Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
Our small campus of seven buildings in downtown Chicago has relied on point to point wireless bridging technology since 2002 as the sole means of providing connectivity between buildings -- first using Western Multiplex equipment, and then transitioning to BridgeWave 60Ghz equipment. The BridgeWave links (AR60-AES) have been in service since 2009 and have worked flawlessly. Short paths (less than 400 meters) and multiple links per building have resulted in a highly reliable WAN. Cost effective, too, when compared against leased ethernet services and dark fiber. The beam widths in use with these millimeter wave products are so small (1.5 degree) that it is quite easy, with proper planning, to locate several radios on the same roof and within fairly close proximity of each other without introducing interference. BridgeWave products are not inexpensive -- although, their prices have come down recently. Siklu is another option in this space that I understand is priced lower than BW. On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Mike Ricci mri...@marymountcalifornia.edu wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. [image: MCU_Logo_641 433] *Mike Ricci* *Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect* *310.303.7263, Direct* *Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/* __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
Thank you all for your recommendations. This is extremely helpful! From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Kevin Lint Sent: Friday, June 19, 2015 2:46 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations Our small campus of seven buildings in downtown Chicago has relied on point to point wireless bridging technology since 2002 as the sole means of providing connectivity between buildings -- first using Western Multiplex equipment, and then transitioning to BridgeWave 60Ghz equipment. The BridgeWave links (AR60-AES) have been in service since 2009 and have worked flawlessly. Short paths (less than 400 meters) and multiple links per building have resulted in a highly reliable WAN. Cost effective, too, when compared against leased ethernet services and dark fiber. The beam widths in use with these millimeter wave products are so small (1.5 degree) that it is quite easy, with proper planning, to locate several radios on the same roof and within fairly close proximity of each other without introducing interference. BridgeWave products are not inexpensive -- although, their prices have come down recently. Siklu is another option in this space that I understand is priced lower than BW. On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Mike Ricci mri...@marymountcalifornia.edumailto:mri...@marymountcalifornia.edu wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. [cid:image001.jpg@01D0AAA3.70F5EA20] Mike Ricci Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect 310.303.7263, Direct Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.eduhttp://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/ __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
We have had great success with Aruba's MST200. http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/networking/outdoor-mesh/ On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 10:04 PM, Frank Sweetser f...@wpi.edu wrote: We have a similar set of needs for about 25 of our campus buildings, which all for various reasons we can't get any kind of direct lines to. A few people have mentioned a point to multipoint (PMP) solution. We considered that, and used it a few vendors back, but these days we stick to strictly point to point links, to ensure every building gets its full allotment of dedicated bandwidth and that one building doing something stupid won't take out neighbors on the same base station. (Many of our buildings are student residents, so mistakes do happen.) Right now all of our links are pairs of Ubiquit PowerBridge M5. They're cheap (a little over $250 per end), and can have their power dialed down to handle short runs. Their performance is good, with a total *aggregate* throughput (up plus down) coming in at the advertised 150Mbit. Overall they've been rock solid, though we suspect that they have trouble with certain multicast traffic patterns we haven't nailed down yet. More recently we've been testing out their PBE-5AC-500 PowerBeam AC, an all in one unit based around a new 11ac chipset. It's got better performance, clocking in at 450Mbps on paper and showing around 300Mbps in each direction on bandwidth tests. It was a little flaky initially, but a recent software update looks much more solid. Two notes of warning about Ubiquiti. First, their bridges use their own proprietary flavor of PoE, so you'll have to either use their own injectors, or their switches. Second, is that the vendor themselves don't really offer any support. The units are cheap enough, though, that you can easily afford to have a few spares on the shelf. Our previous setup was build around Ruckus 7731 outdoor bridges. Aligning them was dead simple, since they have a generous 30 degree antenna pattern, but we also had lots of long term stability problems, requiring frequent resets. The cost of a single year's maintenance was enough to cover replacing all of the Ruckus bridges with Ubiquiti ones instead. It's been a while, though, so it's quite possible they've addressed the stability issues since we last looked. Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu| For every problem, there is a solution that Manager of Network Operations | is simple, elegant, and wrong. Worcester Polytechnic Institute | - HL Mencken On 6/18/2015 1:38 PM, Mike Ricci wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. MCU_Logo_641 433 ** *Mike Ricci** **Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect* *310.303.7263, Direct*** ** *Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/* __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. -- James Nesbitt Wireless Engineer North Carolina State University 919-515-0137 ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
We have a similar set of needs for about 25 of our campus buildings, which all for various reasons we can't get any kind of direct lines to. A few people have mentioned a point to multipoint (PMP) solution. We considered that, and used it a few vendors back, but these days we stick to strictly point to point links, to ensure every building gets its full allotment of dedicated bandwidth and that one building doing something stupid won't take out neighbors on the same base station. (Many of our buildings are student residents, so mistakes do happen.) Right now all of our links are pairs of Ubiquit PowerBridge M5. They're cheap (a little over $250 per end), and can have their power dialed down to handle short runs. Their performance is good, with a total *aggregate* throughput (up plus down) coming in at the advertised 150Mbit. Overall they've been rock solid, though we suspect that they have trouble with certain multicast traffic patterns we haven't nailed down yet. More recently we've been testing out their PBE-5AC-500 PowerBeam AC, an all in one unit based around a new 11ac chipset. It's got better performance, clocking in at 450Mbps on paper and showing around 300Mbps in each direction on bandwidth tests. It was a little flaky initially, but a recent software update looks much more solid. Two notes of warning about Ubiquiti. First, their bridges use their own proprietary flavor of PoE, so you'll have to either use their own injectors, or their switches. Second, is that the vendor themselves don't really offer any support. The units are cheap enough, though, that you can easily afford to have a few spares on the shelf. Our previous setup was build around Ruckus 7731 outdoor bridges. Aligning them was dead simple, since they have a generous 30 degree antenna pattern, but we also had lots of long term stability problems, requiring frequent resets. The cost of a single year's maintenance was enough to cover replacing all of the Ruckus bridges with Ubiquiti ones instead. It's been a while, though, so it's quite possible they've addressed the stability issues since we last looked. Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu| For every problem, there is a solution that Manager of Network Operations | is simple, elegant, and wrong. Worcester Polytechnic Institute | - HL Mencken On 6/18/2015 1:38 PM, Mike Ricci wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. MCU_Logo_641 433 ** *Mike Ricci** **Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect* *310.303.7263, Direct*** ** *Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/* __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
RE: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
We are using devices from http://www.fluidmesh.com/ Rock solid reliable for a couple of years.. Would recommend without hesitation. Regards, Kevin Kevin Whitney Director of Technology Cresskill Public Schools 1 Lincoln Drive Cresskill, NJ 07626 201-227-7791 ext 1216 201-227-6746 Direct Fax 201-567-7976 kwhit...@cboek12.org http://www.cboek12.org Member NJ-GMIS From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Mike Ricci Sent: Thursday, June 18, 2015 1:38 PM To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I'm interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you've had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. Mike Ricci Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect 310.303.7263, Direct Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. Please Keep it Green - Do you really need to print this E-mail? This communication, including any attachments, may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information and is intended only for the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. Any interception, review, dissemination or copying of this communication by anyone other than the intended recipient is strictly prohibited and unlawful. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify the sender by telephone or reply E-Mail and delete all copies of the original message. CBOE/CPS does not accept responsibility for any changes to this message caused during Internet transmission. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
