Ahh, I failed to catch the sarcasm. My bad :) Rory
-----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof via Af Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 5:09 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium I meant it in the spirit of the Stride gum commercials. Chew another piece already! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPSkCEYpShA -----Original Message----- From: Rory Conaway via Af Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 6:46 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium Ken, I'm going to have to disagree with your statement about Cambium screwing themselves because they built them to last forever. People are willing to pay for quality since cost of ownership is much lower. For example, if Cambium had the ePMP even 2 years ago or something 802.11 compatible (not that the ePMP is compatible), I would rather have paid 50% more for a radio that will be here in 5 years. I consider that the minimum life of the product before a new technology needs to be deployed and from an accounting standpoint, it fits the depreciation schedule. As it is, we assume Ubiquiti will last 3 years since that's been our experience. We are seeing the Nanobridges, AirRouters, and Toughswitches fail even faster than that though so our financials have to be adjusted and we have to charge more to cover it. Our hope is that the new Nanobeams have a longer average lifespan than the last 2 product series so that all is right with the world. As for 900Mhz, there are people that need something in that band. However, it's going to take a different technology than 802.11 or something along the lines of an advanced 802.11 product to work down there. Other than the WiMax products going into that band, I know of 2 other companies that have the potential to do some amazing things with the band and another technology that may be able to be used in that band. We will see how that plays out. I think short term if I was having to move into the sub-1GHz band, I'd seriously be looking at White Space as a temporary solution. You might have to be creative with the financing options but I saw Radio Shack increase sales by bringing in outside financing options for clients when computers were big in the 80's, maybe there is something that could be done there. I'm sure WISPER Ventures or one of the companies that have specialized financing might be able to come up with something. Rory -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ken Hohhof via Af Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 3:16 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium Are you sure Cambium is making money on PMP100? Remember, they don't get any money for a used radio. It's not like Cisco who thinks you will buy SmartNet on a router off eBay. I'm sure they do sell some new PMP100, but they really screwed themselves by making them last forever. So some new product to replace 900 FSK rather than just a free firmware upgrade for a radio built and sold long ago is probably what some Cambium product manager loses sleep over. If only LTE was cheap. If only TVWS was cheap. If only there was some more low frequency spectrum that WISPs could get access to. If only power companies would stop using 900 for smartgrid. Didn't Tesla have some method of sending signals through the ground? But I really have to wonder about you WISPs that use 900 as your bread and butter, how do you compete with stuff like Exede? Yes, I know the usage cap, but how much usage can you rack up on a connection that doesn't support video streaming anyway? We need to be either cheaper than Exede, or just as fast with higher usage caps. Or be lucky enough to be in an area where they don't have spot beams. And AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and DISH don't have fixed wireless over LTE. And the ILEC doesn't get CAF money to run fiber or VDSL. -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Tyler via Af Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 4:34 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium I love the 450, 450 is awesome, but 90% of our subs are on 900 MHz, what do we do there, where is our upgrade path, what is the replacement for PMP100 in 900 MHz? We have no alternative to 900 for most of our customers where we are, too many hills and trees. We are still deploying 900 MHz radios in large quantities simply because we can't use anything else. Sure would be nice to have an easy way to configure those radios, we (Animal Farm) have only been asking for that feature for the last 8 years, not like they didn't know about it or have the time to figure it out. Now they are giving it to us, but only on a platform where we don't really need it yet. While I understand that PMP100 is somewhat antiquated, Cambium is still making money on it and will continue to make money on it, so why not give us at least some development beyond bug fixes at least until there is a 900 replacement? Why not a 450 in 900 MHz that's using the newer hardware but still only 2x modulation. We would literally buy thousands of them within the next year. -- Christopher Tyler MTCRE/MTCNA/MTCTCE/MTCWE Total Highspeed Internet Services 417.851.1107 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mathew Howard via Af" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 4:12:25 