Engenius ENH-500 Wireless Bridge - How Many Cameras?

10/100 is the LAN side of the connection, so assuming you connect it to a network that uses 100, real through-put on the LAN side would max at ~75Mb/s after overhead. Usable H.264 feeds are 1-2 Mb/s, MJPEG 4-6 Mb/s. I am assuming a typo above - "4,000Mbps" is probably 4 Mb/s.

The WLAN portion appears to max out at 54 Mbps, so estimate at about 40Mbps usable data at the top end.

If you try to max these links, you have to be aware of the daytime/nighttime, complex/simple scenes from the cameras that may cause a significant variation in the required bandwidth. Configuring the cameras for a capped bandwidth may also be an option.

You need to consider the whole network, so it matters what speeds are on any remaining links back to your recording/viewing equipment.

Mark...

Kenny - long answer to a short question. Respectfully, you've answered your own question. 2-3 cameras work, 5 doesn't. Slow your frame rate by 1/3rd on all cameras and give it a try.

On the other hand, use Ubiquiti. MIMO radios, not single antenna models. line of sight is VERY important if 5.8Ghz band. If 5.8 try channel 52 at 40mhz band width. If 2.4 use channel 3 or 8 40Mhz band width, and line of sight is STILL important.

If you continue to use radio get to know the Ubiquiti management software. It's crucial and they've done a good job thus their prices are higher. We have written our own radio management software we use on all networks and without it... things will just stop. Site visit.

Finally, with radio there's an old saying about the acronym FM and AM. It really stands for Frickin' Magic and Another Miracle. Radio is a dark art best left to Wizards and Magicians. It isn't plug and play...

Checked further on the antenna - if it uses the n connectivity, it should be able to push 70 Mb/s or 150 with the 40MHz bandwidth in the 5Ghz band. You may still be choking on the LAN side with some of these higher WLAN rates. The Uniview spec I saw suggested they use ~8Mbps, so 5 would be over 40Mbps - at the usable limit for the a connection.

Mark...

First I will say we do a lot of radio links.  There is a real art to making it work and work well.  We have been doing wireless for 20 years and still learn a new trick all the time.  If you are a casual installer of it stick to the easy installs.  LOS only and make sure there is not many other 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz in the area.  In a city assume it is there and chances are you will not get around it.  5 GHz is getting worse with the release of 802.11ac and 80 MHz channels.  Choose another band and spend the extra money.  You and your customer will be much happier.  What you save on that $50 Engenius unit you will give up in service calls and an upset customer quickly.  Out in the country 2.4 and 5 we can usually use and get around any noise.  

Now for Engenius we used it once and only once.  It was a hey lets see if this cheap stuff works and it does not.  I go around replacing it all the time.  It general is not throughput that kills the radio or link but packets per second and error rates.  We have started using some Ubiquiti in the last couple of years and had some decent result the marketing hype on this stuff cannot be trusted.  Do your own testing and math.  For our rock solid never go down needs we use Siklu and Cambium mostly also Ruckus is we need some mesh.  Many times a combination of 2 or 3 vendors.  We can build a system as reliable as a cabled with those 3 manufacturers and depending on the situation save a client some serious dollars. 

In wireless we do say magic and act like it is a secret many times but it really comes down to the link budget and making sure you have the fade margin required to make sure the link does not fail.  After that it is a networking equation just like installing switches.  Can the gear push what we will hand to it. 

Cambium is solid but it comes with a higher price tag.  Ubiquiti may work for very simple links if there is little to no interference but it can be somewhat unreliable.  Hope this helps.