What we need is NOT yet another incompatible P2MP link protocol, but implementation of some standard or at least interworking with what other manufacturers (especially UBNT) do.
I heard that they are releasing new version of RoS with airmax compatibility on 1 Apr 2019
+1 
That must be RouterOS v7 !!! 
Codename: Unicorn
For sure .ax will be earlier. Think back: MT was the first with .ac.
To do anything with P2MP protocols we need compatibility between manufacturers, at least between UBNT and MikroTik.
Now we can do only standard 802.11 because there always is at least a MikroTik client on UBNT AP and vice-versa.
LOL… Good luck with that, I’m sure manufacturers are really thrilled to publish all their secrets so they can make less money… this is simply not going to happen.
Only possibility is if TDMA is part of the future official 802.11something specification.
And it’s a good question why this wasn’t done long time ago… it’s not like TDMA protocols like nstreme, NV2, AirMax are new.
802.11ax claims to do the job:
https://www.qualcomm.com/solutions/networking/features/80211ax
ofdma gives frequency slices to cpes
Uplink resource scheduler handles media access (So what is different to TDMA).
So the TDMA/compatibility discussion might be gone …
We had the same issue in amateur packet radio and it was solved in the nineties. The solution was called DAMA and I think it is much like NV2 and AirMax, maybe less a few of the special optimizations.
It is unbelievable that 25 years later there still is no 802.11xx standard that covers this and can be implemented by every manufacturer.
Then at least you can have rudimentary collision avoidance on a P2MP link, even when the manufacturer-specific protocol works a bit better.
Does 802.11AX still not include such a system? I would think that an “all new High-Efficiency Wireless protocol” would… the “collisions due to hidden terminal” problem should be present even in indoor networks at increasingly higher frequencies…
It does. Look my post one minute before your’s.
Those networks might still be wireless, but will become more and more NFC to a point where it won’t be possible to have any obstacle between radio partners (except for their housings) and thus there won’t be any “hidden terminal” due to lack of signal coverage.
DAMA does not require any special arrangements at the radio layer. It just polls the clients (at the link layer protocol) in a ring to ask them if they want to send data.
It is my suspicion that both NV2 and AirMax do the same thing. However as they both invented their own protocol they aren’t mutually compatible.
Of course in a new system one can solve it at the radio layer, but the polling solution can be used with existing radio hardware.
I thought the movement is towards beamforming accesspoints (with the associated advantages of MIMO) which means that all clients clearly hear the accesspoint, but do not hear eachother at all.
That is the same as with a P2MP outdoor link setup.
Yeah, beamforming is buzzword of the moment. However, there’s still EIRP limitation and with all that free air pathloss increasing with frequency and specially with inability to penetrate or refract the obstacles (a moving human body can become a huge problem) … I’m just not holding my breath.
And you really believe that Mikrotik will support that feature from the beginning, there are so many things missing @ac Hardware, so don’t call for new Chipsets, they are not able to support them
Wave 1 Missings:
- Output Power Managment
- Spectral Scan
- Channel sizes
Wave 2 Missings:
- no wave 2 features available
What’s about 802.11k, 802.11r and 802.11v, we need that in the EU for every Wireless Network in
Government Places / Meeting Rooms etc
Ask Mikrotik for those features and you hear silence
At this point there is no future for Mikrotik Wireless, not Indoor and not Outdoor, only at
low cost markets
This is quite troubling situation, as for WiFi4EU you need these features and no Mikrotik device supports them. So even if you love Mikrotik, you can’t use it. And these are often big projects, paid partly by EU money. If Mikrotik had suitable device, they could sell good amount of them.
Instead all that money is spent on competitor products and as a result they get more R&D money to release even better products, meanwhile Mikrotik is stuck in the past with limited R&D budget unable to catch up. We can only hope it’s actually not this bad…
Come on MikroTik support, at least tell us if you’re planning something or not.
Normis wrote on other Topic that they develop new driver with wave 2 support, but we don’t no when it is available
I’d prefer to see ax based protocol than Wave 2 ac
You want to get next Beta Tester, buy arm that’s Beta enough