A few months ago I picked the RBwAPR-2nD&R11e-LTE combo to deploy a series of 4G routers in commercial buildings.
Today I’ve 13 in production stage, and among them, I already had 3 critical failures :
One has its LTE card constantly rebooting
One just hangs after a few weeks and need to reboot to restart … for a few weeks
One just died… I dont have access to LAN interface anymore even after resetting the device
Not mentioning the fact that my cell phone has a better 4G reception than this router even with an external antenna (mANT LTE 5o)
The field conditions are very good : inside, no dust, no humidity, no heat, well mounted … I visited a few sites (including the defective one) and I didn’t noticed anything wrong. I don’t have measures about the power supply but it’s using the power supply included with the mikrotik package, and in the same location I have a Hex Lite which is working perfectly (we have about 50 hex lite and so far only one failure, that got fixed after a reset/update)
3 over 13 is 23% . My team is really questioning my choice and I totally understand them.
Is this the reliability I’m supposed to have with this hardware ? Will the LTAP be a better pick ? Or should I look over more industrial devices to get a good quality ?
wAPR have wery weak internal antenna.
mANT LTE5o is very weak 360° angle, ~5dB not directional antenna, little better then wAP internal antenna.
Thones will have similar antenna gain ~2,5dB but his SoC will receive more CA and CA combination, what give more speed with similar antenna.
For me, at MikroTik LTE devices only SXTR / LHGR / LDFR be used and very often with other lte module (Quectel EM12-G).
For other external antenna and still mounting outside I prefer RBM(11/33)G / wAP ac / LtAP who have 1GbE and I can grab more with proper external antenna who cost the same what RB and this is 2x more expensive then just first option sxtr/lhgr/ldfr.
My summary is that. wAPR or wAPRac or LtAPmini or Chateau or Audience with internal lte antenna will be always “slow”. This is my own opinion.
For your 3x devices, you should create logs, ask support from distributor or mikrotik directly and maybe use warranty if netinstall not work.
Thank you for your detailled answer and your LTE card recommendation. Do you have any brand recommendation for a good external antenna to be used with something like a LtAP + Quectel EM12-G ?
For my 3 “damaged” devices, I really don’t care about a refund or a replacement, I worry about the overall quality and durability of my first choice. Do you think LtAP will give me a more robust ride ?
For commercial installations, unless you are very close to the BTS (base station) you should always use a directional antenna primarily to achieve a stable link, but with that you usually also get faster speed.
When it comes to the installation, it requires some deeper knowledge of for example:
What operators are available, what LTE bands and level of carrier aggregation they support (check with the operator tech support)
Choice of BTS, ie direction and distance. Line of sight is crucial for a stable link in the upper LTE bands which are preferable for data communication.
Choice of LTE band for Intra/Inter-Band Carrier Aggregation (Inter-Band = CA between different frequencies)
In crowded areas you might have to use cell lock.
Choice of device and/or antenna: if the customer site has LoS to the BTS, thus the ability to utilize upper LTE bands, you can use Mikrotik SXT or LHG. In all other cases, I advise you to use an external antenna specially customised to the lower LTE bands, ie 700-900 Mhz.
Before you buy anything at all, I advice you to find out what features your operator offers in terms of LTE frequency bands as well as level of LTE categories and Carrier Aggregation.
CAT-6 is the nominal level for most LTE deployments but some urban areas might offer higher levels. Most operators awaits 5G and won’t make any heavier investments in ordinary LTE.
In case your operator support CAT-12 then the Quectel EM12-G might be a good choice but only if you are close enough and have LoS to the BTS thus can utilize the upper LTE-bands. Otherwise you can settle for CAT-6 using Mikrotik SXT (using bonding) or LHGG LTE6 (GbE interface) if you think you can achieve more than 100 Mbit otherwise go for LHG LTE6 (100 Mbit interface)
If you have to use the lower LTE bands, use a dedicated directional MIMO antenna (or 2x mono) that has good support for 700-900 MHz depending on which LTE band your operator offers:
I not have, because I can only give some info about Poland market.
Each country have own vendor’s, sometimes you can buy from Amazon etc…
And not every vendor show true dB of Gain per Frequency and per direction…
Thank you both for your informations, I have a better understanding of what kind of hardware I could use to improve my reception and what kind of data I should look for.
But my main concern was about the reliability of this LTE kit and the fact that 23% of my routers have actually fried … I really don’t care about a refund or anything, because the hardware cost nothing compare to the ppl I have to send over hundred of kilometers to replace it. I even have to pay one hotel night in some case to just replace a damn Wap LTE kit … and mikrotik won’t pay for that ^^ I need a really solid device and I’m currently seriously looking at other brands. Am I right ? Is this LTE kit supposed to fry like that ? If so, what kind of device should I use to have a MTBF in years and not in weeks or months ?
Just an idea, have you checked if the failing devices might be suffering by POE problems due to for example, too long cables or too low supply voltage. If possible, try to swap one of the problem units with a working one in order to verify the issue.
Also be aware this is an end user forum thus you should consider to create real support cases for your problems at https://mikrotik.com/support
I know it only with some SIM provider (Poland\Orange and sim old <6mth). This exist just after installation and that will be shared to support in this week.
I not know if you have the same problem but this should work or just not work. I replace SIM to other ISP and just work to this day. Detection of this problem was in 3m from running unit.
Few fixed was inside RouterOS too, I always use >=6.47.4
One just hangs after a few weeks and need to reboot to restart … for a few weeks
All my installation have my script’s to rescue connection bcs always your bts can have maintenance etc. and I think you referrer to just using this device without any backup scenario?
I not see a hardware problem here. Yes, the r11e-lte6 with firmware 025 have that problems to stuck offline but they are fixed about ~023 version.
One just died… I dont have access to LAN interface anymore even after resetting the device
This is like problem with hardware or NAND. You not send logs of device to any syslog like TheDude ?
This look’s like NetInstall is needed but you say you not diagnose any of this case. I do that remotely from end-users computers with AutoIt scripting.
I hope you have a updated RouterOS, module firmware and some NMS with reporting.
I have bigger problems with Telit/Fibicom/Quectel module vendors then with MikroTik itself… and this is my situation.