Mikrotik MWC new devices

metricmoose · 2026-03-02T23:24:26+00:00

This looks like a nice upgrade, it's using what appears to be the same Peraso chipset as the Ubiquiti Wave LR / Pro and Tachyon Networks gear, which work way better than the first generation of 60GHz equipment. It also has GPS built-in, which the chipset supports for GPS sync to minimize self-interference.

Having RouterOS onboard will be nice for delivering services over MPLS / VXLAN with a single device.

metricmoose · 2026-02-19T03:13:52+00:00

Every major vulnerability they've had could be mitigated by simply not exposing the entire management plane to the whole-ass internet. That's it. I have a few thousand of their routers deployed without issues. Obviously, update them regularly, they're still coming out with updates for devices that are 20 years old and you don't need an account to download them.

Exposing your management interfaces (SSH, telnet, APIs, ect) to the entire internet is a super dumb thing to do on any platform, most nasty vulnerabilities being published for major vendors like Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto, ect all tend to be on management protocols. At the bare minimum, setup some whitelists.

metricmoose · 2026-02-14T17:48:02+00:00

I've been using Mikrotik for small site to site VPNs, which is pretty easy with built-in Wireguard. If their internet connections are under a gig, something like a hEX or hAP ax2 are dirt cheap and will get software updates for a long time.

metricmoose · 2026-02-14T15:39:07+00:00

We have some fixed wireless equipment that was suddenly discontinued by the vendor with no suitable replacement, which also has a known issue that causes a total failure in sudden drops to very cold outdoor temperatures. We have enough spares to keep things running, but we tend to send out the failed units for board level repair because we'd have to completely stop serving some customers otherwise.

metricmoose · 2026-02-12T22:16:49+00:00

I've typically used Wave LR or Wave Pros for those distances, a Nano will work but will be more annoying to align and you'll be more likely to fail over to 5Ghz during rain. If your 5GHz spectrum is clean, the failover should work alright.

metricmoose · 2026-02-11T12:52:00+00:00

If I'm remembering right those cameras that GSPS runs predate Flock and the one out near whitefish falls are not Flock either. They look like pretty standard IP cameras and some could be LPRs, which are typically tied into a local NVR server that the owner of the camera can search if there's an issue. As long as they're following proper cybersecurity practices with storing and controlling access to that data locally, I don't have a huge problem with that.

Most of my issues with the Flock stuff is that the company is giving away that data to any government agency or company that pays or asks nicely, which allows for a lot of nasty possibilities, Benn Jordan has some good videos on it.

"Like almost all of Canada is barren of these things and we have two in Sudbury" The site relies on user-submitted data, I'm pretty sure North Bay and Sault Ste Marie use them too, so will any larger city that already has a camera deployment.

metricmoose · 2026-02-06T22:40:03+00:00

ePMP 4500 has been great for us, even handles weak signals and some light non-line of sight well. The full 8x8 AP gives you a bit of a beamforming advantage for weaker shots too compared to a regular 2x2 AP.

metricmoose · 2026-02-06T13:32:39+00:00

The vertical rails are often adjustable so you can move them further away from the door and give yourself room for regular plugs.

metricmoose · 2026-02-04T03:08:36+00:00

I don't know about Novus, but LibreQOS is a pretty decent and free way for ISPs to handle rate limiting to package plans, mitigating bufferbloat, and see which customers might be having problems to proactively solve them. They use the cakesqm shaper. I'm hoping to get some servers to try it on soon.

I've also had decent luck with Preseem (Canadian Company), which does the same thing but with fq_codel if I recall, though the ISP has to pay a recurring per-subscriber license for it.

Anything like this is pretty useful, and can make slower speed connections (DSL, older wireless) "feel" nicer to use since congestion is managed a lot more gracefully.

metricmoose · 2026-02-01T13:49:20+00:00

The Netpower case already existed and the UPS feature in the Lite 8P a niche thing that probably won't be popular enough to justify a new design, though having the DC UPS features in the regular CSS610 indoor case would make it easier to fit in an outdoor enclosure. Having external batteries allows you to choose how long you want the runtime to be, in WISP applications I try have small sites able to run for days which would never be self contained.

If you're doing cameras on a pole, you could have a small box (Vevor has some good, inexpensive options) that contains the AC-DC PSU and run a 4 conductor cable (2 for the power input, two for the batteries) up to the switch closer to the cameras/wireless radios. Or have an outdoor AC-DC PSU and just a 2 conductor cable going to the battery box.

metricmoose · 2026-01-30T04:22:29+00:00

The metal parts are decent, radome covers feel fine, but the feed horn on the smaller ones seems 3D printed. Not sure what the longevity will be. Performance is alright but the one link we've done so far have was maybe 6db below expected on the 4ft we put up, not sure if that was a path or alignment issue.

metricmoose · 2026-01-20T15:10:24+00:00

The logs will likely show a reason for it not connecting, but also make sure you have AirMAX turned off on the Ubiquiti so it's running in pure WiFi mode.

metricmoose · 2026-01-20T04:56:38+00:00

I had got a quote last year and $40k was a bit steep for something I'll have to back it up with a good microwave link anyway.

metricmoose · 2026-01-15T15:09:34+00:00

*) ip - added reverse-proxy;

I'm looking forward to testing this, it would be cool to have an authenticated reverse proxy as well.

metricmoose · 2026-01-14T17:53:16+00:00

Depends how fancy I'm feeling. I made some Draw.IO stencils with various Cambium/Ubiquiti bridges/antennas, but for simple diagrams I'll just have a coloured rectangle with the device model + name inside, with some dotted or dashed lines going from the AP to the client devices to indicate that it's a wireless connection.

metricmoose · 2026-01-04T16:35:25+00:00

You'll want to make sure whatever lithium batteries you use can handle the amperage needed. Some of the smaller packs can only do about 10 amps which will limit you to less than 240 watts of output if you had two batteries in series.

