Hello everyone! I didn't have projects with Mikrotik tdm radio for several years and just started a new one, thought I would take a short time for creating a spec as usual , but seems something happened\changed. I see that majority of popular wireless devices got archived and I couldn't find any replacements. The portfolio is very poor , sector antennas gone, omni base stations gone. I also couldn't find a simple filter like "Nv2\tdm supported" and have to dig in 10th goggle's pages for each model. As far as I understand they focus on wifi6 but wifi6 hardware can't work with Nv2, right? And also some wifi5 (ac) models don't support Nv2. But even if you switch your wifi6 radio into wifi5(ac) mode it won't help. It's extremely confused.
My purpose is installing a sector Nv2 BS and using an Nv2 client on a vehicle. There are component's like NetMetal 5 , but there is no sector antennas and I have to assemble a full kit by myself, whereas other vendors suggest "of a box" devices which you can purchase and plug and play.
Does anyone know what is the situation and where can I find a full list of devices supported the Nv2 ?
Nv2 is essentially deprecated. (I'd like to be the bearer or better news, but it's what it is.)
The new generation of drivers (wifi-qcom, wifi-qcom-ac and wifi-mediatek) simply don't support it. Newer (all wifi 6) devices aren't supported by the legacy driver at all.
There is a thin sliver of devices that are wifi 5 ac that can still be used with the legacy drivers, and thus nv2. But expect these to be slowly but surely deprecated.
Additionally, development of the legacy driver has basically stopped. If there is some significant bug to fix, or a security issue, expect that to get fixed, but nothing more.
Err, something really happened, seems I missed a couple of years. But the whole Wisp industry works on TDM based something, what is the point to deprecate Nv2? There are a lot of cases where TDM access method is needed. It can provide 1-2 ms latency easely comparing to 802.11 (even .ax). Can't understand this maneuver. Other vendors like ubqt, cambium etc keep TDM radio in production, but use their own radio silicon. Ok, what does mikrotik suggest for now as alternative? Using wifi?
But what is technically wrong with TDM ? For me it looks like they are killing a golden goose. 802.11ax is still with csma with issues correspondingly. So they suggest us using WiFi for bridging and PtMP ?
Simply put, without wasting too much time:
The WISP market for MikroTik is completely closed.
No new products are usable or designed for WISPs.
They have focused solely on the router market within the customer's network.
I've done several tests with the AX outdoor models,
and the result is that they were outperformed by the "old" AC NV2 products...
Then there's the total incompatibility between "old" peripherals and the new ones...
It's unthinkable to replace all the CPEs if you also replace the AP...
If they FORCE me to change the product, I might as well put a product that works better...
So on outdoors only I'm using other brands...
If I correctly understand the situation on the market, it's not a MT fail , there aren't common radio chips with open drivers where any vendors can implement their TDM protocols over 802.11 radio. Seems it's a decision from big guys like qualcomm to make it closed...but why ? The market will loose TDM , but that is the point ?
The new ax wireless driver has seen many fixes, so while it is not open, MT probably has access to the source (or they wouldn't be able to make changes - if it was a binary-only vendor driver set in stone). NV2 might be too difficult to re-implement on different hardware, but I wish there was compatibility of the station-bridge mode - all older a/g/n/ac devices were compatible with each other, only new ax devices broke the compatibility. I have used plain 802.11 (n/ac) with rts-cts and it usually works well enough, TDMA can't coexist with other networks so makes sense if you own the spectrum and know no one else is using it.
