There's a couple of things to break down here. One is that there are 2 major
kinds of beamforming - analog and digital. The ones you mention (and I'll add
Go Networks to the list) were using analog beamforming. These are antenna
arrays that can be phased together to make a stronger beam and is steerable.
The chip-based beamforming in the WiFi standard is a bit different and you
don't get this sort of powerful beam out of it. That kind of digital
beamforming is more useful for nulls mu-mimo isolation that would be useful in
an indoor wifi environment.
I'm not too familiar with the cnmedusa design, but I get the impression it is
more of an array of fixed sectors that have physically different coverage areas
that are connected to different radio chains. So that is yet another sort of
variation.
One thing that made the analog beamforming systems achieve better coverage was
that the FCC allowed (maybe they still do?) higher EIRP from this specific type
of system. So it had physically more power and punch to it.
I am personally not aware of any companies actively developing analog
beamforming systems like those older ones. It gets significantly more
difficult for those designs to support the sort of advanced macs that came
after 11n - 11ax supports MU-MIMO and OFDMA for example which would be
challenging to support with an analog beamformer.
On 10/13/20, 3:42 PM, "AF on behalf of Jeremy Grip" <af-boun...@af.afmug.com
on behalf of g...@nbnworks.net> wrote:
A few years ago, when the electrical utility trashed the 900 spectrum with
“smart” meters, I did a forklift upgrade of a bunch of 900 PtMP with some old
Wavion beamforming sectors talking to ubnt clients in 2.4. I was surprised that
I got just about the same coverage that I had with 900 (Trango) and of course
better throughput. Those original Wavions were b/g; I’ve since found a couple
of .11n versions from the brief last gasp of Alvarion (R.I.P.) that did even
better. Anybody know if anybody’s currently producing a beamforming 2.4 sector
that will talk to standards compliant 11n radios?
I’m assuming that the beamforming saved this location—one tower plus a
couple of other little nodes in a little spread out village in the middle of a
dense National Forest of mixed tall evergreens and hardwood. I just don’t see
how 2.4 could match the old 900 penetration otherwise, but maybe somebody can
enlighten me. It wouldn’t be worth it to try and change out all the
clients--more than a few are 50’+ up in trees. If there was an ePMP medusa in
2.4 and that sex-change from ubnt to ePMP worked it would be worth a try, but
as far as I know Cambium's just doing medusa in 5GHz.
With my other hand I'm working to see FTTH across the region and it looks
like it'll probably happen within the next five or six years, so any serious
wireless investment here doesn't make any sense.
--
AF mailing list
AF@af.afmug.com
https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Faf.afmug.com%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Faf_af.afmug.com&data=04%7C01%7C%7Cdc78411902c54763564b08d86fb8903d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637382185761458359%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=zbo9OIz4lCXUY9IyN4i8oxI14HEuhvlHVUrlhsJ2W7Y%3D&reserved=0
--
AF mailing list
AF@af.afmug.com
http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