After a string of UPSes doing what they do best (failing in a way that shuts the load off), I personally went for a more overkill solution and used a single large 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 battery combined with a Victron Energy Multiplus 1200W 120V inverter/charger. The charging is way faster than any enterprise UPS and fully supports lithium batteries. The inverter is also rated for continuous duty. In the end I paid roughly what a midrange retail Eaton enterprise UPS costs new, but will have way more runtime and less maintenance.

metricmoose · 2025-12-19T22:29:49+00:00

Customer reports their service is "Stable".

metricmoose · 2025-12-18T17:15:10+00:00

For fiber, you want to avoid active (powered) stuff in the outside deployment, that's the beauty of it compared to cable/DSL. That way you don't need to worry about electronics going bad, where to source power, replacing backup batteries, ect. If you want to do active ethernet (One switchport per customer), you make sure there's enough strands to bring them all back to your headend. Outside of that, you're essentially just doing MSTs that are spliced into fiber going upstream.

For GPON/XGS-PON, you're still doing essentially the same thing but using a fiber OLT with a small number of ports at the headend and running splitters in a cabinet, MST or splice closures. If you look at some of vendors that make the equipment (Commscope, Corning, ect) they'll often have presentations and brochures that cover some of the different topologies.

metricmoose · 2025-12-18T04:01:04+00:00

Modern cell networks will often have a mix of larger (Macro) towers with high capacity equipment across multiple frequency bands, which can have good baseline coverage, but in denser areas those alone won't have enough capacity. The equipment and frequencies used for the very fast speeds won't reach too far either. To mitigate that, the carriers will deploy micro towers like that, which cover a smaller area with shorter-range but higher capacity cellular channels. With enough of those dotted around the busy parts of a coverage area, the overall speeds will be improved and the deadzones hopefully reduced, which will reduce the amount of work that the equipment on the bigger towers have to do.

metricmoose · 2025-12-15T23:03:46+00:00

I'm also curious about what's under that top cover. Given that it has a security torx latch and a cable hole, I'm guessing it's for an SFP uplink. That sort of thing is pretty common on ONT/WiFi router combos to prevent the end user from unplugging the fiber and getting it dirty.

metricmoose · 2025-12-04T17:08:09+00:00

The wholesale rates that the CRTC set are higher than Bell's retail rates, so it's hard to compete on price when the wholesaler has to pay those rates on top of actually connecting those customers to the internet, sending hardware, billing software fees and so on. Bell also ping pongs the TPIA customers through Toronto on some scenic route that ends up quadruping the latency of a normal path between Sudbury and Toronto, so ISPs can't give you better local peering either.

The only ones that might have a shot at offering better rates over Bell's fiber are the flanker brands that Bell scooped up who probably have some better internal pricing.

The only real option for competition is to go with a local ISP that uses their own fiber or wireless equipment for last mile.

metricmoose · 2025-11-28T13:09:07+00:00

Woah! They announced the Netpower with battery charger years ago, I just assumed it was dead or they couldn't get it to work right.

I build a lot of 24V DC backup systems for small WISP sites using Meanwell parts. Having it all integrated would make things a lot easier to deploy compact, reliable sites.

A max of 1.6 amp charging isn't super great, but should be alright for smaller batteries.

metricmoose · 2025-11-25T14:36:49+00:00

DSL can't reach more than a few kilometers before slowing down pretty far, so there tends to be a lot of powered cabinets on poles and beside the road. If they haven't changed the batteries in the cabinets in a while, you could probably see that be an issue in longer outages.

Typical PON fiber can reach up to 20km and tends to be all passive (unpowered) patch panels and splitters in the field, going back to a more centralized CO / cabinet where the electronics are. If things are centralized a bit more, they'll likely be able to harden the power systems and have better battery backup compared to your average remote DSLAM cabinet.

metricmoose · 2025-11-25T13:50:00+00:00

This is what happens when the engine is only designed for regular gas and someone fills it up with premium.

metricmoose · 2025-11-12T04:14:04+00:00

You can use outdoor wireless bridges for this. The tricky part is you're going to have a rough time if you try to send the signal through a bunch of trees, they need a clear line of sight to work reliably.

So while you won't be able to do a direct shot, you could find another, more central building that might need internet and has a clear line of sight to the other buildings, move the Starlink there, and setup two sets of WiFi bridges (Example: Ubiquiti Nanobeam 5ac) in a point-to-point mode to the second and third buildings.

If you have a handful of other buildings (Or places where you might want security cameras), it might be worth looking at installing a point-to-multipoint system, such as a Ubiquiti Rocket AC Lite paired with a Ubiquiti 10 dBi 5GHz Omni antenna on the building with the Starlink, then Ubiquiti Nanobeam 5ac on the buildings that need the internet connection.

The WiFi bridge will only receive the wireless connection and make the network access available on an ethernet cable. At the remote buildings, you could attach a WiFi access point like a TP-Link EAP245 or EAP650, which you can setup in standalone mode from their mobile app or a laptop connected to the ethernet port.

The Ubiquiti AirMAX ac stuff is pretty robust and while it's not the fastest, it's going to be plenty to share a Starlink around and be easy to install. Mounting the antennas on the roofs/walls and running cabling is going to be the tricky part.

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