Ubiquiti PowerBeam ac Gen2 High-Performance airMAX ac Bridge (PBE-5AC-Gen2-US)

Delivery was fast, Assembled, installed and its Working very well. Value for money

Living in semi-rural America, for years our wireless internet connection to the provider tower several miles away has been iffy at best, and it’s only provider tower available within range other than Satellite. We are supposed to have line-of-site to the provider antenna, but don’t, because our house geographically sits in a bowel.I finally got the chance to work at home instead of driving 40 – 85 miles twice a day, but couldn’t do it with an iffy internet connection. Satellite internet was out, because of the signal delay caused by the distance the signal has to travel, and it’s expensive for even minimal monthly data limits. We finally decided the best option was to move the antenna to a tower on top of a hill on our property about 600 ft away from the house. Our internet provider strongly recommended optical cable, but out of 18 years, I’ve had to repair the power to my well pump twice in mid winter due to damage from over zealous burrowing rodents damaging the insulation on the wires. You can pinpoint damaged buried power cable over a 1000 ft span, but how do you find buried damaged optic cable?It took several hours of research on the internet, YouTube, Ubiquiti, and other websites. but I finally decided to go with 2 individual Ubiquiti PowerBeam ac Gen2 High-Performance airMAX ac Bridge (PBE-5AC-Gen2-US) antennas. At the time I bought mine, a set of 2 PBE-5AC-Gen2-US pre-configured antennas wasn’t offered on Amazon, or I would have bought them if the price was reasonable compared to 2 individual nonconfigured antennas. I knew these antennas were overkill, because they easily have a range of miles well beyond 600 ft., but I wanted maximum throughput and the improved mounting of the 5AC-Gen2, which easily fits the 2-1/2 in. diameter heavy wall galvanized rigid conduit pipe I am using to mount the antenna on my new tower. Because of the graduated teeth on the clamp, the antenna clamps well onto multiple sizes of pipe smaller, and possibly larger than the pipe I used. The antenna has a sturdy, well made clamp suitable for the wind speeds we have experienced of 60 mph+.The hardest part for me was understanding what I actually needed at the tower in addition to the Ubiquiti antenna to make it all work. I finally determined that I needed a router at the tower to connect to my internet provider antenna, just like I did with my wireless router in my house. I bought 2 CISCO Dual Gigabit WAN VPN Routers - RV042G-K9-NA, also through Amazon, (one for back-up – we get occasional lightning strikes on the hill). I picked CISCO, because my provider has had the best success with Cisco routers on the customer side. It’s also overkill – I don’t need a Dual Wan router, but I wanted maximum throughput, so didn’t care if it was a dual WAN. I also bought 2 Ubiquiti Networks ETH-SP Poe External Surge Suppressors and shielded network cable, to protect my antennas from static electricity, “Ubiquiti Networks Tough Cable Connector Ground (TC-GND) -Box Of 20” connectors so I could ground the cable shielding to the ground rod I installed at the tower. These connectors already have a pigtail you can attach to a grounded surface using a screw.When I received the antennas, I followed the instructions in the box, assembled the antennas (was easy for me to understand), and downloaded the Ubiquiti android app to my Samsung 6.0 phone. I really like the wifi capability built into the antennas that’s enabled for 15 minutes after you power up the antenna, which gives you the ability to configure the antennas directly from your phone with the antennas mounted. For the price, I’m amazed this feature is included with the antenna. I had no problem logging in to the antenna mounted on the tower on top of my house using my cell phone from my living room. My new tower isn’t complete – still have to pour the concrete to make the base solid and add another 20-30 ft., but it works good enough for me to work from home temporarily. My Ubiquiti bridge is now the fastest part of my network – the status on the Uquiquti phone app shows a bridge connection rate between both antennas of 1Ghz. I don’t have the means to verify what I think I am observing, but I now have the fastest internet connection I have had in the 18 years we have lived here. While the hill may have more to do with my “new and improved” internet speed than my new Obiquiti bridge, I am very sure that the bridge doesn’t slow it down. For the cost, it sure beats hassling with optic fiber. When I started, I knew nothing about network bridge antennas or connections, nor did I talk to an expert. It did take time reading and searching to finally understand how to make it all work, but I know I make the right decision, because I'm using my new Ubiquiti bridge to submit this review with the fastest speed we have seen since the internet first became available out here in semi-rural America.

I purchased the "first gen" a while back and it failed so I replaced it with this one. Very easy to set up and the new feature of being able to set up using the app was simply brilliant. After installing antennas configuration was a breeze and fired right up. Using between two buildings about half a mile apart but with trees in between and getting great signal and awesome speed. I highly recommend these units.

Internet access and streaming capability to a remote building. Works well even if dishes are not perfectly aligned. Much more cost effective and way greater distance than cable would have been. Fantastic speed.

Set up a pair of these for a 3.5 mile ptp wireless bridge. My speed tests over this link out to internet have been 300+ mbps with <10 ms ping. Have had no issues so far with reliability. Also the wifi management radio is definitely a nice addition to assist with initial setup and aiming.

Older Powerbeam m5 had constant trouble over 5 km of ocean. Tides would kill my connection 3 or 4 times a day for at least and hour. Changed them to these and haven't had a connection drop yet.

Avoid if possible, I've purchased two of them an one just died after 18 months. I purchased another one and second just died. I had them both on backup UPS (APC Smart-UPS 3000VA) that is a surge protector as well and it was properly grounded and I don't see what would cause them to fail other then poor quality. At this point I'm going to trow them away and look else where. I rather pay once and not clime back up to replace cheap piece of equipment. I've attempted to contact them when first one failed and was ignored. Didn't even tried for the second one since I already know the outcome and don't wanted to waste time. You get what you pay for.

Fantastic, so incredibly easy to setup and the throughput is breathtaking. Feels faster than my wired connections (I know it is not).