P300 point to point, point to multipoint

[christopher_daz]

           I'm trying to connect 10 IP cameras using bridge network. But there is a high mountain between the central post and the cameras. So, I am planning to install a pole in that high elevated area to do point-to-point bridge with the central post and then multi-point to the cameras. The distance of the pole is 1km to central post and 200m-1km to the cameras

           My question is, do i need two P300 with external antenna on the mountain side? (one communicating with the central post and another to 10 cameras) or is it possible to just use one P300 to do a hop between the central post and the camera?

         The way I understand it, If I only use one P300, the throughput will be divide by half; Since that it will be communicating with the central post and the cameras at the same time. do you think that the bandwidth will be enough for all 10 cameras?(I can configure the camera to use motion detection so that it wont always record the video all the time.)

[michael_brado]

Hello Christopher,

    You definitely need one pair of P300s for Central Post to/from the Mountain Peak. 
How many more P300s will depend on line of sight visibility from the Camera Sites to
the Mountain Peak.  You will need one P300 Root Bridge facing the Cameras, but also
one P300 NRB to connect each of the Cameras to that Mountain Peak RB.

    You can support 10 x NRB to your Mountain Peak RB, if all 10 Cameras are within
a 30 degree horizontal and vertical radius.  The Distance configured on the bridges is
very important.  You would set the Mountain RB Distance to the median between the
closest and farthest Camera NRB, and close to the actual Distance for the RBs.

    If your Camera Sites are not all within 30 degrees, you might need two RBs on the
Mountain, and direct half of the Camera NRBs to each one on different channels.

    If your Cameras were closer than 200m, I'd suggest trying the T300 series of outdoor
AP, that might be able to Mesh from the Mountain Peak to some of the closer Camera
Sites.  This of course would require a ZD to have mesh function on the T300 APs.

[christopher_daz]

instead of using two RBs, cant I just use external antenna? I saw from the specs of P300 that is can have 2 external antenna. And it says that it can cover 120 degrees, though I'm not sure if its 120 degrees on each external antenna.

[michael_brado]

The 2 external antennas extend the 30 degress to 120 degrees capability, is correct.

[drew_williams_7]

If I understand correctly though, the issue is that the P300 is not an access point.  It is strictly a ptp link.  So you would require 12 p300's depending on the camera layout.  I may be visualizing the configuration wrong...