BreezeACCESS

The Alvarion (Breezecom) BreezeACCESS are a series of ISP radio released in the 1998-2004 time frame based on 802.11 FHSS. Origially there was BreezeAccess II for 2.4 GHz, and then BreezeACCESS V for 5GHz, and 900 for 902-928 MHz. They use a 1 MHz wide channel with GFSK modulation (2MHz on 900) and can do about 1.6 Mbit/s payload throughput at a signaling rate of 3mbit/s. The system supports about 550 packets per second.

These were the high-end technology for WISP's in the 2000's. They supported native voice, or prioritization based on 802.3p bits. Using the native voice hardware they supported a CAC on each sector/access point (an Access Unit or AU in Alvarion nomenclature). Each unit supports CIR/MIR and some filtering to help with people turning their router backwards. There's a detailed security model and they are designed to operate in a vlan aware network.

There's a less fully featured LAN soultion based on the SU-I hardware known as Breezenet. This lacks telnet management and is somewhat compatible with the over the air format, but will not respect MIR/CIR or other features in the ISP CPE.

Note this is not the same as BreezeACCESS VL, which is based on the OFDM atheros chip set.

Why use these?

Well they are 20 years old? What good are they?

They are cheap, and available on the market for 10-20 per unit.

They can be programed to use a single frequency, or a defined hopset.

You can convert the SU to an AU.

Easy to amplify as they will work with any amp that works with DMR/TRBO.

Converting SU to AU

The internal CPU (a 68360) has several jumpers around it, and the software is locked to the type of radio (AU/SU) it is.

Luckily Alvarion made some spectrum analyzer firmware for these radios. This firmware didn't care about the type of radio the unit was set to, thus you can use it to convert SUs to AUs.

Back in the day this saved several thousand dollars as an AU was 2200 USD while the outdoor SU-E was like $800. Building out a cell site using converted AU's was cheap! Even more so if you used the SU-I, which was lower power and great for a local repeater.

Procedure

It's best to start with a known good SU first, and you should be able to do firmware upgrades on it. You'll need TFTP and a soldering iron to do this and general linux skills.

1. Boot the unit and ensure you can ping it
2. using atftp put the spectrum analyzer code on it.
   1. atftp -p -l A45s27F.all -r private.dwn 10.0.0.1
3. check the firmware has made it to the radio in >2,5,S
4. boot into the backup firmware now >2,5,1,1
5. make the SA firmware active image >2,5,2,1
6. check the firmware is now the SA firmware in >2,5,S
7. Power off the radio and change the jumpers.
8. turn it on and ensure it boots.
9. push the AU firmware to the radio
   1. atftp -p -l A4516F.BS -r private.dwn 10.0.0.1
10. check the firmware has made it to the radio in >2,5,S
11. boot into the backup firmware now >2,5,1,1
12. make the AU firmware active image >2,5,2,1
13. check the firmware is now the AU firmware in >2,5,S

Note when booting up the radio will re-configure it self. It's best to reset it to factory defaults. Enjoy your new AU!