Cambium PTP wireless bridges for remote site connectivity

Cambium Point-to-Point Network

Cambium PTP

White paper

The benefits of a point-to-point bridge

To connect sites that are geographically distance, you can use a wireless point-to-point bridge without spending a fortune on wired networking cables. This point-to-point bridge will enable you to connect two or more remote sites and make them appear like one central site and allows users to share resources including domain services and file sharing. Cambium PTP will help to install this wireless bridge, configure it and with maintenance issues.

Using your point-to-point link

Setting up your point-to-point connection is ease. Cambium Networks provides a triple-radio device, which has two 5 GHz band radios and one 2.4 GHz band radio. The wireless equipment is then mounted outdoors and may require external antennas to optimize connectivity. Cambium's point-to-point equipment can be easily mounted outdoors and offers full mesh capability.

In configuring this point-to-point connection, one of the most common options is to attach a panel antenna to one 5 GHz radio on each unit then point these antennas together. This connection will span the distance between two buildings. The other two radios in the unit can be attached with omnidirectional antennas to offer wireless connectivity to the clients at the two buildings.

Why is Cambium PTP different?

Cambium PTP solutions are assured for 99.99% reliability. This will ensure you get an exceptional service under the best and worst weather conditions. Our solutions deliver high speeds that match today's bandwidth-intensive systems and solutions. Our high performance equipment ensures that you perform with high reliability in any path conditions, including but not limited to non-line-of-sight, long-range line-of-site and over any terrain. We also offer MIMO (multiple-input, multiple-output) technology to transmit more data at once. Over the years, we have balanced our performance and range to deliver the highest connection speeds and more data transfer.

Our point-to-point equipment also have dynamic spectrum optimization (DSO) which coupled with MIMO technology delivers improved performance of the network. DSO ensures reduced interferences as a result of its resistance and reduces fading of signals that causes poor connectivity. We also offer adaptive modulation in our equipment, which provides maximum throughput with highest quality of the connectivity. This will enable high quality connectivity while keeping the data transmission robust.

Our equipment also has high spectral efficiency, which allows more data to be transferred over the bandwidth with minimal spectrum usage. We also have a link planner tool to graphically represent the link path along the description of the configuration, maximum power, antenna height and shows a summary of the connectivity performance such as reliability, loss of packets and data rates. This enables systems administrators to monitor the connectivity with ease.

Summary

The Cambium PTP solution is easy to deploy to link two sites together using a wireless bridge. It is easy to set up and has features that will make it easy for system administrators to monitor the network. These include MIMO technology, dynamic spectrum optimization, adaptive modulation, high spectral efficiency, and a link planner tool to monitor connectivity. Connecting multiple remote sites together using Cambium PTP solution simplifies installation, configuration, and management of your wireless users.

Request for proposal

Background information on the company

Just Say Health was founded in 1993. It is a non-profit dealing with health research, and provision of health services to the needy. We are the largest non-profit in the Northeast region of the United States. We have 20 years' experience in health services provision and research. Our mission is to save 1 life every 100 days and we have always strived to work meet this goal.

Project goals

Just Say Health's staff skill level in both wired and wireless networking is very low. The non-profit majorly relies on consultants to handle their networking needs. This is because networking is not a core activity for the organization and thus we feel it is not necessary to have IT employees to handle this work.

The company to be contracted is required to handle all wireless networking needs and to come up with a proposed beginner-training schedule for IT employees to be able to monitor connectivity and troubleshoot minor problems. The proposed training will encompass all basics of wireless networking and potential issues that may arise. The trainer will be required to give the employees an evaluation test to check their understanding. Employees should then be given remedial classes and special attention given to those who fall behind. At the end of the training, it is expected that IT employees can troubleshoot minor problems.

Time allocation

The project is expected to take a maximum of 30 days including the training period but the contractor is free to specify their work schedule. Just Say Health does not provide any structure to the training program and project specification other than to wirelessly connect the sites and provide 99.99% reliable connection. The project is expected to start in February 2014 and be completed in 30 days. A period of 7 days before the project is allowed for approvals and preliminary agreements and 30 days after the product for post-installation testing and other procedures.

Budget

The cost of equipment and associated fees should not exceed our budget of $200,000. All associated fees and equipment costs should be itemized and should include taxes. Receipts inclusive of taxes should be provided. Just Say Health will claim taxes back at their own time and cost.

