Subscriber Discussion

Ubiquiti Wireless Surveillance Large Load Performance?

NC
Nirmal Chudgar
Aug 19, 2013

I have deployed Ubiquiti Nanostation in 1-2 camera solution but nothing bigger than that. Any of you have any expert advice on pros/cons utilizing Ubiquiti rockets <-> Nanostation supporting more than 10 cameras per sector? I was told that the GPS sync in Ubiquiti severely impacts the bandwidth but in my application we don't neet to sync up the head end sectors.

Appreciate your feedback! Regards, Nirmal

JH
John Honovich
Aug 19, 2013
IPVM

Nirmal, can you clarify what you are looking to do here? You want 10 cameras per sector? Do you know the average bitrate per camera? E.g., are these 3MP / 30fps cameras looking at intersections or VGA/5fps ones looking at empty parking lots, etc.?

Btw, for those looking for an intro to Ubiquiti, here is our Ubiquiti Wireless Surveillance review.

NC
Nirmal Chudgar
Aug 19, 2013

Hi John - There are 10 sites per sector. Each site includes 2 ALPR cameras (accounting for 200 Kbps) and 1 Q6035-e (accounting for 4 Mbps worst case).

Total Uplink bandwidth -

6-8 Mbps (per site accounting for extra capacity) X10 = 80 Mbps/sector. I will look at the Ubiquiti wireless surveillance overview as well.

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
Aug 19, 2013

We've had up to (6) 2MP cameras streaming through 1 bridge pair at 6FPS. I'm not comfortable with much more than that simply as a gut feeling.

We had a site where 30 IP cameras were on satellite buildings circled around 1 center building. Multiple Ubiquiti bridge connections with about 1 to 3 cameras on each bridge streaming to the center building. Bridges on the center building connected together on a switch and then all streams went across another wireless bridge to another building with the VMS. They would have intermittent problems with streams dropping in and out. Sometimes rebooting the switch fixing it, sometimes the VMS, sometimes the bridge.

We replaced the wireless bridge going from the center building to the VMS building with a fiber connection. That cleared up the issues.

According to bandwidth calculations and what we saw on the VMS, bandwith on the bridge connection between the central building and VMS building was plenty enough. What I think was the bridge pair going from the center building to the VMS building just couldn't handle 30 different streams.

JG
John Grocke
Aug 19, 2013

Like Undisclosed, the max I have run on Ubiquiti is 6 cameras to a central point at either a low frame rate or resolution. After that, it started to get hairy with latency and network congestion.

Nimal - 6-8Mbps is probably too much for a Nanstation.

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
Aug 19, 2013

John G., do you really think a Nanostation can't handle bandwidth than that? We've had 4 cameras running MJPEG on a pole before that was about 40mbs and the Ubiquiti bridges seem to do fine. (They were the dish models.) That's why my opinion is the problem becomes more a matter of the number of cameras, not bandwidth.

JG
John Grocke
Aug 20, 2013

Undisclosed - Perhaps it can, but we did not have that level of success with them, but we weren't using the dish models. The issue we were having was the number of cameras as well, after about 5 or 6 the network started to get congested as the radios aren't synchronized. Too many talking at the same time.

There are so many variables with wireless networks such as distances, line of sight, interference and others that no two systems are alike.

At the integration firm I worked at, we used Ubiquiti for small camera applications, but for larger multiple LPR and high resolution/high frame rate cameras we went with a more robust solution such as Radwin or Cambium partnering with a specialty wireless contractor.

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Jon Dillabaugh
Aug 19, 2013
Pro Focus LLC

I have two 3MP and one 1.3MP cameras on a pole using LOCO M5 radios to span about 100ft from the main building to a light pole for LPR use. We used a ToughSwitch Pro on both sides for power and switching. There are three other 2MP cameras inside the main building, for a total count of six cameras. We have not yet had one single issue with anything, let alone the Ubiquiti radios or switches.

In fact, we are currently proposing adding an additional 4 cameras on the same site using the same Ubiquiti radios and switches. These will be about 400ft away from the main building. We are planning on doing a bandwith study in the next few weeks to make sure the radios will handle the traffic/distance. I will update when we have findings.

NC
Nirmal Chudgar
Aug 23, 2013

Thanks everyone for your feedback! We will be doing a load test and will update with our results

JH
Joshua Herron
Aug 23, 2013

We have them deployed running 10 2mp cams h.264 bitrate between 1.8mbs and 5mbs per camera on a single link (nsm5s line off site about 1300 feet) no problems in over 2 years (knock on wood). Regarding the above post with multiple links on two buildings hopefully they weren't interfering with each other. Of course you need to understand wireless before you start deploying these solutions but ubiquiti makes it easy to hop along even if you don't with the reliable throughput!

UM
Undisclosed Manufacturer #1
Aug 23, 2013

Yeah we did our best to make bridge pairs next to each other on different frequencies, and each pair had it's own SSID and WPA keys, and we followed the power recommendations so we weren't overpowering them. I think all the streams feeding through the one bridge pair going to the VMS were just too much for it.

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