Is there any sort of timeline we can go by here? We are trying to plan deployments of the A6 this year but without even a general sense of a timeline it is very tough!
Any hints would help. I scrounge Google for an FCC approval daily but would like to hear if anyone knows anything further than waiting for FCC. Do we know what stage it is at and how long we anticipate it being there?
Looking for any useful info for our business planning
Hi @Tim11,
From the Mimosa side of things, this radio is coming along very nicely. I’ve been doing field testing on it for several weeks now and it’s doing very well. At the moment, it is looking like it will be shipping by the end of May, but as always, things can change!
As for the FCC, they are being the FCC. They keep pushing the 6GHz stuff back so maybe they’ll have it ready by the end of the year. That shouldn’t stop folks though as many have already applied and received 6GHz experimental licensing for A5c and I think even one customer has already started their A6 experimental license.
To start doing your own experimental 6GHz license, you can go to this site: OET Experimental Licensing System Electronic Filing Site
Any update about A6 and C6 availability in Europe?
Hello Dustin. I appreciate all Mimosa marketing video mixed to technical webinar but now the question is different.
WISP are encountering really a big challenge to fight against fiber company that are growing up everywhere.
We used 802.11n products until to 2 years ago. We have rapidly moved to 802.11ac products having a tons of difficulties regardless of choosen vendor: Cambium, Ubiquiti, Albentia, Mimosa. Now we are approaching to 802.11ax technologies with hope to fight back with fiber companies, but I’m asking if there is really that chance.
We WISP want to use wireless because the costs of fiber projects are really too much higher for us or too much slow and complicated due to permission and licenses to be obtained locally. Not to mention that if an incumbent large company installs the fiber at the same price as mine, why would a customer buy the same product from me as a small stranger?
Going into technical details for example, the A6 radio are using a 90 degrees panel. Good. In our scenario where there are almost 100 competitors or even so many installed 5Ghz devices only to shoot a public wifi surveillance system, I’m asking how is it possible to install a 90 degrees panel. With 30 degrees horn we manage to get decent service but never comparable to the fiber.
Now unless the manufacturers think we have cells with a radius of 300 meters like cellular providers, I’m really worried about A6 and noise fighting countermeasures.
I spoke in that way because for example we tried on our self skin, the behaviour of Cambium Networks with 3k products. They released on market using WISPs like beta-tester resolving problems from time to time. Ubiquiti have done same things in the past. I don’t use LTU or other of theirs products just for past problems.
Now with Mimosa we are having an excellent results but only with PTP products. The fear to switch to Mimosa (not for Mimosa itself) even into PtMP is due to fear about noise management in really crowded spectrum like ours. Just to be honest, hardly anyone in our territories uses Mimosa in PtMP mode. Or I never saw it on rooftops. And always I’m asked myself why.
Can I look at Mimosa as long life vendor partners to survive with fiber companies?
Thank you for time you will dedicate to me.
Hi @Massimiliano thanks for the thoughtful questions and concerns about dealing with the evolution of our market vs. fiber, and previous generations of technology.
For those not wanting to read the details, a quick 6-series update, we are just about final with the FCC/CE on certifications and mass production starting mid-August. For the USA/Canada folks, the 6 GHz FCC Automated Frequency Coordinator (AFC) process is on track to getting outdoor 6 GHz certifications likely in late Q1 2023. Hopefully you saw details of some of the successful testing at Resound for Gigabit RDOF tier speeds out at 3.5 miles!
@Massimiliano you make an excellent point about adopting new technologies, and I’ll be honest that 11ac for example, provided mostly speed/channel improvements with little technology advantage to address noise vs. 11n, both being OFDM solutions. So for dense PTMP environments especially vs. rural, it was a not an easy decision for WISPs to switch or make a change in investment in a long legacy of PTMP technologies without some major improvements which could not easily be made with legacy OFDM technologies and new antenna techniques.
Mimosa clearly differentiated and led in PTP technology where we found huge success with the new speeds, price/performance, and ability to own L1/L2 source code in the chip to handle noise isolation. Even Tier 1 mobile network operators are now using our PTP technologies due to their ability to isolate in-channel noise at attractive costs. Meanwhile, we also took a lot of what we learned regarding isolation and PHY layer improvements, and applied it to MicroPoP scenarios in PTMP and found a lot of success in residential markets competing with fiber.