Project description

Equipment provided should be new and the manufacture data must not be more than six (6) months from the date of delivery. The equipment should have relevant documentation for installation and these should be left with Just Say Health. All warranty information for the equipment should be clearly specified in the warranty cards. Any equipment provided without warranty will not be accepted.

The vendor is required to provide two copies of operators manuals written in novice English to help in management of the wireless network. They must also provide reference charts and cards for Just Say Health.

Acceptance testing

Prior to finalizing the selection process, the highest scored vendor will be issued with a letter of intent to conduct site surveys and use modeling tools to determine access point placement and quantities. If an on-site survey is part of the implementation plan, any associated costs should be included in the budget. The vendor will also be required to provide an acceptance post-installation plan for testing of performance and security features. The vendor should thoroughly test the system before handing it over to Just Say Health. This testing must include thorough performance and security testing and may include third party tools such as Veriwave and Ixia. The system must comply with CSA standards and perform to the desired specifications.

The proposed solution must interoperate with the currently existing networks in each of the offices. During the acceptance testing, the vendor will be required to provide a simulation of the complete user environment by emulating or conducting actual data, video, and voice services.

During this simulation, the vendor will analyze quality of experience, voice, and video quality scores. The vendor must also generate sufficient malicious traffic to conduct security testing, report on uptime, jitter, latency, packet loss, and throughput during the test, test all fault-tolerance features of the provided solutions, demonstrate client authentication, VLAN and SSID assignment, and security settings such as rogue detection. The contractor must also demonstrate subnet boundaries, seamless roaming in the access points, automated access point setup, and guest access and authentication.

In the event that the selected vendor fails to pass the requirements of the acceptance testing within the period of 30 days stipulated for this, the next best candidate will be awarded the testing contract until the vendor is done with the testing and acceptance phase. In this scenario, the cost of testing will be mutually agreed between the vendor and the next best vendor and will be met by the successful vendor.

Warranty and maintenance period

The vendor must specify the warranty period for the equipment and system and include any exclusions or limitations of the warranty. For the duration of the warranty, the equipment and system should be maintained at no charge to Just Say Health. After the warranty period has ended, the vendor must specify how servicing of equipment will be done, indicative charges, which are only provided as estimates, indicative length of time for service, working hours for service calls, response time for service calls, location of spare parts, warranty period for spare parts, and any guarantees on uptime, equipment and installation. The vendor must also clearly specify the end-of-support dates for components.

During the out-of-warranty period, it is expected that recurring issues identified during the warranty period will be rectified at no cost to Just Say Health during the lifetime of the equipment.

Proposal format

The proposal must contain all pertinent information relating to the vendor. The proposal should have an introduction letter that details the:

Registered business address of the vendor

Vendor's physical or postal address

Authorized contact person's name, email, and phone number.

Person authorized to legally bind the vendor on a legal contract.

This should be followed by a qualifications statement to indicate the vendors ability to satisfy the terms of this RFP. It should include:

A summary of the vendor's experience in providing wireless solutions.

Three (3) reference organizations who have used the vendor's solutions in the last two (2) years. These should include the contact person in the organization, title, email and phone number.

Key personnel within the bidding company with updated and signed resumes

Details of the subcontractors and their key employees

The proposal should then have the following sections in detail:

Proposed dates for onsite presentations and demonstrations

Device and technical requirements

Proposed network infrastructure

Insurance and liability

Statement of compliance to CSA standards

Installation

User Training

Acceptance Testing

Warranty and service information

Product support

Environmental protection statement

Budget

Any appendices

Negotiation with bidders

Just Say Health will enter into negotiations with short-listed vendors. These negotiations will include interviews with key personnel within the organizations and conducting reference checks. These negotiations will be used during the evaluation process and in determining who should get the award. Just Say Health reserves the right to negotiate the final terms and conditions with the highest scoring candidates. At any point in the evaluation process, Just Say Health reserves the right to end negotiations with any candidate and shall not be liable to explain why to any bidder.

Selection criteria

Vendors will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

35% - Proposed network infrastructure,

30% - Relevant experience and solid references,

20% - Qualification of subcontractors and key personnel, and 15% - Cost.

Award, acceptance, and rejection

All vendors will receive a letter notifying them, which one was awarded the contract via email. Just Say Health reserves the right to disclose the scores of the shortlisted candidates. The successful bidder is expected to start working on the project in 30 days. Just Say Health reserves the right to cancel this process at their discretion and to award the contract to more than one vendor.