Tenda O3 — 5km 2.4GHz 12dBi 11n 150Mbps Outdoor CPE

Buying it, and when not to

The O3 is a 5km 2.4GHz 12dBi 11n 150Mbps outdoor CPE - the NanoM2-class unit. It is a directional outdoor radio for carrying a connection from one point to another, mounted on a pole or a wall and aimed at its partner.

The reason to choose 2.4GHz over the faster 5GHz units is obstruction. 2.4GHz penetrates trees, light foliage and partial obstructions better than 5GHz does, so on a link where the path is not perfectly clear - across a compound with trees, round the edge of a building, through a corner of a market - a 2.4GHz link will often stay up where a 5GHz link will not. Buy two: a link needs a unit at each end.

Its throughput is 150Mbps class, which is modest. Where the path is clear and you need real capacity - feeding a building, backhauling a hotspot, carrying an office's full connection - the 5GHz O3S, O6 or O9 will deliver far more over the same distance and should be the default. 2.4GHz is also a crowded band in any Nigerian urban area, so expect interference and survey before promising a figure. And this is a point-to-point CPE, not an access point: to give coverage to people and phones in an outdoor area, use the OAP1200 instead.