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Cambium Networks is a wireless infrastructure provider that offers fixed wireless and Wi-Fi to broadband service providers and enterprises to provide
Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...
. An American
telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
infrastructure company, it provides wireless technology, including Enterprise WiFi, switching solutions,
Internet of Things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...
, and fixed wireless broadband and Wi-Fi for enterprises. Publicly traded on the
NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
stock exchange, it spun out of Motorola in October 2011.


Products

Cambium Networks manufactures point-to-point backhaul, point-to-multipoint communication wide area network (WAN), Wi-Fi indoor and outdoor access, and cloud-based network management systems. In 2020, the company collaborated with
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
to add mesh networking technology Terragraph that allows high-speed internet connections where laying fiber optic cable is not viable. As of 2021 the company has shipped 10 million radios. Products are available in point-to-point and
point-to-multipoint In telecommunications, point-to-multipoint communication (P2MP, PTMP or PMP) is communication which is accomplished via a distinct type of one-to-many connection, providing multiple paths from a single location to multiple locations. Point-to ...
configurations. Its cnWave fixed wireless solution provides multi-gigabit throughputs. It includes both the original Motorola-designed products using the Canopy protocol and the PtP backhauls that were rebranded from Orthogon Systems, which
Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...
acquired in 2006. Cambium Networks’ solutions are used by broadband service providers and managed service providers to connect business and residential locations in dense urban, suburban, rural and remote locations, including education and healthcare.


Enterprise Wi-Fi and Switching

Cambium Networks also manufactures Wireless LAN (WLAN) Wi-Fi access points including
Wi-Fi 6E IEEE 802.11ax, officially marketed by the Wi-Fi Alliance as (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) and (6 GHz), is an IEEE standard for wireless local-area networks (WLANs) and the successor of 802.11ac. It is also known as ''High Efficiency'' , f ...
and intelligent switches along with cloud=management systems. In 2022, Spectralink added interoperability with Cambium Networks access points and Wi-Fi phones and handsets as part of its enterprise wireless certification program.


History

Cambium Networks was created when Motorola Solutions sold the Canopy and Orthogon businesses in 2011. Cambium evolved the platform and expanded it to three product lines: Point to Point (PTP) (formerly Orthogon), Point to Multipoint (PMP) (formerly Canopy) and ePMP. In 2018, CIO Review named Cambium in its list of 20 Most Promising Wireless Technology Solution Providers. In July 2019, Cambium acquired Xirrus from
Riverbed Technology Riverbed Technology is an American information technology company. Its products consist of software and hardware focused on Unified Observability, Network Visibility, End User Experience Management, network performance monitoring, application per ...
. In June 2019, the company listed on the
NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
Stock Exchange in an
initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
that raised $70 million. WISPA network operator members voted Cambium Networks the “Manufacturer of the Year” from 2017-2020. The technology competes with
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a family of wireless broadband communication standards based on the IEEE 802.16 set of standards, which provide physical layer (PHY) and media access control (MAC) options. The WiMAX ...
, LTE and other long range mobile products, but not effectively with wired Internet, which is capable of much faster speeds and does not have wireless relay
round-trip delay In telecommunications, round-trip delay (RTD) or round-trip time (RTT) is the amount of time it takes for a signal to be sent ''plus'' the amount of time it takes for acknowledgement of that signal having been received. This time delay includes p ...
. Competent Canopy implementations such as the
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however have demonstrated
VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
,
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and other
low-latency Latency, from a general point of view, is a time delay between the cause and the effect of some physical change in the system being observed. Lag, as it is known in gaming circles, refers to the latency between the input to a simulation and ...
applications work acceptably over this system, and in areas of challenging weather including high wind conditions (which cause antennas to move and affect connections).


Typical setup

A typical Canopy setup consists of a cluster of up to six co-located standard access points (AP), each with a 60 degree horizontal
beamwidth The beam diameter or beam width of an electromagnetic beam is the diameter along any specified line that is perpendicular to the beam axis and intersects it. Since beams typically do not have sharp edges, the diameter can be defined in many differ ...
antenna, to achieve 360 degree coverage. The most commonly used APs are available in 120, 180, or 360 degree models for site-based coverage, thus decreasing the number of APs needed on a tower. Also included would be one or more backhauls or otherwise out-of-band links (to carry data to/from other network occasions) and a Cluster Management Module (CMM) to provide power and synchronization to each Canopy AP or Backhaul Module (BM). Customers of the system receive service through subscriber modules (SM) aimed towards the AP. The SMs should be mounted on the highest point of a building to get a reliable connection; otherwise,
Fresnel zone A Fresnel zone ( ), named after physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, is one of a series of confocal prolate ellipsoidal regions of space between and around a transmitter and a receiver. The primary wave will travel in a relative straight line fro ...
obstruction will weaken the signal. Under ideal operating conditions, the system can communicate over distances of depending on the frequency using equipment with integrated
antennas In radio engineering, an antenna or aerial is the interface between radio waves propagating through space and electric currents moving in metal conductors, used with a transmitter or receiver. In transmission, a radio transmitter supplies a ...
. Network operators can opt to install reflector dishes or Stinger antennas or to use Canopy models that accept external antennas at one or both ends of the link to increase coverage distance. Most Canopy equipment receives its power using
Power over Ethernet Power over Ethernet, or PoE, describes any of several standards or ad hoc systems that pass electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. This allows a single cable to provide both data connection and electrical power to d ...
, however, none of its standards comply with IEEE 802.3af. A customer can query the status of their SM by viewing URL 169.254.1.1/main.cgi with a web browser (unless the network operator uses a different IP address or has put the subscriber in a
VLAN A virtual local area network (VLAN) is any broadcast domain that is partitioned and isolated in a computer network at the data link layer (OSI layer 2).IEEE 802.1Q-2011, ''1.4 VLAN aims and benefits'' In this context, virtual, refers to a physi ...
. In general, the 900 MHz version is more effective for use in outlying areas because of its ability to penetrate trees. However, it requires careful installation because of the easy propagation of interference on that band. Other frequencies currently available are 2.4 GHz, 5.2 GHz, 5.4 GHz, and 5.7 GHz.


