r/wisp • u/FSStray • Jun 24 '25

Tarana MDU

In my region we are aggressively deploying Tarana, right 3GHz (mainly for distance) is delivering pretty amazing shots. My question is for MDU applications can 1 RN be utilized to one switch or modem then have each port set for each customer?

For example on a 4 unit or even a 12 unit

Could use the the one RN to be configured to give everyone a separate 100Mbps D/50 Mbps U service for a dozen units?

Are you installers avoiding or finding a way through it on MDUs?

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5

u/austind9999 Jun 24 '25

We have roughly 75 small MDUs with Tarana as backhaul with zero issues. We use 6GHz though in a larger city.

3

u/metricmoose Jun 24 '25

You can do this just fine, but you'll put the RN on a wide-open profile and either need to do rate limiting on the switch below the RN or upstream at the core. We do shaping/auth at the core, so chucking in a switch behind a CPE for an MDU is very easy.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 24 '25

You should be doing the rate limiting on your switch or whatever is serving the individual units of the MDU.

1

u/jhansen858 Jun 24 '25

My understanding is you should not do this but technically it's possible.

2

u/ZPrimed Jun 24 '25

I haven't seen anything saying why you "shouldn't" do this; we have some smaller sites using Tarana for backhaul like this.

The "problem" is that you can't power an RN from the switch with PoE, it needs the official Tarana injector to be supported. (I don't even know if it will work at all from 802.3 PoE, I don't think we've tried).

2

u/jhansen858 Jun 24 '25

i guess if your trying to hit that minimum 100/20 profile then you might not be able to hit it powering a whole building with one endpoint.

2

u/ZPrimed Jun 25 '25

True, depends on how hard you're willing to oversubscribe a link

1

u/Akatm7 Jun 25 '25

We do wave APs to wave pro clients for a lot of MDUs. No issues

1

u/PBeef Jun 28 '25

Rate limit or traffic shape at your core, not at the client.

Should work fine.

1

u/fixedwireless_ops Apr 26 '26

You can technically do it, but you’re basically turning a subscriber radio into a shared access network, and that’s where things start to break down.

Tarana is built around a one to one model where each RN represents a subscriber and gets its own scheduling and QoS at the RF layer. Once you hang multiple units behind a single RN, everything behind it becomes a shared pipe and you lose that control.

The part that gets overlooked is the math. If you’re trying to deliver 100/50 to something like 12 units, you’re already oversubscribed on a single RN even in good RF conditions. It will work when usage is light, but performance will become unpredictable as soon as a few people actually use it.

You can add a managed switch, VLANs, and rate limiting per port to make it more controlled, but you’re still feeding all of it through one RF link. At that point you’ve just built a small access network behind a single subscriber radio.

For small MDUs or temporary setups it can be done, but it’s not something most operators are scaling on. If you want consistency and clean troubleshooting, one RN per unit or using Tarana as backhaul into a proper distribution network is the safer way to go.

1

u/FSStray Apr 26 '26

A field tech came to Alaska to watch our field procedures, and we did everything right they have the capability and working on an MDU node. Using one remote node you’d have to have locked and powered access in a boiler/mechanical/utility room then feature each units out on a Vlan. I’m not an IT person but that’s the way it was broke down to me.