Q&A from Webinar "Symmetrical Sector Antennas" 02.12.2015


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Questions and Answers from Webinar "Symmetrical Sector Antennas" 02.12.2015:

 

It is available some connectorized cross. for use some other device?

Connectorized versions are not available, we are currently reviewing their position on our 2016 product roadmap. We want to emphasize, that our strategy for future developments is and will remain focused on TwistPort™ products.

 

Expected effective «Range» of Symmetrical sectors? dBi if u want? What's the max range of two antennas connected point to point?
The Questions about achievable range have the only reasonable answer (together with providing reference to some wireless link calculators ), and that answer is usually very long and starts with „You know, it depends..“. Btw, on a sector, such test would not have much sense. One of our customers is using 30° Sector at distance over 9km and it works just perfect (CPE being UBNT NanoBridge 25dBi). All customers that reported to us have noticed significant improvement of signal level and link quality.

 

Do symmetricals Recieve the signals as easy as the traditional antennas, since they are so much smaller? F.ex. from a far away client?
Differencies in physical size of the antennas have no relation. Btw, Symmetrical Sectors work way better

 

When we can also have a Dual Slant version? will be quite simple to have at least a TwistPort Adaprter for Mikrotik... the best will be the simper in dual slant version... We have many sector dual slant polarized and we need a solution to improve performance... When the 30° horn will be available also in dual slant polarization? When simper will be really available?
You are right about the fact, that to create slant version of TP-Adaptors shall not be an technical challenge – it is not. We have had no specific plans for slant, especially because people often misunderstand how and why to use slant polarization (not saying this should be your case). We will think and maybe collect more feedback from customers to understand the exact need here. Btw, due to the symmetrical shape of the antenna beam, you can mount whole antenna 45° twisted..

 

Are you planning about more gain symmetrical sectors?
Not at the moment. We have to emphasize: do not be confused by dBi figures on „Gain“ in datasheets. The realized gain in field with Symmetrical Horns will be higher, in many cases significantly higher than with mainstream sectors. The reason for it is superior noise isolation nad lower losses. Just try it yourself and you will see.

 

The gain showed on slides are the total gain including the symetrical sector or the additionnal gain to the equipment connected to the sector.
Gain on the slides is antenna gain.                          

 

Is there a chance that these antennas may got broken. like a problem on the beam or a problem over rpsma cables.It deoesnt work like its supposed to be .and rocket or rb or cambium devices are not the blame?
We are not sure about the question here, but let´s try. Symmetrical Sector antennas are made from high quality materials: die-cast, stamped and extruded aluminum, stainless steel. Symmetrical Sectors are very durable, obviously way beyond the standard of competitive products. We encourage you to try one – nothing can beat your personal experience.
Both Simper radios and Symmetrical Sectors have no, ZERO coaxial cables on them = nothing to break on coax part.

 

Can the antennas go down to 5.1 GHz? Does this gain continue down to 5150 Mhz?
Symmetrical Sector antennas can operate in this frequency. TwistPort Adaptors are tuned to work in 5.45GHz – 5.85GHz range. That is the reason why we do not show the gain for this frequency. The gain at that frequency will be similar. We saw couple of customers operating in lower spectrum and they get comparable results.

 

Will there be a shielded version of the ePMP adapter?
No. ePMP 1000 radio has a decent design so we consider this is not necessary.

 

Is there any adapter for Cambium PmP450 and PmP 450i?
No.

 

Do you have radios also? I mean that integrate with this antennas? to connect radios we need to buy two elements, the connector and antenna, that's correct?just work for Cambium ePMP 1000, Ubiquiti and MikroTik?
We work on our own radio. The radio is called Simper™ and it will be introduced next year (2016). Our radio will have TwistPort™ connector, so you just clip it to antenna and that´s it. No adaptor will be needed.
TwistPort™ Adaptors are the „half way to the goal“.. honestly, less than half. We have to compromise the whole concept just to enable UBNT, CN and MikroTik radios working with our TwistPort™ antennas. We are putting magnesium wheels, racing spoilers and recaro seats on average and outdated family cars. We know why it is necessary, but it is really not proper when considering the whole set of benefits of our reference designs. So our focus is our own radio that will perform as we think is appropriate. No compromises, no nonsense.                  

