Forum

Froboz,

FCC rules have changed and as long as you are within the FCC and IEEE restrictions for EIRP, you have a valid system. To remain "certified" you are required to use antennas rated at or below the highest antenna gain offered by the manufacturer. From a manufacturer perspective, if you use different antennas than the ones offered by Cisco, you or your professional installer are responsible for making sure the system remains certified. Also, support will still be provided for the Cisco-branded components but will not be available for the non-Cisco components. In other words, if you have a bridge hardware issue, you'll still have TAC support on it, but if you have a RF design issue and use third party components then you'll need to get support on that issue through your professional installer, whomever that might be.

Providing a diversity antenna environment outdoors is fine and will help accommodate complex urban environments where you see RF reflection from many types of obstacles. GTHill is very correct that you do not want to hook up two antennas facing in different directions using diversity... that would be a very bad design and would cause many problems. Introducing a splitter and two directional antennas is plausible but you need to know what you're doing, to do it correctly. The three-bridge design I discussed could be done with Cisco-branded products and would be fully supported. Cisco does not sell splitters and therefore to do that design, you'd need to bring in a professional installer or know how to do it yourself.

I'd be happy to discuss this with you further or introduce you to a local sales team, if you need assistance with the project. Just contact me either via IM or private message through this forum.

Joel