great ap test part3 Cnpilot E410

In previous sections we have already had the opportunity to test Access Points from Ubiquiti Inc. UAP-AC-M and UAP-FlexHD. This time we will deal with the Access Point of another company - Cambium Networks. Our test-lab has received an Indoor Cambium CnPilot E410 Access Point. Of course, we check the devices with the same test procedure as in Parts 1 and Parts 2 of our test series. The technical part of the tests and their analysis remains the responsibility of the irreplaceable Wojtek Repiński.

Cambium CnPilot E410 is an Access Point for indoor installation. The set includes a bracket, which allows you to mount the device both on a wall, ceiling and suspended ceiling. Cnpilot E410 has mounting elements that allow for quick and easy installation of the access point on the structural strips of suspended ceilings.

This Access Point from Cambium Networks supports many modes of wireless network operation, while the most important is the 802.11ac wave2 protocol and 2x2 MU-MIMO support. Of course it should be remembered that the engineers from Cambium have equipped Cnpilot E410 with a huge amount of very useful services and features. Here are some of them

• 802.11a/b/g/n/d/e/h/u/k/r/u/v/w/ac/ac-wave2
• Radius service for 3 servers
• LDAP service
• SNMP v2c and v3
• Remote login to 2 servers
• Automatic changing of radio parameters when detecting interference
• VLAN
• QBSS - QoS service in wireless networks
• Roaming
• HotSpot 2 service.0
• Transmitter operation schedule
• IPv6
• VPN client service (L2TP/L2GRE)

As I've already mentioned, cnPilot E410 has a very large number of configuration options and the first configuration process itself can be a little difficult for people who are starting their adventure with wireless networks. However, this can certainly not be treated as a disadvantage. Thanks to such an extensive and detailed configuration, we can very precisely set our Access Point to a specific application. This is extremely important in corporate networks.

As was already the case in the previous parts of our test cycle, with the help of a spectrum analyzer, we measured the performance characteristics of the cnPilot E410 transmitter. The results of the measurements showed that the access point from Cambium Networks has behaved even in a standard way. During operation in 5GHz band and 80MHz channel width, the transmitter did not show any noise generation outside the transmitting channel and the device can easily be recommended for operation in wireless networks with high density of access points.

Of course, this time too, the purpose of our tests is to verify wireless coverage based on mesh topology. We test the devices under including signal coverage as well as real speeds obtained in the building. This is another test of devices from the whole series of wireless devices for home, office and industry. Properly selected procedure allowed to compare all devices in identical conditions and similar configuration.For 2,4GHz connections we have assumed maximum channel width of 40MHz, but unfortunately Cambium cnPilot E410 works only in 20MHz width. For 5GHz we used 80MHz width. Although some devices can work with 160MHz channel width, due to still limited number of terminal devices (phones/laptops) we currently skipped these tests.

The testing device was the MacBook Pro A1502, equipped with an AirPort Extreme WiFi card (Broadcom BCM4360 3x3, 1.3 Gbps PHY). The built-in wireless card supports 802.11a/b/g/n/ac.

Before testing the wireless network, we verified maximum performance of the LAN and iperf3 server. The aforementioned laptop was connected with a 10/100/1000Mbps network card to the switch. We obtained the following speeds for a single TCP stream:

• download 894Mbps
• upload 958Mbps

We used AirSurvey software to make a reliable signal map. - This is well known to MacOS users.

• To correctly read the levels of individual signals, please refer to the color legend at the bottom of the picture.
• The location of the Access Points has been marked with appropriate icons.
• The device on the "ground floor" has been connected to the switch via Ethernet 1Gbps port.

To make the performance tests of network built with cnPilot E410 as reliable as possible, we've done a similar series of speed measurements, as it was the case in part 1 and part 2 of our test cycle. Speed tests were performed using the WiFiPerf software, while the speed test server was running iperf3 software. A series of tests were carried out using the TCP protocol and the duration cycle 60s. Below are the results of Cambium cnPilot E410 speed tests at individual measurement points:

Cambium cnPilot E410 has justifiably found its place in the WiFi4EU project. A huge number of functions, a lot of wireless network configuration options and very good performance clearly speaks in its favour! Although working in mesh topology leaves much to be desired, cnPilot E410 is not a typical Access Point intended for working in such a network. It is an advanced device designed to work in typical corporate networks. Additionally, thanks to the excellent characteristics of cnPilot E410 transmitter's operation, it will be perfect for wireless networks with high density. It is also worth mentioning Cambium cnMaestro - a brilliant platform for managing configuration and operation of Cambium Networks devices.In general, we have to admit that the engineers from Cambium have risen to the challenge. They created an extremely efficient series cnPilot for advanced wireless users. In the next parts of our test we will continue to check if other companies' devices will be equally efficient...

Authors:
Wojciech Repiński
Leszek Błaszczyk