1. Update for NCAB John Hernandez Jeff Custard 17-Oct-2007
UCAR Wireless WAN
Update for NCAB
John Hernandez
Jeff Custard
17-Oct-2007

2. Outline What is it? What do we use it for? Wireless basics
Review of each UCAR wireless link
Questions?

3. What is it? Fixed wireless, point-to-point Ethernet bridging
Local to regional scale
10 miles
Up to 1 Gb/sec full duplex
Average 99.95% reliability

4. What do we use it for? Connecting off-the-grid places (MFS)
Backup connections (ML)
Protection from fiber cuts
Business continuity
IP voice and data

5. Basics: Radio Frequency (RF)
Microwave RF of note for us:
2.4GHz unlicensed (ML-MFS)
5.3/5.8GHz unlicensed (ML-JC)
23GHz licensed (ML-MFS)
80Ghz (EHF) licensed (ML-FL)
Unlicensed is increasingly crowded
ML-FL replaced due to interference

6. Basics: Considerations
Clear line of sight
Antenna type (size, gain characteristics, etc.)
Cabling and power
Interference
Antenna alignment, fine tuning
Transmit power levels
Weatherproofing, lightning protection
Precipitation (link budget calculations)
Uptime acceptability numbers (calculated estimates)

7. Review of each WWAN link
Mesa Lab (ML) to Marshall Field Site (MFS)
Mesa Lab (ML) to Jefferson County (JC) Airport facility
Mesa Lab (ML) to Foothills Lab (FL)

8. ML-MFS

9. ML-MFS
Primary 50Mbps link: licensed DragonWave 23GHz ( / GHz using “AirPair 50” radios with 2’ RadioWaves antennas)
Backup WWAN link: b link 11Mbps (Cisco 350 series bridges; 2’ Antennas)
Final fall-back link: T1 from Qwest/C-Com
Primary for VoIP

10. ML-JC

11. ML-Jeffco Proxim (now TeraBeam) Tsunami GX90
Backup for primary Jeffco fiber connection
Full-duplex 45Mbps
5.745 / 5.83 GHz
Andrew antennas (3 Foot Parabolic)

12. ML-FL

13. ML-FL BridgeWave AR80X Recently replaced unlicensed Proxim system
Backs up ML fiber connection
1 Gbps full duplex
Andrew antennas (2’ Parabolic Dual Polarized)
Also provides backup for NOAA

15. References Project pages on the NETS web
MFS
ML-FL
ML-JC
Data/spec sheets from vendors for radios and antennas