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium or even better, put up the ePMP in 5.1, and you could leave it there and not lose the 6db. ________________________________ From: Af [[email protected]] on behalf of Adam Moffett via Af [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 4:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium You should check out ePMP 2.2 firmware. The new GUI is much better. Not the same as Canopy, but it's a lot more familiar to navigate now. If you replace PMP100 with anything else it will be a forklift no matter what. The good thing about ePMP and 450 is they both have 5.7 and 5.4 in the same unit. Presumably your PMP100 is 5.7. Did they even make that in 5.4? So you put your new one on a 5.4 channel, start replacing subscribers, then switch it back to 5.7 so you can have your 6db back. The ones that might not work with the missing 6db on 5.4 you identify ahead of time and do them last. This is theoretical right now, but it's happening here in a month or so. --- [ "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> wrote ]: ----------------------------------- You’re probably right about me. Honestly, my FSK is still all on 10.5, and my 430 is still on 11.2. I’d like some of the improvements to the GUI, but honestly, at some point you wonder if it’s worth the trouble and mini outages to do the firmware upgrades on legacy stuff. I guess from an operations standpoint though, especially if you automate things, it helps if everything works the same. And I will probably upgrade the old stuff, if only to avoid scrolling through a mile long sessions list. The argument for continuing to roll human and machine interface improvements into PMP100 is that’s what keeps WISPs buying Cambium, they can train their people and write their software and have it work the same across the product line. But evidently that logic was lost on the team that developed ePMP. If the sales strategy is to convince WISPs to convert PMP100 to ePMP, it will be interesting to hear what the recommended way is to do that. I am going to be very surprised to see an ePMP compatible framing mode put into PMP100, that’s surely not a minor change, but without that, are the only 2 ways to upgrade a tower from PMP100 to ePMP either find some spare spectrum, or do a 1-day forklift of all the subs? A PMP100 to PMP450 forklift can be pretty easy (except on the pocketbook) if you already have reflector dishes, we’ve found you don’t even have to realign the dishes. But replacing a reflector dish with a Force100 will probably take a little longer. Maybe not that much. The worst would be if you can’t have both sets of APs on the tower at the same time and literally have to take down every sub on the tower until you get an installer with a new radio out to them. From: That One Guy via Af<mailto:[email protected]> Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 2:50 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium --- [ That One Guy <[email protected]><mailto:[email protected]> wrote ]: ----------------------------------- ________________________________ I really wish that cambium was more forthright, I understand playing your cards close to your chest. we knew with 320 it was a dead duck, but Cambium (sales staff in particular) would never put out a clear answer on its demise. We all wear big boy pants around here, except ken, he wears biker shorts. We can handle the truth and would much prefer to plan accordingly. Im oretty sure that since 100 wont be getting .2 that gives us our answer, but it would be nice to have it formalized, Cambiums like a cheating wife, you know what shes doing, you know whats going to happen when you have evidence, but until you hear it from her mouth, you keep on painting the kitchen and mowing the lawn. Cambium, can we stop painting and let the grass grow? On Fri, Sep 19, 2014 at 2:41 PM, Aaron Schneider via Af <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: --- [ Aaron Schneider <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote ]: ----------------------------------- Hmm, this is odd - yours and Sean's messages came in as an attachment to an empty message... Anyways, yes, we are well aware that FSK is never going away, we've been the ones keeping it going for this long! We took a break from releasing FSK version from 11.2 to 12.1 and the next refresh release from that was 13.1.  I don't think there has been any full decision on the fate of future FSK releases but we are concentrating 13.2 and 13.3 on the 430/450 products and will see then.  I'll see if we can get a point release with the couple of minor (meaning to fix, not meaning "minor impact") items such as missing the None frequency. George you need to talk your boss into letting you go to Vegas. Imagine the discussions you can have once you get some libations in you and go on tilt at the blackjack table. :) -Aaron -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:af-bounces+aaron.schneider<mailto:af-bounces%2Baaron.schneider>[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting) via Af Sent: Friday, September 19, 2014 1:06 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Dear Cambium --- [ "George Skorup (Cyber Broadcasting)" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote ]: ----------------------------------- -- 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
