Ubiquiti Networks airFiber

[CougTek]

http://www.ubnt.com/airfiber#airFiberHardware

Anyone here have tried or heard about it? A pair of antennas would cost us less than 3800$CDN and I'm seriously considering it to provide network access to one of our sites very nearby. The airFiber has a 13Km range. This site is not even 1Km away.

From what I've read, there seems to be quite a positive opinion about Ubiquity's stuff.

 

[ddrueding]

I have tons ([possibly literally) of Ubiquiti wireless stuff deployed at this point. Great equipment IMHO, as reliable as the Canopy stuff at 10% the price. I have not deployed the AirFiber yet, but am considering for a longer haul.

1km is nothing; many of their cheaper products will work perfectly if you have line of sight. I have AirGrids running double that distance without outage for 4 years now.

 

[CougTek]

If I can have AirFiber, I want AirFiber. No interference from other devices for quite a while too, since it uses a seldom used band range.

Thanks for the reply and endorsement.

 

[ddrueding]

Let me know how it works. I'm holding out on some 16km and 22km links that look perfect for their AirFiber 5Ghz product (both ends are in the boonies, owned by us for 10+ km, and no other sources in the background either).

 

[Chewy509]

If you're looking for point to point links, and have clear line of sight between site, Free Space Optics (FSO) based technology can provide up to 1GigE for far less cost than microwave based systems.

I've personally used 100Mbit FSO between sites (about 1km apart), and it worked extremely well. (But this is in sunny Queensland). Oh, since the connection requires no special software (it's basically a copper ethernet adapter to fibre adapter, and the device on the roof is a focused lens for the fibre, the hardware itself is very simple and requires virtually no mantenance. In some respects you can treat it as a fibre connection, that instead of using a cable, uses a laser), it's installation is very easy (you just need a free Ethernet port on the switch/router at each site)..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_optical_communication

 

[CougTek]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-space_optical_communication

From the link :

...the stability and quality of the link is highly dependent on atmospheric factors such as rain, fog, dust and heat.

Here, we have a six month Winter. I need something reliable, especially when the meteo is bad because that'S when a blackout is most likely to occur. A powerful antenna like the Ubiquity airFiber should allow communication in anything less than an hurricane. FSO, much less sure. Of course, nothing beats a physical link between both site, but then the cost might be prohibitive. So far, the best option I've seen seems to be the gigabit antenna in the original post.

How much does two FSO transmitters cost? Just curious.

 

[Chewy509]

How much does two FSO transmitters cost? Just curious.

Depends on the laser units, and speed.

The unit I deployed was just under AU$4K for 2x 100Mbps transmitters/receivers, fibre-to-copper converters and installation. IIRC The transmitters/receivers units themselves were only about AU$900 ea. (This was about 9yr ago). The distance was just under 1km and had line of sight with no obstructions (top of building installation). And we spent another AU$2K on Cisco routers for each end, but that was an optional cost for us.

 

[Chewy509]

PS. The Cisco routers, were part of a whole-infrastructure upgrade timed at the same time, so I'll note they weren't purchased specifically for the installation.

 

[CougTek]

From what I understand, a two antennas kit costs ~3800$CDN and I only need CATe cables to plug into those. and that's it. See the picture :



I'll need a router on the other side, but that would be the case for any connection type. Even with the installation (which I might do myself) and the cabling, I don't expect to reach 5K$ overall.

 

[CougTek]

Oops, I said I wouldn't post any other pictures for a while. I guess I'm the new Santilli.