With the “just as mediocre as ever” caveat, no spanking required. Your
description is pretty accurate. It doesn’t knock your socks off at –60, but it
still works at –84, it may actually be unhappy if the signal is too hot.
I had this discussion with an installer last week as he was testing a new
install to make sure everything was working properly. I told him this was not
Canopy, it was WiMAX, and you need a different mindset. Repeat to yourself
phrases like “it is what it is”, “take what you can get”, and for when it stops
working when the leaves fall off the trees because that’s the only way you were
getting any signal, “it was good while it lasted”.
You also need to get used to ignoring upstream modulation and signal, unless
you are running a speedtest, because the xmt power and modulation will drop
when the link is idle. And with limited ability to monitor the CPE end, you
are kind of flying blind. I only have one customer who has ever complained. I
don’t upsell customers on the WiMAX system to higher plans or VoIP however.
Just like mobile wireless carriers don’t sell different speed tiers. It’s just
too hard to troubleshoot a complaint of “I’m not getting the speed you sold me.”
From: Adam Moffett
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 12:06 PM
To: af@afmug.com
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] 320SMs Gathering ethernet Error stats
Agreed on wimax....it's amazing how bad it can be in interference scenarios
that I *know* would work fine with Canopy.
Now Ken is going to spank me when I say this, but it does work pretty good NLOS
compared to Canopy (sans interference). When you have that -84 through a wad
of trees with Canopy you get re-regs, whereas the wimax seems to keep humming
along just as mediocre as ever.
I haven't used the LTE firmware yet, but I can let you know.
I'm assuming LTE does not address the interference sensitivity of wimax,
since it was also designed for use in licensed bands? I was amazed at how
easily the 320 I had deployed fell flat on its face due to light interference -
not very helpful for my confidence in the technology.
On Tuesday, February 17, 2015, Adam Moffett <dmmoff...@gmail.com> wrote:
LTE is the light at the end of my tunnel right now, bro....don't ruin the
magic.
I don't know about "hasn't yet been tested". The LTE firmware is basically
beta, but it's said to be functional. Functional enough that they offered to
let me run it anyway. I might still take them up on the offer, but for their
sake and mine I hope it blows my mind with how awesome it is.
The only smoke and mirrors I'm aware of is that whenever they tell you
about the awesome-sauce they have, they're definitely talking about LTE and the
near future. What they have right now is not the Corvette they're trying to
sell you. What they have now is equally quirky as the 320, but 10x harder to
use. It does have 4 antenna ports and if you want to, you can run two base
stations out of one unit, using two different channels and two BSID's. So you
do get two base stations for the price of two base stations. Or the four
antenna ports give you antenna diversity at the base station....which they say
gives you a little more margin in the upload direction. They claim better
performance, but I can't point to any of the Compact base stations and say,
"ah, this one is doing more than a 320 could have."
It's a good thing I'm not in sales. I would be terrible at it. It's not a
bad product, it's just not the awesome product I would like it to be.
I was all about the Telrad koolaid until I sat in on a webinar and saw
the plethora of smoke and mirrors. Im concerned when a company has a product
with attached promises of greatness based on standards based technology that
hasnt yet been tested on their own hardware and the promises have the caveat of
no longer being standards based. But I do like the promises of the magic they
will have like being able to use what would have been interference from another
AP in the system as usable client signal, however im not sure how much IP likes
traversing to isolated sites at once.
I really hate not having any ethernet stats or control on the 320, I
never understood that being locked out
On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 10:05 AM, Adam Moffett
<javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','dmmoff...@gmail.com');> wrote:
Did they promise you it's going to get better?
Buying Wimax feels like buying a Chevy Cobalt for the price of a
Corvette, based on the promise that they're delivering the Corvette next year.
Moto never delivered the Corvette.� Alvarion/Telrad still says the
Corvette is coming.
I would have to check the MIB for the basestation, that was not
something I ever tried to graph.� The CPE was generic Gemtek and Greenpacket
stuff, so no, very little remote monitoring capability.
�
I dread every time I have to log into the Purewave GUI and do
anything, it is so cumbersome.� I guess actually the Greenpacket GUI is easy
to use, just lacking in functionality.
�
�
From: Adam Moffett
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 9:44 AM
To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com');
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] 320SMs Gathering ethernet Error stats
�
Did any of your Purewave stuff give you ethernet error counters?
So much for 4G stuff being �carrier class�.� Or maybe in that
world, CPE is customer-owned-equipment and not the responsibility of the
network operator to monitor.
�
�
From: Adam Moffett
Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2015 9:12 AM
To: javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','af@afmug.com');
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] 320SMs Gathering ethernet Error stats
�
If you figure it out, let me know.� It's one of my biggest pet
peeves about the 320.
I'm sad to report that none of the Telrad CPE to seem to have it
either.....so maybe a Gemtek chipset limitation?
Is there an OID to gather Ethernet errors from the 320SMs in
either bridge and/or NAT mode?
�
Paul
�
Paul McCall, Pres.
PDMNet / Florida Broadband
658 Old Dixie Highway
Vero Beach, FL 32962
772-564-6800 office
772-473-0352 cell
www.pdmnet.com
pa...@pdmnet.net
�
--
All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the
parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't
get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a
hammer. -- IBM maintenance manual, 1925