 

Will you be creating these for 2.4GHz?
We are considering various frequencies for TwistPort™ enabled products and 2.4GHz is one of them.

 

Will the presentation slides be available after this webinar?
We are going to have more webinars about Symmetrical Sector antennas before and after Holidays and we will create slides (video) and publish it. We will try to include answers to possibly all your questions we collect by the time.

 

In traditional sector you have a narrow vertical beam, so you also have lower noise from higher and lower antennas (in height). Will Horn Antennas take more noise from this side? I don't know if my question is clear, I hope yes :-) By the way I already tried the Horn in one site and they perform great, but I wanted to know if you have some data about that! And... What platform (MikroTik, Ubiquiti, etc...) gave you the best results (based on your tests) for sector using Horn Antennas?Somewhere else.

You have to consider, traditional (patch array) sectors have lot of sidelobes above and below main lobe (in elevation pane), and these really do not improve isolation, but opposite. Antennas simply talk and listen in these sidelobes, no matter if we like it or not (as we usually do not). So these antennas are spreading signal around, not only into main lobe.
Symmetrical Sector antennas are superior in noise immunity simply because they have so small side lobes, so they are below recognition. Their radiation pattern is compact, without side lobes, and also consider this with their symmetrical/circular shape.
We achieved the best results with our Simper Radios. MikroTik was just slightly better than UBNT. We did tests on the link shorter than 2km in very noisy environment.

 

What is the performance of the heavy rain and foggy conditions?
The same laws of physics apply here as for other antennas.

 

Do u have sector antenna vs your antennas performance tests?
We are working on many tests these days, and because these are sectors, they simply take longer than one afternoon. We want to deliver high value information documents that provide answers to all questions. Also we have winter weather, a proven source of complication in any outdoor activity.
What we can say is, that we see significant improvements on performance on all installations, and so far all customers are really happy about antenna performance. We will encourage them to post on our forum.

 

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Interesting reading.

One new question though, the new simper radio's; what OS will they have? From previous articles I've got the impression it would be ROS or an clone of it? Im my opinion that would make you new radio's a winner. MT users could then just integrate these into their existing ROS network.

But since ubnt has much bigger market share business wise Airmax would be better. (But not for me.. :-(   ROS is much better than ubnt's OS but then again, just radio's don't always need all these options....) Probably you guys have to pay a fee to either MT or ubnt for use of their OS?

Maybe the radio's would come with no OS at all? You could than just  opload the OS of you liking? Or you can pick the one of choice? For sales volumes multi platform looks best to me. For sales value not. (Price has to be lower since user still has to pay the OS license).

I'm hoping you guys are not inventing the wheel again with a new, non tdma compatible, OS version. This would drop interests a lot from supposed users.

Off course I am referring to tdma (Airmax or NV2). Normal 802.11a/n/c is compatible to all, but in reality most serious WISPS don't use that anymore.

 

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Oh, and now we are talking the new radio's with a new OS. Radio sync would make them very interesting.

I know, MT is not doing that (yet???) so if you guys would choose to come with something new, try to embedd radio sync. This would make it a winner again.

[I am afraid that if ubnt or MT is chosen for its OS only ubnt will see it with sync available now. This would put MT on the side line.....

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11 hours ago, wirelessrudy said:

Interesting reading.

One new question though, the new simper radio's; what OS will they have? From previous articles I've got the impression it would be ROS or an clone of it? Im my opinion that would make you new radio's a winner. MT users could then just integrate these into their existing ROS network.

But since ubnt has much bigger market share business wise Airmax would be better. (But not for me.. :-(   ROS is much better than ubnt's OS but then again, just radio's don't always need all these options....) Probably you guys have to pay a fee to either MT or ubnt for use of their OS?

Maybe the radio's would come with no OS at all? You could than just  opload the OS of you liking? Or you can pick the one of choice? For sales volumes multi platform looks best to me. For sales value not. (Price has to be lower since user still has to pay the OS license).

I'm hoping you guys are not inventing the wheel again with a new, non tdma compatible, OS version. This would drop interests a lot from supposed users.

Off course I am referring to tdma (Airmax or NV2). Normal 802.11a/n/c is compatible to all, but in reality most serious WISPS don't use that anymore.

