Ubiquiti Put MLO Backhaul in a Home Mesh Pack. The Radios Are the Cheap Part Now

Ubiquiti has entered whole-home mesh networking with a three-pack built around dedicated MLO radios and a 10 gig backhaul connection.

That is a step in a direction that shows they understand the commoditization of what's happening, and that they're going after something notoriously customer service heavy: direct residential. Alongside the nodes there's now a module for managed service providers, which I think points at the same thing, and that's that the radios are no longer the hard part of the job.

That matters to everyone supporting a small network on a small budget: the VARs, the IT person down the street, the apartment complex, the MDU, the local university. Cheap, capable nodes lower the hardware bill, but there is still a bit of a learning curve when deploying this correctly, and not everyone has gotten it right even in this day and age. So the two things worth working through are what 6 GHz does to node placement, and who this actually changes the work for.

What does 6 GHz backhaul do to node placement?

Between 5GHz and 6GHz it's going to be a little bit different. You obviously don't want to put them as far apart as you would otherwise, and you don't want to put as many walls between them as you normally would. That's going to open up a lot of conversations about the way this stuff works.

If you think about the typical Ubiquiti installer, there might be a bit of a learning curve with whole-home mesh. They might think it's easy and straight forward to deploy a couple of these nodes and call it a day, and then realize they actually need more density or need them closer together because of 6GHz. That said, with MLO and bonding into 5GHz, you're going to get the best of both worlds: if they're close, you're going to get really good connectivity, and if they're a little further away, or they require a little more penetration through walls, one of the other radios will be able to take advantage of that. I'm looking forward to seeing what the test results come back with, and more importantly, what the public who has these deployed in all kinds of different scenarios comes back and says about this type of product.

There has never been an easy button

Ubiquiti has been around for a couple of decades now, and their products have always worked well. Over the last couple of years we've definitely seen some changes in the capability and the functionality, times when it was great, times when it wasn't as solid, but lately they've got a really good track record. Their access points have always been strong players in the industry, and whether you deploy them or not, it's very difficult to throw a rock and not hit a Ubiquiti access point deployment.

The thing about it is that there's never really been an easy button with Ubiquiti. Between Ubiquiti and MikroTik, for example, you've got these companies that make low-cost Wi-Fi devices that are feature rich, but it still takes a little bit of a learning curve to get into them. Now they're taking that experience into people's homes, going after a part of the industry that is notoriously user-centric and specific to people being able to do something to quickly set it up.

For people that have used them, they'll argue that it's simple to use and simple to install, but those are nerds talking about it. Those are people who are used to working with CLI and used to working with all these advanced technologies. For them to say it's simple doesn't really hit the same way as it does for your grandma or your mom or your dad who's trying to deploy a network at their house. For those people it has to be super simple, and if it doesn't land well there, we'll know about it very, very soon.

I haven't used it, so I'm curious to see what it's like, and I hope I end up with a set of it soon so I can look at where their strong suits are. But if it's anything like the technology and the products they've been offering in the enterprise space for the last couple of years, and anything like what we've seen demonstrated at WLPC and some of these other shows, then it's going to be fascinating to watch what happens in that market space.

Who does this change the work for?

It could change quite a bit, depending on the price point and depending on the integrator. If the integrator is already well versed in this technology, it might make it easier for them to deploy. And especially with a module now for managed service providers, this opens up the opportunity for a huge ecosystem of people who are comfortable with Ubiquiti to go after new markets.

Don't underestimate that. Where everyone thinks you don't see Ubiquiti in the enterprise space or playing in some of these larger areas, you actually see it in so many other places that if you're focused on one segment or one vertical, you're not thinking about everywhere else it's deployed. You've got a lot of people supporting a lot of smaller businesses, a lot of VARs, a lot of the "IT person down the street," and those groups are already familiar with this technology. If this gives them the opportunity to turn an extra dime becoming an MSP for their community, or for the apartment complex down the street, or the MDU, or the local university, that really changes the dynamics for them. It means they're going to push it that much stronger.

Who actually needs a ten gig backhaul at home?

The technology does demonstrate some benefits for dedicated MLO radios, but you really have to think about the houses and the apartments these devices are going to be installed in, and about who is going to benefit from a 10 gig backhaul connection. You've got gamers, you've got content producers, you've got creators. You basically have Gen Z, and a lot of people doing AI. It's really targeted at people doing massive amounts of connectivity between these areas who need some way to ensure that it works.

Where it gets more interesting is the rest of the ecosystem. At WLPC they brought out the "wireless switch" where you have a switch with 8 switch ports that backhauls over 5 and 6 GHz to your existing Ubiquiti infrastructure. When someone has a pool house or a larger property or a ranch or a farm and needs a place to put a switch in on the other side of the property, and they're able to mesh that switch into their mesh network, that's a pretty interesting thing to think about. If this really does sit inside their entire ecosystem, it opens up a lot of opportunity to bridge the gap between home and business. You also have a lot of business owners who already have this deployed at their businesses and already know how to use it, or their buddy or their IT person who deployed it for them can call them up and say, hey, this thing you've been using at your business is pretty good for your home now as well.

Will these networks fall apart in the field?

Mesh has a tendency to fall apart at scale, when some of it doesn't scale the way it's supposed to. But in this case we're not talking about that. What we're talking about is small fixed environments in homes, and they're shipping the three-pack, so you're probably looking at three to five nodes as an average deployment, and nobody really deploys just two of these things. They're going to be close enough together to handle it, so I'm not concerned about these networks necessarily falling apart.

What I am concerned about is that as a new entrant into the whole mesh side of it, there are a lot of things you have to take into account: end users who don't understand anything about this, or VARs who aren't used to deploying this and are now getting a new toy they can deploy for their customers without having the experience. They've really been bulking up their tool sets, so I want to see what tool sets follow that make whole-home Wi-Fi mesh installations easier for the installers. What are the resources they're providing? What are the tools they're providing?

Has wireless backhaul finally solved whole-home coverage?

If that were the case, it would've been solved a long time ago. You've got a lot of companies that have been doing this for upwards of ten years, who've had products out there that supply wireless backhaul, and they do a really good job at it. So I'm not sure this is solving any problem that hasn't already been addressed.

It's crazy, because even me as a wireless person: when my son moved into a new apartment and needed connectivity between his computer and his internet connection, he was a little skeptical about using Wi-Fi. I said, "well, if you can cable it, cable it." I don't know that there's a problem here that doesn't already have a solution.

Do this

• If you're considering whole-home mesh or planning an upgrade, add this to your compare-and-contrast list, while recognizing that this is a pretty saturated market with a lot of really good players already in it.
• Look at the overall company and the strategy of the company, and what the company is trying to do, rather than just the spec sheet.
• Weigh the security and manufacturing history the same way you would with every other vendor out there, because Ubiquiti is no stranger to being in the spotlight for those reasons.
• If you're an installer, don't assume this is an easy button. Plan for higher node density and shorter spacing because of 6 gig.
• Watch what tooling and installer resources ship alongside the hardware, because that will tell you more about the MSP ambition than the mesh node does.

The radios are the cheap part now. Cheap, capable nodes lower the hardware bill, but they don't lower the learning curve, and the design, the siting and the support are where the skill went.

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