by Alex Goldman
When Dewayne Hendricks posted a brief note on Facebook that he had achieved 30 Mbps out of a 65 mile PtP link, I had to call and learn how he did it. The answer is Ubiquiti’s latest Rocket product, the successor to the NanoStation, which in itself was extremely innovative.
“The Rocket has a 2 foot parabolic dish antenna that enables you to use the maximum possible gain and it costs only $139 MSRP.” The Rocket M2 operates at 2.4 GHz and the Rocket M5 operates at 5.x GHz. The Rocket M5 uses 802.11a. The Rocket M2 uses 802.11b / g. The latest versions of both products (as of April) support 802.11n as well, and deliver speeds of up to 300 Mbps. So Hendricks was getting 1/10 the expected speed at 65 miles, which is excellent performance.
Hendricks has always been testing the limits of wireless equipment. In 2002, Wired magazine called him the Broadband Cowboy, and I’ve been following him for almost eight years.
Hendricks earned the name by proving that Wi-Fi could work over a long distance after the FCC refused to believe it. He went to the kingdom of Tonga and proved his point there. The Wired article is still worth reading today.
The current project is to link several of the Northern Marianas Islands using wireless gear, but most of the gear he considered was too expensive, Hendricks told me.
WiMAX gear is too expensive
The Ubiquiti Rocket M radio costs $80, about $150 for a pair, Hendricks says (and then the dishes cost less than $150 each). Most WiMAX gear costs $12,000 per link. “Companies are charging so much for this gear, and they would not return my phone calls.”
When he did reach these companies, they behaved poorly. One company asked him what he wanted to use the gear for, did a path analysis, and told him it wouldn’t work. I would say they were as difficult to talk to as the FCC, except that would be unfair to the FCC, which has improved slightly, recently.
“At those prices, I need to know that I can get my money back if the product doesn’t work, but if they won’t even answer the phone…”
“I found these Rocket radios and wanted to test them.”
Hendricks approached a company he’s done some work with already, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, explained the test he wanted to run on their network, and told them, “if it works, you can replace all your Canopy gear.”
So he set up a 65 mile point to point link using Rocket M gear and 2 foot parabolic dishes and got good results: 30 Mbps over the link. “We’ve dropped a few packets but have experienced no sigificant problems,” Hendricks says.
The dual MIMO setup (two signals, one horizontally polarized and one vertically polarized) is designed to reach the power limits set by Part 15 rules. Hendricks says he’s using 600 mW (27 dBM) to get this long distance performance.
Do the prices of gear from other WiMAX vendors represent 99.9 percent profit and 0.1 percent actual cost? Hendricks notes that Ubiquiti sells every unit it manufactures, which gives it a superior cost basis. But he adds that prices are too high. “Ubiquiti has not had an impact on the marketplace because they’re just one company, and they cannot produce enough gear to change prices.”
Ubiquiti uses Wi-Fi chipsets, Hendricks adds, and puts them inside good equipment. “When you hold it in your hand, you know it’s a high quality piece of gear.”
The company’s not charging you extra for pieces you need. “The radio and hose clamp and PoE adapter all come standard. The PoE adapter is not extra — it’s included in the price.”
I told Hendricks that I’ve found Ubiquiti difficult to contact. “They’re tough to get in touch with, their documentation is out of date, the parameters they suggest for AirOS are strange (but they probably did not anticipate anyone building a 65 mile link).”
“But the products are game changing. You can load mesh networking software into them. You can run PtMP links. They’re built on an open architecture and have an SDK.”
“I talked to ISPs at Fiber Fete and they love the Ubiquiti gear.”
Becuase the products are good, Hendricks says they’re tough to obtain. “My local distributor is [WISPA member] Streakwave Wireless. Every shipment of Ubiquiti equipment is backordered, so it flies off the shelves the minute it’s there.”
Hendricks says Streakwave is doing well. “Three years ago, they were 7 people. Now they’ve got 30 people and have warehouses in Utah and Ohio.”
Connecting the Marianas
Hendricks believes that the Ubiquiti gear will solve his problem. He’s building a network for the Northern Mariana Islands. The distance from Saipan to Tinian is not bad, but the hop from Tinian to Rota is 65 miles.
“I knew people had build 50 km links before, but this is twice that distance,” Hendricks says. “Why hadn’t anyone tried this before?”
The plan is to install the 65 mile link by the end of June.
Tags: streakwave, ubiquiti, wimax
[...] Read more on the WISPA site [...]
Very impressive! We exclusively use Ubiquity radios (both 2.4 and 5.8 gear) and do quite well in Florida. We routinely hit 5-8mile links at 50+mb/sec with 0 packet loss.
Their radios are quality and I completely agree with the insaine markups of LTE and WiMax gear — just not worth it.
[...] Dewayne Hendricks’ 65 mile PtP link got a lot of attention. We broke the story here on WISPA. [...]
Ubiquity radios is cheap but reliable and i have also plan to build WISP somewhere in matnog (philippines) using ubnt radio.
Wonder how the 65-mile ocean link will do…seems to me that there would be some multipath involved. But OFDM and MIMO may take care of that, yielding at least some usable throughput over the link.