What Is Point To Point Wireless?

Point to Point wireless is a data connection between two points (known as “end points”). The connection is delivered wirelessly through either radio waves or optical laser, and so does not require the use of poles or cables. Point to point wireless is most commonly used to connect: Buildings, CCTV Cameras, Sensors, Devices or anything else that needs a data connection. They can be used to provide a direct link for both short and long range connections where line of sight is available and delivers data at a comparable speed to a physical fibre line.

A point to point wireless can be used for IP telephony, CCTV, Scarda/telemetry applications, corporate WAN connections as well as internet access. Put simply, point to point wireless can be used to connect any application you want to communicate with another location or device in a different geographic location without using cables.

Point to point wireless connections are achieved by installing an antenna and a radio device at either end of your link. This then gets connected to your own internal cabled infrastructure – giving you a wireless bridge between both ends. If you can imagine throwing cable between each end, this is how a well installed wireless link will operate.
When information is requested or sent to the remote end, it is done via an Ethernet cable to the radio. This is then converted by the radio and sent over the air and converted back again into a Ethernet connection.

Yes, radio waves can travel through and penetrate trees, but higher capacity (100Mbps plus) requires line of sight.

This depends on your application and how much data throughput you want to achieve. For example, Links of 200Mbps have been installed in the UK over 70+ KM. The very latest 10Gbps links can only travel around 5km between each end point. You can daisy chain or hop to achieve much greater end to end connection distance.

A wireless bridge is a wireless data connection between two points (known as “end points”). It means the exact same thing as a point to point wireless link or connection and is in fact probably a better way of describing what they are. Using this technology you create an Ethernet bridge, whatever protocol or TCP port number you put in at one end of the bridge, it will come out the other end – just like a physical cable would.

The best wireless bridge will depend on your application, throughput requirements and desired availability. Availably is a measurement often defined in nines. So for example, a BT Openreach copper cable will have a target availability of 99.9% – this means you will get a random monthly outage of around 43 minutes per month.
A wireless bridge can be designed to offer 99.999% availability, therefore offering only 26 seconds per month of downtime. Selecting the equipment to fit the requirement is key, you would not want to select a budget link for a mission critical application where you need 99.999% uptime or availability only to find the budget link was only capable of delivering 99.9% or worse.
The best way for you to find the best wireless bridge for your project is to speak to one of our experts. Call APC Solutions on 0333 271 4113 for free advice

Point to multipoint uses the same technology as point to point, with one key difference: the ability to connect multiple end points to a single access point. If you can picture a telegraph pole in a busy street with cables going from the pole to each house in a wagon wheel configuration – this is the same as can be achieved using a point to multi point wireless system. Each end point is able to send and receive data from the access point within fractions of seconds of its neighbour, this enables a ‘one point to many’ setup. Most access points can handle hundreds of end point connections, therefore it’s a very scalable technology, often used in a wireless broadband network.

The connection capacity that a BT Openreach cable can deliver might be insufficient or if delivered via an old copper or aluminium line, it might be unreliable. You may have been told that to upgrade the cable it will involve significant investment and lead time to implement. One of the most popular reasons for using a point to point wireless is that you have more control and visibility of the connection, when a fault occurs fix times are often much faster. You may want a backup to the existing connection which doesn’t use the same technology as your primary.