Derrick
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- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
- Messages
- 5,085
- Reaction score
- 5
It ticks all the right boxes. Or rather, it provides you with the options of all the right boxes to tick, click, and toy with. Everything you need out the box, bar licences, to start your own VAN, at an affordable price.
Usually, when I’m testing the range of a WLAN router, it’s a case of setting it up in my home office, and strolling out towards the front garden/pool area – sometimes even out into the road.
My house isn’t gigantic, and this is nowhere near the quoted LOS theoretical maximum, but the real world tends to drop a brick wall or two in your way...
Anyway, the Ubiquiti NanoStation 2 we’re looking at here, is an altogether different sort of WLAN AP. If I had taken a walk to test its range limit, especially since I’d mounted the box to my old, defunct TV aerial, I’d have been walking for longer than it takes to write a review. No, this one was a job for a car.
The NanoStation 2 is a 2.4GHz-band infrastructure component, something meant to be used as part of a wireless network coverage grid, with which VAN providers can circumvent problems of inadequate wired infrastructure or too-costly, last-mile links to customers, driving up costs. Of course, provision of such a network requires licensing and regulatory compliance and all of that rigmarole.
It can also be used as a private, single, full-coverage AP - regardless the size of your property or residential complex - or as a point-to-point link between two comparatively distant locations. With the NanoStation 2, your options are basically unlimited. The unit comes with a PoE injector in the box, so you just need to plug a single RJ-45 cable in behind a removable plastic shroud, and connect the other end to the small PoE box, which is plugged into a power socket and your physical LAN.
Brackets for pole or wall mounting are also included. Log into the bespoke, embedded AirOS platform via a standard browser,and the array of settings available is so impressive that it’s actually interesting.
The interface is easy to grasp and not overwhelming.
It’s exceptionally user friendly considering the options available - as advertised - making high-end WLAN setup and configuration accessible to a larger user base than ever before.
The software layer is where many of the really impressive elements of the NanoStation 2 await. We installed a firmware update while we were reviewing it, and the few minutes it took to reprogram the 4MB of flash ROM is evidence enough of just how complex and powerful this networking environment really is. The update added new security and management elements, a completely new ‘Network Overview’ homepage, customisable login logos for service providers, and even the ability to, at will, disable either the cabled or the wireless networks!
The bottom line: it’s actually a piece of networking hardware that you could play with for weeks on end.
We even opened up our test unit, and found the RS-232 solder tabs easily available on the board, as we’d read on a Net info site about the product.
It’s fantastic for delving into the AirOS programming game yourself, and completely customise the way your setup works - or stuff it up entirely, of course.
Oh yes, we still haven’t revealed the range of our TV aerial-mounted test unit, have we?
At around 5km away, the signal fell from four bars down to three...
According to Ubiquiti, with good LOS, the NanoStation 2 is good for 15km - and we don’t doubt it at all. And all of this for just over a grand! Can we give a product six stars?
Usually, when I’m testing the range of a WLAN router, it’s a case of setting it up in my home office, and strolling out towards the front garden/pool area – sometimes even out into the road.
My house isn’t gigantic, and this is nowhere near the quoted LOS theoretical maximum, but the real world tends to drop a brick wall or two in your way...
Anyway, the Ubiquiti NanoStation 2 we’re looking at here, is an altogether different sort of WLAN AP. If I had taken a walk to test its range limit, especially since I’d mounted the box to my old, defunct TV aerial, I’d have been walking for longer than it takes to write a review. No, this one was a job for a car.
The NanoStation 2 is a 2.4GHz-band infrastructure component, something meant to be used as part of a wireless network coverage grid, with which VAN providers can circumvent problems of inadequate wired infrastructure or too-costly, last-mile links to customers, driving up costs. Of course, provision of such a network requires licensing and regulatory compliance and all of that rigmarole.
It can also be used as a private, single, full-coverage AP - regardless the size of your property or residential complex - or as a point-to-point link between two comparatively distant locations. With the NanoStation 2, your options are basically unlimited. The unit comes with a PoE injector in the box, so you just need to plug a single RJ-45 cable in behind a removable plastic shroud, and connect the other end to the small PoE box, which is plugged into a power socket and your physical LAN.
Brackets for pole or wall mounting are also included. Log into the bespoke, embedded AirOS platform via a standard browser,and the array of settings available is so impressive that it’s actually interesting.
The interface is easy to grasp and not overwhelming.
It’s exceptionally user friendly considering the options available - as advertised - making high-end WLAN setup and configuration accessible to a larger user base than ever before.
The software layer is where many of the really impressive elements of the NanoStation 2 await. We installed a firmware update while we were reviewing it, and the few minutes it took to reprogram the 4MB of flash ROM is evidence enough of just how complex and powerful this networking environment really is. The update added new security and management elements, a completely new ‘Network Overview’ homepage, customisable login logos for service providers, and even the ability to, at will, disable either the cabled or the wireless networks!
The bottom line: it’s actually a piece of networking hardware that you could play with for weeks on end.
We even opened up our test unit, and found the RS-232 solder tabs easily available on the board, as we’d read on a Net info site about the product.
It’s fantastic for delving into the AirOS programming game yourself, and completely customise the way your setup works - or stuff it up entirely, of course.
Oh yes, we still haven’t revealed the range of our TV aerial-mounted test unit, have we?
At around 5km away, the signal fell from four bars down to three...
According to Ubiquiti, with good LOS, the NanoStation 2 is good for 15km - and we don’t doubt it at all. And all of this for just over a grand! Can we give a product six stars?