MikroTik SXT LTE Kit – The obvious next step.

Image result for mikrotik sxt lte

I’ve recently been lucky enough to be included in a friends deployment of a MikroTik SXT LTE kit.
Having previously had a full hands on play with the kit, it is typical MikroTik quality, average quality plastic with a brilliant performance for a less than average price.

The purpose of the installation was to remove the tired fixed wireless link he had which was only the region of around 10/2Mb and wasn’t the most cost effective solution.
Being a semi rural location meant a fixed line solution wasn’t going to work and mobile phone signal wasn’t awful returning better than wireless access speeds.

The decision was made to put in an SXT and with the help of an unlimited data SIM card, he is getting speeds far superior to the FWA, cheaper monthly outlay and it’s unlimited which is something the WISPS tend not to do.

When there is 4G access this good it is a stark signal that there is light at the end of the tunnel for those who aren’t blessed by Openreach and their fibre.

Speedtest result of a recently deployed SXT LTE

UK 5Ghz Wifi March 2018

I’ve been keeping an eye on the latest updates from OFCOM and not too long ago there was a release of a notch in the 5.8Ghz channel banding which has ultimately led to creating/allowing use of some more channel space at the higher end. With a slight shuffle around of existing conventions it now means that you can effectively run 6 20Mhz links in Band C.

Below is an image (and PDF) of my proposal of how to do this along with a chart of other 5Ghz wifi usage and availability. I am by no means saying that this is the “right” or “only” way of doing this but to my logic this makes the best use of the newly available spectrum.

 

 

You can download a nice PDF version of the above chart from here.

MikroTik WAP60G Wireless Wire – The Best You’ll Never Use!

wirelesswire

OK so maybe I was a little harsh in the title, but to be honest. It’s quite true for the UK right now.

MikroTiks wireless wire truly is a groundbreaking product, Gigabit full duplex link over wireless at a total retail cost of less than £200 but if something sounds to good to be true, it usually is. The form factor of these units following the WAP build is great, small, versatile and outdoor grade, they feel so well made with a good weight to them. The box comes presented well and they have a nearly premium feel when you are opening the package (something which normally eludes even the expensive MikroTik products). Out of the box they follow MikroTiks normal IP convention of being on 192.168.88.0/24 space and are addressed and fully secured from the off, you can literally connect them and start passing traffic over them. So I did.

Performance was just as good as expected, with the units in very close proximity (probably a little too close) they were quite capable of maintaining a +800Mb speed test although that was using the built in bandwidth tester which is quite notorious for not being as efficient as it could be. Single duplex tests were slightly better as expected and when the connection was limited to “only” 500Mb either direction latency was measured at <1ms. At full tilt the latency did get a little wobbly but again I’m more along the lines of thinking this was the CPU’s in the devices that the actual link limitations.

tik60g2

So why won’t we be using this?

Unfortunately for our country whilst the use of the 60Ghz frequencies mentioned is license exempt, there are stipulations you need to adhere to, this one falls over in that whilst MikroTik haven’t officially released the specs, it is speculated the antenna gain in them is around 13dB which falls short of OFCOMs guideline stating that you need to use a minimum of 30dB to legally use the 60Ghz spectrum outdoors (page 2 if you’re interested). For the time being this means that this amazing wireless wire product is indoor use only.

There is a company though in Poland who are currently developing some larger antenna for them http://siec.multimediahd.pl/

So whilst the Gigabit full duplex low latency low price link is something we certainly want to see more of, you won’t be seeing one mounted externally anywhere near you any time soon (well not legally anyway).

MikroTik website product link here