In the above screenshot you can see the link is currently sending 402Mbps and is between 50-60% used. They were pretty easy to program and install.

I bought them from ISP Supplies at this link:
Ubiquiti 60GHz Radio airMAX GigaBeam Plus 1.5+Gbps (US Version)

Edit: Also, don't try to send more than 300-350Mbps over any Ubiquiti Airmax 5Ghz bridge. There is a problem where CPU hits 100% and throughput maxes out due to the CPU usage.