Comparison with other wireless networking systems

While Cambium offers products that support the
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
protocols (mostly the cnPilot range and the products from their
Xirrus Cambium Networks is a wireless Internet service provider, wireless infrastructure provider that offers fixed wireless and Wi-Fi to broadband service providers and enterprises to provide Internet access. An American telecommunications infrastructur ...
acquisition), most of their outdoor, long-range products function exclusively with the proprietary TDMA Canopy or Cambium protocols on custom FPGA code. These are heavily optimized for GPS synchronization, frequency re-use, low latency and long distances / high interference survival. The versions of this protocol include: * PMP100 -
FSK FSK may refer to: * FSK (band), a German band * Federal Counterintelligence Service, (Russian ') of Russia * Fiskerton railway station, in England * Forskolin, a diterpene * Forsvarets Spesialkommando, a Norwegian special forces unit * Fort Scott M ...
based system which works on 8Mhz (on 900mhz) or 20Mhz channels (on 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz). Offers <5mbps on 900mhz or <14mbps on the other frequencies. * PMP320 - WiMAX 802.16e-based system, which came from their Nextnet acquisition therefore has architecture differences from most of the other products. 3Ghz band only and 5/7/10mhz channels, offers up to 45mbps throughput at the 10Mhz channel size but that was rarely achieved. * PMP400 - first OFDM-based product, 10Mhz channels, up to 20Mbps speeds. 5ghz band only. * PMP430 - evolution of OFDM, channel size 5/10/20Mhz, up to 50Mbps speeds at the largest channel size. 5ghz band only. * PMP450 - large family of OFDM products. 900Mhz, 2.4Ghz / 3Ghz / 5Ghz band coverage, 5-40Mhz channel sizes. Can do 200Mbps+ at 40Mhz channels. The Medusa MU-MIMO Access points allow multiple streams simultaneously, therefore can achieve 1Gbps+ of throughput split between multiple customers in a 40Mhz channel. * "Orthogon" protocols - these came from the Orthogon Systems acquisition. The protocols have a large number of subcarriers allowing powerful non-line-of sight abilities. The 5Ghz-only product families include PTP400 (OS-Gemini), PTP600 (OS-Spectra), PTP300/500 and PTP 650/670/700. These families are not protocol-compatible with each other, and some different products have intra-family protocol compatibility limitations. In comparison, the PTP250 was an early Wi-Fi chipset attempt and the PTP550 is an ePMP-based product. * ePMP - this is the value line, unlike the others these are based on commodity Wi-Fi chipsets, with the advanced protocol implemented in software. The PPS numbers are lower but still far in excess of competitive Wi-Fi-based products. It maintains the advantages including GPS synchronization and frequency re-use. They offer 10/20/40/80Mhz channel size support, with 160Mhz in development. These products are
fixed wireless Fixed wireless is the operation of wireless communication devices or systems used to connect two fixed locations (e.g., building to building or tower to building) with a radio or other wireless link, such as laser bridge. Usually, fixed wireles ...
technology. Canopy protocol products have many advantages over Wi-Fi and other
wireless local area network A wireless LAN (WLAN) is a wireless computer network that links two or more devices using wireless communication to form a local area network (LAN) within a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, campus, or office buildi ...
protocols: * Transmission timing is explicitly controlled, so that all access points (AP) on all towers can be synchronized by cluster management modules (CMM) to prevent interference. APs of the same band can be placed right next to each other, and back-to-back units can use exactly the same frequency. * Designed for
wireless internet service provider A wireless Internet service provider (WISP) is an Internet service provider with a network based on wireless networking. Technology may include commonplace Wi-Fi wireless mesh networking, or proprietary equipment designed to operate over open ...
(WISP) use; polling-based (prevents one subscriber module from "hogging" bandwidth), excellent interference rejection and easy management. * Simple to install and configure. * TDMA system and optimized radio design allowing long-range communications, often 10km+ Their main disadvantages are: * Proprietary * Less reliable than wired systems


See also

*
Wireless local loop Wireless local loop (WLL), is the use of a wireless communications link as the " last mile / first mile" connection for delivering plain old telephone service (POTS) or Internet access (marketed under the term "broadband") to telecommunications ...


References


External links

*
Cambium Networks CEO on Cheddar TV
{{authority control Wireless networking Metropolitan area networks Network access Motorola Telecommunications companies of the United States Software companies based in Illinois Companies based in Cook County, Illinois Companies listed on the Nasdaq 2011 establishments in Illinois