Best Ubiquiti hardware for me?

[dwinch]

Hi,

I'm a member of a small R&D team that is looking at hacking 802.11 for extended range and high-mobility applications. As a starting point, we're looking for easily modifiable commercial hardware and software, and have heard interesting things of the MadWiFi drivers for Linux. We've heard very good reports of Ubiquiti WiFi devices in general, and since some (all?) Ubiquiti products are supported by the MadWiFi drivers, they seemed the best place to start.

So, my question, then, is this: what devices (client devices and an AP) would we be best off getting for our experiments and hacking?

I've included some more information and questions below that might help someone to answer the above question.

Client devices:
We're likely to be using laptops with MiniPCI support, but also each with a free PCMCIA/CardBus slot. Are we better off going with the "Embedded Radio" or the "Mobility/Portable" products?

We'd prefer full a/b/g and n support if possible, but I can't find too much information on using the MadWiFi drivers with n devices -- it seems all a bit too new. Are we going to run into problems here? Should we stay with the older a/b/g products instead?

We've been looking at the SR71C on the Products page, which looks fantastic, but I can't find any solid data on using it with the MadWiFi drivers. Does it work? Are there any limitations? Does anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share about this device? What about the SR71A?


AP:
There seems to be a pretty big range of AP-like devices from Ubiquiti. Ideally, we'd want to run OpenWRT or some other similar, open-source, 'hackable' OS on whatever we got. Is this possible on all of the Ubiquiti AP-like devices?

None of the APs seem to support 802.11n. Is this true, or am I missing something?

The PicoStation looks pretty cool, but there's no external antenna connector, is there? Is there any way to change the antenna?

The Bullet looks amazing, too.

Is the NanoStation Loco the same as the NanoStation, but without the external antenna connector? What does the PowerStation do that the Nanostation doesn't, or vice versa?

What is AirOS like? Is it open source? Can we 'hack' it to the same degree as OpenWRT?


Overall:
We're wanting to be able to play with as much of the protocol as possible -- changing ACK timeouts (or removing ACKs altogether), changing the complete workings of how and when the CSMA/CA logic happens, fiddling with TX power, and all that stuff. Is this possible through the MadWiFi driver on Ubiquiti client hardware? What about modulation/demodulation, or is all that done on the atheros chips? Can we turn that off, or fiddle with it in any way? Basically: how extensible and 'hackable' are these devices?

We definitely want to plug in external antennas (directional and omni-) and be able to play as much as possible!


Thanks, all, for any thoughts and/or answers you can provide!

[kb9mwr]

I'll just tackle the AirOS question. As a matter of fact there is a whole SDK for it right here:

http://www.ubnt.com/support/airos.php

I've found the Ubiquiti products to be very versatile. I'll be curious to read any follow up progress you make as you post described alot of things of interest to me.

Good luck & have fun.

[WHT]

Are we better off going with the "Embedded Radio" or the "Mobility/Portable" products?

Two different animals. The embedded radio requires external support hardware, like a case and card slot connector. The mobility products are ready to work out of the box.

We'd prefer full a/b/g and n support if possible, but I can't find too much information on using the MadWiFi drivers with n devices -- it seems all a bit too new. Are we going to run into problems here? Should we stay with the older a/b/g products instead?

Unless you have a compelling need, such as some really old laptop wireless cards that only support "B", you don't want to mix "b" with anything else as it will slow your whole network down.

"n" is all about speed. Advertising claims increased range and speed, but in reality the range increase isn't significant, but the speed is.

"a" is pretty much a failed product for indoor use. For this reason, Netgear dropped their "a" product line, and also explains why you see little if any "a" consumer products.

None of the APs seem to support 802.11n.

Because UBNT is geared for outdoor applications and "n" really has no advantage past a few hundred feet distance compared to "g".

The PicoStation looks pretty cool, but there's no external antenna connector, is there? Is there any way to change the antenna?

I don't have one yet, but I imagine the antenna is detachable to fit it into a shipping box.

Is the NanoStation Loco the same as the NanoStation, but without the external antenna connector?
http://telecomanddata.com/ubnt_family.jpg

What does the PowerStation do that the Nanostation doesn't, or vice versa?

The Nanostation and Powerstation are basically similar. The NS has some additional loss when using the external antenna connector. The PS has a greater gain internal antenna than the NS and has less external antenna connector loss (applies to only the PSx-EXT model).

