This week, Ubiquiti dropped a new YouTube video which outlined the next generation of its UISP products, mainly marketed towards WISPs. Amongst the announcements were Wave MLO, Wave AP Gen2, WaveFiber OLT and UISP 3.0. However, in this article we are going to focus on Wave Multi-Link-Operation, or Wave MLO for short.
Ubiquiti has two new segments within this new product category. There is Wave MLO 5 and Wave MLO 6 and by the name, these operate on 5GHz and 6GHz for outdoor PtMP installations. At this stage it is unclear what is going to happen to UISP LTU, which is an entirely new platform that Ubiquiti announced not that long ago. Currently, that entire platform is separate to the existing airMAX AC devices, and is very likely to be incompatible with UISP Wave MLO.
Ubiquiti didn't show off too many details in the video, but we did get some glimpses of information:
- We know that this will be PtMP
- It operates on 5GHz and 6GHz
- The access points utilise the same mounting and footprint as the LTU Rocket and Rocket 5AC Prism, meaning existing antennas can be used
- APs are powered by 54V PoE with 10GbE Ethernet as well as 10G SFP+ support for data
- Only one Wave MLO CPE has been spoken about which looks to have the same design as the existing Wave Pro 60GHz CPE
Ubiquiti should be releasing more information about the new Wave MLO platform soon, as well as prices.
Our take
It is good to see Ubiquiti catch up to move into 6GHz PtMP hardware, as other manufacturers have been doing 6GHz for a little while now. It is also very reassuring to see that Ubiquiti is putting some renewed focus and hardware engineering time into UISP wireless hardware, especially now as UniFi is such a powerhouse for the company, in terms of revenue and customer mindshare. From my experience working at a WISP and using this hardware for a very long time, there is nothing out there that does this type of thing just as well as Ubiquiti does.
