DragonWave has their Horizon Duo, which is a split mount system. If you enable the second radio in the unit you take a pretty TX power hit though. No 6ghz radio though, which you will want at 20-25 miles. I had a ton of problems with my 2 Airpair 11Ghz links. Knock on wood, they have been running for about a year now though.
Ceragon makes a very good radio, but lead times for 6 and 11ghz high power stink. I put an order in at the end of October and have really been hounding them. I should have the rest of my order next week. I bought 5 links, 4 11ghz and 1 6ghz, all high power. If you don't want/need high power it should be better. I bought IPMAX2 HP because I can move the RFU's indoors if I want and gain another 3db of TX power. I also would look at Nera. They have a radio that is pretty nice. No 256qam or hitless adaptive modulation yet, but price and delivery seem to be reasonable. Nera also seems to have the best system gain in the market, 102db. DragonWave will probably be cheapest, but they don't have a split mount 6ghz radio. No experience with Nera yet, but I plan to this year. I really think Ceragon has the complete package at this time, but getting equipment is like pulling teeth. My 2 cents anyway. Mike Bushard, Jr Wireless Network Engineer DiversiCOM / Wisper Wireless Solutions, LLC 320-256-WISP (9477) 320-256-0178 Direct 320-333-9448 Cellular 320-256-7555 Fax -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paolo Di Francesco Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2009 7:53 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] Ceragon, Dragonwave and whatelse? Dear All, we are considering to move to licensed frequencies for back hauling and therefore some hints would be really appreciated. We are looking at 2 main manufacturers (Ceragon/Dragonwave) so the problem is "which one fits better for our needs"? Just to summarize: a) links are around 20-25 miles b) antennas: the smaller the better c) robustness is very important d) average life: 3 years >From what I have read in the data sheets I have done the following considerations: 1) Dragonwave Horizon is nice but only if your site is well protected from "sabotage and stealing". The "all outdoor" approach is nice but it has the drawback that if somebody takes the whole unit they will have a brand new unit working. With the IDU/ODU approach they will have only half of the "banknote", so after the first or second time, they will not spend time having something useless. 2) Dragonwave Horizon can be a problem if you don't use fiber from the unit down to your switch. In few words, we have sites with huge amount or EM fields, so even using shielded cables (e.g. Belden 1300A) we get only few ethernet megabits. So we should use fiber to go up the tower, but maybe be IDU/ODU approach is more robust (comments welcome). 3) All outdoor means that when you have to re-use the devices somewhere else, you have to buy a whole new thing instead of just swapping the ODU. 4) In any case the (all outdoor or IDU/ODU) when the tower is frozen (and when I mean frozen I mean a whole block of ice) then it does not change much, you have to wait the better season to work on that. 5) Performances look more or less the same. 6) I don't know much about prices, I have looked on some website, I am still exploring this aspect 7) Is anybody using the software-switch capabilities on this devices or just using them as transparent bridges for your router/switch? Do you need to reset them often? Comments are welcome. Am I missing some other good brand? Thank you. -- Ing. Paolo Di Francesco Teleinform S.p.A. Sede Legale: Via Francesco Paolo Di Blasi 1, 90144 Palermo Unita' Operativa: Via Regione Siciliana 49, 90046 Monreale Tel: +39-091-6408576, +39-091-6404501 Fax: +39-091-6406200 http://www.wikitel.it http://www.teleinform.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