What is AirOS like? Is it open source? Can we 'hack' it to the same degree as OpenWRT?

There is an AirOS SDK on the UBNT website.

We definitely want to plug in external antennas (directional and omni-)
http://telecomanddata.com/bullet_omni_3dB.jpg http://telecomanddata.com/bullet_omni_6dB.jpg
http://telecomanddata.com/bullet_grid.jpg

[dwinch]

Thanks WHT and kb9mwr. Your responses have raised a couple more questions:

Two different animals. The embedded radio requires external support hardware, like a case and card slot connector. The mobility products are ready to work out of the box.

Hmm. This doesn't mesh with what I understand from the products page. The "Embedded Radio" products seem to be essentially Mini-PCI versions of the "Mobility/Portable" products, from what I can tell. Is this not the case? (Note: I'm referring to the "Embedded Radio" products, not the "Embedded Systems" products.)

"n" is all about speed. Advertising claims increased range and speed, but in reality the range increase isn't significant, but the speed is.

My understanding of the literature is that the increased throughput arises from exploitation of multipath through MIMO, and that speed benefits are only at short range, too, which I guess leads into the following quote:

Because UBNT is geared for outdoor applications and "n" really has no advantage past a few hundred feet distance compared to "g".

Still, an 'n' product seems useful for us to play around with, as long as the MadWiFi drivers are up to it and we can find the products to support it. If we, say, purchased a couple of SR71Cs (a/b/g/n), and any of the Ubiquiti APs, then, it seems that the SR71Cs would only be able to operate in 'n' mode when communicating ad-hoc, since the AP wouldn't support 'n'. Looking further into OpenWRT support lists, it seems that current 802.11n devices are not supported well there, either. Hmm....

I suppose support across the board will ramp up once (if?) the standard is ratified!

Thanks again for your responses. We're still gathering information on current products that might fit our needs, so I'd certainly appreciate any more comments anyone out there has!

[WHT]

"Hmm. This doesn't mesh with what I understand from the products page. The "Embedded Radio" products seem to be essentially Mini-PCI versions of the "Mobility/Portable" products, from what I can tell. Is this not the case?

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. There is no way any of the embedded radios can fit inside the form factor of any of the mobility devices.

[dwinch]

"Hmm. This doesn't mesh with what I understand from the products page. The "Embedded Radio" products seem to be essentially Mini-PCI versions of the "Mobility/Portable" products, from what I can tell. Is this not the case?
I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. There is no way any of the embedded radios can fit inside the form factor of any of the mobility devices.

Hmm. I think I'm having trouble saying what I mean. :oops: Sorry about that, WHT.

From the point of view of the project I'm working on, we don't really care too much about the physical attributes of a product (the 'form factor'), as long as it's such that we can use it in our laptop computers that we'll be using for experimentation.

From what I can see, the Embedded Radio products (such as the XtremeRange2) are all Mini PCI cards that would slot into our laptops. Likewise, the Mobility/Portable products (such as the SR71C) would slot into our laptops' PCMCIA/Cardbus ports just as easily.

I anticipate there may be some tricky issues physically connecting external antennas to the Mini PCI cards (as the slot is underneath the laptop, and harder to get to in normal use), but beyond that the products seem similar as far as our needs are concerned.

So that's where I was coming from. Both groups of products seemed ready to work 'out of the box' simply by plugging them into our laptops. Functionally speaking, would we be better off with one or the other?

Another alternative would be for us to get a couple of Nanostations, for example, and communicate with them through the laptops' built in Ethernet ports, but then we run into the issue of how to power the Nanostations when we'll potentially be 'on the move'.

[WHT]

AH.....Now I see what you are talking about. You want to install the Embedded card INSIDE your laptops or attach the Mobility units to external facing ports.

The Embedded cards could use the laptop's internal antenna, IF you can get past any antenna connector problems.

The SuperRange Cardbus and SR71 Cardbuss require an external antenna (or at least my SuperRange does), where as the SuperRange Xpress has an internal antenna (and antenna port for an optional external antenna).

Using an external antenna on my SuperRange is very clumsy. I've already had to replace the MMCX connector a few times in the two months I used it early last spring. I never use it anymore as it kept locking up my laptop.

The USB model is still a dream...

<HINT> <HINT> UBNT