FAQs
The first step is to determine the locations that should be connected. This includes determining point(s) of Internet Access (Local ISP, Satellite, etc.). Afterwards the line-of-sight distances between the locations needs to be calculated. If distances are larger than 20 (30) km, intermediate WiBACK nodes must be deployed and planed. Similar, since WiBACK requires line-if-of-sight between to adjacent WiBACK nodes, if obstacles (hills, buildings, trees) block line-of-sight, intermediate WiBACK nodes must be deployed as well. Google Earth may be used as a (free of charge) planning tool for this exercise. Once all locations are determined it needs to be checked, whether electricity is available or alternative, i.e. solar/battery-powered, options are required.
The most important requirement of a potential deployment site is obstacle-free line-of-sight connectivity to adjacent WIBACK Node locations. The maximum distance between neighbouring sites is 20 (30) km. Hence, often a mast/pole on a roof-top is essential. Such a mast/pole must hold about 3kg of weight (WiBACK Node and antennas and must be able to support wind-load depending on the local wind conditions. Please note, if multiple WiBACK Nodes are used jointly as a WiBACK Clustered Node, these values increase accordingly. Furthermore, lightning protection and ESD should be considered and ideally a stable power supply should be available. The typical consumption of a WiBACK Node-2-Connect or WiBACK Node-2-Connect-II is between 5 and 15Watt. If no stable power supply is available alternative power sources, such as solar, can be used.
First a site needs to be identified (see previous questions). If required, mast/pole needs to be mounted. Afterwards, the WiBACK Node(s) and the antennas can be mounted. If needed, solar-cell, battery and charge-controller can be deployed as well. As a final the antennas needs to be pointed.
This highly depends on the used antennas and the regulatory conditions in each country. Typical max. distances are 15-20km. As a rule of thumb, it can be said that longer distances yield reduced throughput. Moreover, high quality antennas are highly recommended.
Typically, WiBACK supports up to 28 dBm TxPower. Depending on the antenna type and cable, this may yield up to 55 dBm EIRP .
WiBACK supports license-free bands at 2.4 GHz and 5.x GHz bands, but can also operate on licensed bands at 700/900 MHz and 3.xGHz. Please note, a WiBACK Node-2-Connect or a WiBACK Node-2-Connect-II is manufactured for a certain frequency band, i.e. the 5 GHz band.
Depending on distance and spectrum availability, a WiBACK Link between to WIBACK Nodes provides a capacity up to 200 Mbps. Please note, that this is sustained actual throughput. Given that most services only require sporadic bandwidth bursts (web, mail, cloud, etc.), links can be overbooked. WiBACK enforces bandwidth limits & fair-use depending on actual load/overbooking and link conditions. WiBACK also monitors links and SLAs and reports QoS violations. Moreover, the typical per link latency is <2ms, typical per link packet loss < 0.01%.
WiBACK supports four classes (Management, Voice, Video and Data) of service. However, only Voice, Video and Data are used for actual user data traffic. Management is only used of WiBACK’s internal management traffic.
If multiple independent physical links between WiBACK nodes are available, WiBACK will attempt to utilize such links to either provide increased capacity or redundancy. This feature is not yet fully tested and disabled in release builds!. Moreover, multiple controllers can be operational in ‘warm’-standby mode.
WiBACK permanently monitors its links and allocated data pipes. Problems such as underperforming links or QoS problems are displayed on the Management Webinterface on the WiBACK Controller.
A WiBACK network currently provides site connectivity. That is, users should/must be connected via WLAN/Ethernet, etc.to a WiBACk Network. E.g. an WLAN Access Point or a home-router must be connected to a WiBACK Node.