 

To have a third party OS embedded in our product, we have to have an agreement with that vendor, covering a lot more than just license fees. As regards us, we have always been and still are very interested in having RouterOS powered Simper radios, irrelevant if it's our integrated or modular Simper design. So far I can tell you, no agreement for using RouterOS is in place. Let´s be perfectly clear, right now, all options for RouterOS in Simper are upon decision of MikroTik. As a MikroTik customer, most probably you could direct such requests to MikroTik and tell them that you want to use RouterOS powered Simper radio. I can ensure you, that RF elements is interested for that option without a doubt.

TDMA is proprietary, so again, it is difficult to blame new manufacturers for not being compatible with main market players. Every established manufacturer is very protective of its install base and is naturally trying to lock its customers by not to being compatible across platforms basically on anything. It is all on those who own existing proprietary TDMA. Again, probably it may help, if they hear your voice. ;)

11 hours ago, wirelessrudy said:

Oh, and now we are talking the new radio's with a new OS. Radio sync would make them very interesting.

I know, MT is not doing that (yet???) so if you guys would choose to come with something new, try to embed radio sync. This would make it a winner again.

[I am afraid that if ubnt or MT is chosen for its OS only ubnt will see it with sync available now. This would put MT on the side line.....

...and the same thing goes for Sync :) I can imagine, one functional sync across all major platforms would be a nice thing to have. ..or better said, to dream about :) 

Btw, speaking about compatibility, our approach is fairly different from other manufacturers. Example: We would offer a royalty and support on TwistPort™ to other radio manufacturers, so they are able to design their radios with TwistPort™ connector and be perfectly compatible with all TwistPort™ antennas. I would think this is a very different approach from the rest of the market and people see it as an almost heretic approach (lunatic, if you wish), but we are very very serious with this as we believe TwistPort™ is a game changer for this industry.

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Hmmm, thanks for your answers.

Gambling on your own new, proprietary tdma is nice but the product needs to come with more than only "the best antenna there is". Like you said, once made a choice for one product line the bigger the WISP (the more interesting for any manufacturer) the more difficult it will be for such operator to change his network. I mean, ALL units (AP's + CPE's) have to be changed.... that's an investment and job... Hence you don't see a lot business change from MT to ubnt (cheaper and/or more 'dummy' proof) or Motorola (eCambium). The latter has big problems to regain once lost market share and a new player like Mimosa has issues to enter the market. Amongst all these product you'll find tecnologies that represent the latest in mimo and mu-mimo with 'ac', sync etc. Only if you will deliver all in a working constellation that noticably outperforms other's a your new radio stands a chance.

And if RF-elements is able to make something (it will be a 'high-end product, like Aruba,  Ruckus, Radwin or Cisco etc.) it will have to compete in a price segment MT, ubnt and eCambium alike. So you have to deliver the Ferrari and sell it at the price of a Fiat......

Your Simper product line must really outperform existing product lines a lot. And lets be honest, the present adapters work fine so MT, ubnt or eCambium don't have to do anything to make their product ready for the twistport and cone antennas. So why should they develop a new twistport radio?

Off course, there will be a marginal improvement between a 3rd party radio in an adapter or a similar developed radio that comes with twistport. But the end user also will  hardly notice the better signal, an adapter just does do fine too (as I already noticed.)

The development of a simper radio with its own OS or the gamble that any manufacturer will make his own simper radio product is nice but I don't see it as a game changer and it might proof not a very strategic decision for your company to go that road.

I think the best idea would be to have a simper radio develloped that can actually have a 3rd party OS uploaded and installed. Now you can sell units, manufacturers still make money (licenses, at no costs....) and the end user is mostly happy. He can get the best out of both worlds, depending on what he thinks is best.....

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Do u have sector antenna vs your antennas performance tests?
We are working on many tests these days, and because these are sectors, they simply take longer than one afternoon. We want to deliver high value information documents that provide answers to all questions. Also we have winter weather, a proven source of complication in any outdoor activity.
What we can say is, that we see significant improvements on performance on all installations, and so far all customers are really happy about antenna performance. We will encourage them to post on our forum.

Hi, I'm in Valencia (Spain) and here the winter weather is more sweet, and this year more a lot. I have a antenna sector carrier class in production with a netmetal5 and work fine but in the next week I will try 30º simper antenna with rb922 for 6km to 7km customers.

If the team wants rfelements carry out tests at this time I can make, I am at your disposal. I just need to test products and instructions that you do.

Regards

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