Via a friend (and my distributor) it has come to my attention that Mikrotik has EOLed the Disc Lite5 ac….
Replacement items are listed to be RBSXTsqG-5acD, and RBLHGG-5acD-XL larger distances.
The two said devices are by no means good replacements for the Disc Lite5 ac.
The SXTsq can do fine up to a few hundred meters, but with double the opening angle (23 vs 12 degrees) it is not usable for longer hauls, it has too low gain and picks up too much noise.
The LHG is not usable in harsh environments with ice and snow and strong wind.
As far as I can see you don’t get a radome cover for the XL either….and it is way too big to refit to existing wall brackets, when it is mounted at an angle from the wall.
And lastly – it is approx. double the price compared to Disc Lite5 ac.
The Disc Lite5 ac has been my standard client and medium speed PtP device for years, since it replaced the Sextant. It is rather small, rugged, good old SXT/Omnitik bracket that fits on the Quickmounts and has very good radio performance. Actually better than RFE Ultradish 24 dBI with RB M11G/R11e
Previously, when the Disc Lite was out of stock, I have used RFE Stationbox XL CC (now discontinued) with RB911 or RB M11G, which was not too bad, but it is outperformed by the Disc Lite5 ac.
The stores are now vacuum cleaned for Disc Lites…
So in fact, we are left with what?
Can anyone at Mikrotik please comment on this?
-What was the reason for EOLing the Disc Lite5 ac, one of the “hit products” in the line?
-What will you come up with as a replacement, and when will it be on the street?
Currently 4-address implementation in wave2/wifi and wireless drivers are incompatible. And I don’t see them getting compatible (it would likely break compatibility with early versions of wifi), I guess they would be compatible from the get go if that was an option.
One thing is how future ax products will be backward compatible, another is availability of ac clients in the months and years to come.
If backward compatibility is not possible, both APs and clients will have to be replaced simultaneously to upgrade to ax, and that’s quite a job.
Therefore ac networks based on older CPUs and ROS 6 will exist for years out there, and we need clients to do our new installs and replace old and broken CPEs.
I welcome new ax clients that will probably outperform the Disc Lite, but given the normal introduction cycle, it often takes a year from presentation of new products until they are available from distributors.
Given my above considerations, keeping the ac line alive until ax is truly available would probably pose little or no risk for MT and distributors of being left with EOL stock.
It is worse if everybody has to resort to all kinds of homebrew solutions and second hand antennas to keep their network going.
station-bridge compatibility between older and newer wireless drivers is essential imo. It’s impossible to replace the access point and all associated clients at the exact same time, and most WISPs do not have the luxury of being able to install both the old and the new access point on the same tower for a transitional period.
But do you get a radome cover for LHG XL?
I cannot risk ice and snow buildup on the mesh of the LHG, that would render it unusable.
IMHO I cannot understand that a “sealed” (except for the cable hatch) and integrated antenna with a smooth surface like the Disc lite isn’t better than the LHG wrt. ice and snow. And the size argument is perfectly valid, the LHG XL is way to bulky for being a standard CPE.
Of course, we can go for various DYI solutions based on the L11UG-5HaxD, but the availability of integrated client antennas for fitting your own RB is limited.
Do you plan to launch something like a Disc ax?
When?
We’re almost february, has anyone picked up rumors of new ax CPEs? Next to LHG 5 ax and Disc5 ax, a DynaDish 5 ax would be useful too, as the existing DynaDish is 802.11ac Wave1 and starts to become a bit long in the tooth.
I really have to argue this because I’ve had them rip right off their mount in high winds and they fill up with snow really easily. I’ve not lost a single disc to wind and the surface cant collect enough snow to take the link down.
Also, the disc is dramatically nicer on the eyes for a home install.
Excactly my point too.
Fair enough (and necessary!) if MT EOLs the Disc Lite ac in favour of a new Disc ax, if that’s what they intend to do.
But then they should inform us!
Telling us that the LHG XL and the SXTsq are good substitutes for the Disc Lite ac leaves no trust, as we know they aren’t.
I don’t even dare to use the LHG here due to wind, snow and ice.
LHG is not that much better, but for that it is currently almost 2x more expensive than disc ac.
LHG and cannot be easily placed on a quickmount and pointed to the side. Additional additional costs must be incurred. A CPE connection costs almost 2x as much at once.
I would not go so far as to say it undermines trust… people have to say what they want and articulate it for vendors to understand.
Just to make my point clear, we wont deploy LHGs. We will deploy discs and sxtsq. I hope we don’t get put in the position where LHGs are the only option because that product causes me truct rolls in storms and the dead of winter because services go down. They somehow cake up snow faster than other dish products, an LHG will but packed full while a parabolic unit like a powerbeam just has a dusting that falls off pretty quick.
I fully agree with you, I would not dare to deploy LHGs in our harsh winter environments…and like I have said they are way too bulky for customer CPEs.
Regarding my statement about no trust - that was a response to a particular statement from Normis that the arguments against LHG are unfounded, and that it is even better than the Disc Lite with regards to snow and wind.
We know this is not true, and exactly that was the target of my statement - not Mikrotik as a vendor in general.
They make wonderful stuff, I love MT products, and I have deployed them for 17 years, but if they prematurely EOL a device without a successor announced, they’d better admit a product line gap is introduced, not pretend that unsuited devices will fill the gap.
sure, I would argue against the use of ‘trust’ though, that implies they are untrustworthy and I wouldn’t want that to be the implication.
A lot of users/operators don’t report certain things when there are other solutions. I’m not in here complaining about snow buildup on LHG because I have alternatives and we just use those. Maybe mikrotik/normis just hasn’t seen the complaints about snow buildup or broken mounts because users chose other products that don’t have the same issue.
Ok, I stand corrected!
I guess it (at least partly) can be attributed to English not being my native tongue…words can have a slightly different meaning than one might think, and that can lead to misunderstandings or people being offended.
That said, I hope MT has a Disc ax lurking, waiting to be released soon!