But this had still not met the density/scale or noise levels of course needed in urban areas - OFDM simply couldn’t tackle the noise easily, with the only option to add many narrow beam antennas trying scaling “manually” to isolate the APs. As you suggest not a lot of WISPs would not change deployment style or equipment until a much improved technology existed, none of the new solutions technically could scale, requiring extreme density of very narrow antennas - clearly not a recipe to compete with fiber in very dense markets.
Moving to the new 6-series, everything is completely different with new noise isolation techniques, which is why we decided to rethink the antenna designs this time around. Up until the 6-series, we never had taken advantage of beamforming other than TX power improvements. Now with 8x8 TX/RX beamforming, the beamform lobes that are actually narrower than 30 degrees, but they are also dynamically adjustable in null positions on a per client basis. So our 1st priority is to build a wider AP/sector that scales better that can still handle the isolation of a narrow beam antenna. We understand not everyone will want/afford 4 radios per site for 360-degree coverage, and we will also next year offer connectorized versions for ISPs that wish to customize/isolate manually with narrow beam antennas, of course that means no beamforming advantages, but an 8x8 radio is well suited for this too!
Also, with OFDMA comes new micro size Resource Units (RUs) that makeup the operating channel (as opposed to OFDM where the full channel size is a single RU in 11n/11/ac), so you can now isolate the impact of noise to the impacted RUs in the case where that noise could not be mitigated with beamform nulling.
There are also side benefits of OFDMA dividing RUs dynamically to each client transmission simultaneously in the upstream. This allows us to scale # of clients significantly over 11n/11ac, and reduce latency 4-5x, obviously this is also an important factor as we widen an antenna, you’d expect to have additional clients in the sector.
I personally believe that new 11ax based OFDMA technologies are the first new technologies for WISPs in well over a decade in the middle bands, to be able to address denser markets both in interference mitigation and scalability of the access points, as opposed to managing mass numbers of very narrow beam sectors which were better for noise but counter intuitive to scaling.
With new interest in PTMP from even T1 operators now, and big 100M and 1Gbps government funding programs fueling growth in some markets, we’re more committed than ever to make sure unlicensed spectrum can be viewed even more so as a reliable fiber alternative. They also encouraged moving towards carrier grade orchestration at the management layer, adding NETCONF support and massively evolving the MMP (management platform) to handle mass deployments. Many of these larger ISPs have also really pushed us to be totally focused on resiliency and carrier grade capabilities, so I hope that that the WISP market will enjoy a lot of the benefits of these investments and reduce the early frustrations early on.
PS a lot more to come as well in the 6-series, from dual-channel CPE (the A6 is already dual-channel ready), and also beamforming CPE types, and connectorized OFDMA APs to name a few.
Thanks for the update @Jaime !! Love the info and teasers here. Very excited to see what we can do w the A6. We have some great environments to roll out to and can’t wait to test things out. Praying the FCC can get some extra help over there to get this to market soon.
Any update? August and vacation are gone away…
@Jamie love the updates and teasers. Dual channel is exciting for us but begs the question: Will a 5.9GHz - 7GHz version of the A6 become available so we can get the other 320MHz of spectrum to make dual channel a possibility in 360 degrees on a tower?
@Phillip2
The A5 and A6 series both have the capability along with the majority of not all of CPE’s and backhauls.
You just need a license in a special firmware from mimosa to unlock it.
Yea pretty excited here too - but have to see if any vendors actually have it!
My distributor last week informed me that their expected delivery window was pushed back again to end of December/early January. That’s the most up-to-date info I have for Canada, at least from what I’ve been told by distributor
Lucy you got some splanin to do. https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2022/09/20/onsemi-close-down-quantenna.html
Are they using the quantenna chipset on the new radios? I know the name quantenna stemmed from the 4x4 MIMO they achieved earlier than everyone else it seemed.
I would certainly like to be re-assured that Mimosa products are not going anywhere, though!
The following is not an official statement as I’m still waiting for that. The following is what I think I can share as our VP of FWA shared it at Wispapalooza plus a bit of my own addition.
As far as I’m aware, we’re ok right now. A deal is being worked (or has been worked) with OnSemi to make sure we have chips for the next few years. During this time, we’ll have to select a new chip vendor and create new firmware for this chip. I would only start getting concerned if you don’t see any A6 radios by the end of the year. These are in production now and mass production is being ramped up. Distributors should start seeing these arrive in December time frame.
Does the A5x support 6GHz experimental licensing?
If you have a license specifically from your governing agency for the A5x than yes it does up to 6.425 I believe
Hopefully, this is a good sign. The A6 & C6x have been added to the Firmware Update page.