I am still of the mind that WiFi and LTE should be separate domes or enclosures. Having WiFi antennas near LTE antennas isn’t as performant as having them separate since the higher end frequencies can be pretty close to each other.
Ideally you could have a dual LTE dome with a second pass through PoE port that you could hang a WiFi dome off of, or even use it to power a 3rd party WiFi device like the MikroTik if Peplink doesn’t want to provide the WiFi as WAN functionality in a dedicated dome or outdoor product.
My suggestion: Take the PSW-8-Rug, give him some SIM-Slots and we have a layer 3 SIM-Injector, ready to deliver power to a couple of domes, perhaps on different VLANs and can link back to a balance 310x or 380x/580x. Add an HD1 Dome with wifi functionality and you have a nice and scalable marine solution. You may also have some free ports to power your APs under deck…
Theo
the issue is multiple domes into a separate router, you have to manage multiple hardware, in multiple interfaces. if there is a connectivity issue or you want to change a setting, you’d have to log into multiple places potentially. most end users will not like that.
Not only is it a management nightmare for a switch, two domes, and then a Balance, but this would be an extremely expensive solution. Most of the hardware available to do this would drive the price up to $10k which is beyond what most of my customers would pay. Many of them are OK with something nearer to $5k as long as part of it has an upgradeable component so they aren’t locked into something for 5 years and behind the bands or LTE support by that point.
Any update on the product for this that they mentioned they were testing? I have an install to be done before/during Spring and it would be useful to have some parameters on it or timing, or at least know the wires I need to run!
It is frustrating that Peplink communicates so little.
One thing that they should realize is most boat work gets down in the winter before Spring season so knowing what needs to be wired, etc is useful.
Given the lack of communication, and the uncertainty of knowing whether the shortfalls of using two HD1 domes will be addressed, maybe I should consider putting the router on my mast inside an unused larger dome i have for a directv mount, and then use one of their newer antennas. I’m fairly certain the router will fit and stay dry one hopefully not too hot (the big worry). I will need a way to bring the sim tray down to the helm, and provide power to the mast. As well as the access points in the boat.
All the features like balancing and speed fusion should be available.
Any thoughts or recommendations? I have so many antennas up there anyway.
Agree, window for winter work planning for boat upgrades is basically closing now. I just counseled a couple people and said either grab and existing device or wait.
Since I can’t wait much longer and no new products are announced here’s my solution.
im going to run two 4g LTE radios (until a dual 5g radio router is released)
install two maritime 40g antennas. And on the mast place a max transit duo in between them, using an utilized radar dome. So only use the 6’ leads.
run Ethernet down to the helm where I will use AP Rugged access points.
this will give me Wi-Fi as WAN, dual 4g radios so I can manage them from one desktop and take advantage of load balancing, speed fusion etc. I understand I only need one 40g antenna but I decided to put the second one there for when the max transit duo gets upgraded.
the heat and weatherproofing of the transit in the dome should be ok. I hope m
anyone have any comments? I understand my sims will be hard to access but I’ll have four slots. And maybe I’ll just need to do a hard reboot at times m