It sounds like you’re looking for a PMP (point to multi-point) solution. Unfortunately I can’t offer any experience with one of those products. However, we have used both Bridgewave GE60 and Ubiquiti Airfiber AF24 products to serve nearby buildings up to 1.2km. They provide great throughput, latency, and reliability, but are not multipoint so each link is a pair of radios. I cannot tell easily from their website what the correct offering would be but Dragonwave may offer fast PMP links. Cambium appears to be a vendor that can do this as well, though the subscriber end speeds look to top out at 125Mbps. I know Cisco has had some PMP bridging solutions in the past as well but I’m not sure if they have anything current. Some other concerns that come to mind are: Frequency (licensed or unlicensed?, noisy environement?) Weather (does it snow at your campus, does the vendor offer a heater) Power (POE or AC?) Backbone cabling (fiber, copper? Can it be managed inline, OOB, or selectable?) Good luck and let us know if you find a PMP solution that you like. Jason Watts | Senior Network Administrator PRATT INSTITUTE On Jun 18, 2015, at 1:38 PM, Mike Ricci mri...@marymountcalifornia.edu wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. image001.jpg Mike Ricci Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect 310.303.7263, Direct Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/ __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/ http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
I use Ruckus for my wireless bridges when needed. Setup is simple and robust. There were times when I have to setup a tripod on a roof with a POE network connection and have it link to another antenna 2000 ft away. The setup was: eyeball the two, turn on the antennas and move the tripod/antenna until I got the best signal via an LED signal bar on the antenna. System sync done. Period. I averaged over 300MB unless it rained so hard you couldn't see the other building and it would go down to 200MB speed. I actually had one tripodded antenna fall off the roof; hung upside down, pointing at the wall of the building 180 degrees for the way it should have been and was supported by the ethernet cable and it took me a week to realize it since the signal strength was over 200MB. Setting up a bridge now takes about 2 hours start to finish with the setup I have. Harry Rauch Sr. Network Analyst Eckerd College 4200 - 54th Ave S St. Petersburg, FL 33711 On 6/18/15 1:38 PM, Mike Ricci wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. MCU_Logo_641 433 ** *Mike Ricci** **Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect* *310.303.7263, Direct*** ** *Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/* __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
We found the ubiquity gear to be very very reasonable in price and performance. we use them for parking shacks and the like. /daniel/ daniel westacott University of Minnesota On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 12:38 PM, Mike Ricci mri...@marymountcalifornia.edu wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. [image: MCU_Logo_641 433] *Mike Ricci* *Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect* *310.303.7263 310.303.7263, Direct* *Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/* __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Bridge Recommendations
I use Ruckus for my wireless bridges when needed. Setup is simple and robust. There were times when I have to setup a tripod on a roof with a POE network connection and have it link to another antenna 2000 ft away. The setup was: eyeball the two, turn on the antennas and move the tripod/antenna until I got the best signal via an LED signal bar on the antenna. System sync done. Period. I averaged over 300MB unless it rained so hard you couldn't see the other building and it would go down to 200MB speed. I actually had one tripodded antenna fall off the roof; hung upside down, pointing at the wall of the building 180 degrees for the way it should have and was supported by the ethernet cable and it took me a week to realize it since the signal Harry Rauch Sr. Network Analyst Eckerd College 4200 - 54th Ave S St. Petersburg, FL 33711 On 6/18/15 1:38 PM, Mike Ricci wrote: As our campus rapidly changes and grows, we began placing office spaces in our offsite residential housing. Initially, we built out a large two story office area that has a fixed connection back to our main campus. Networking within the same building was simple as we did this during the renovation. With our growth, the administration is now planning on throwing together another Ad Hoc office space in a separate building. This building is relatively close to our main office space (+-50 feet), however we have no cabling between buildings and no conduits in place. I’m interested in testing out a low latency line of site wireless bridge, one that I could utilize to distribute to multiple buildings as our growth continues, across up to 1000 feet and from 100-1000mbps speeds. Can you share what vendors you’ve had success with? Engenius, Ubiquiti, etc., come to mind initially. [image: MCU_Logo_641 433] *Mike Ricci* *Operations Mgr/Infrastructure Architect* *310.303.7263 310.303.7263, Direct* *Sent from MarymountAnyware - Access your virtual apps today @ http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu http://remote.marymountcalifornia.edu/* __ This email has been scanned by Marymount California University email security service __ ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
