've been experimenting with the BER lately (firmware 9.3 and above).

There are three values and one calculated value.

The Bit Error Rate is the number of bits that didn't make the checksum (failed, indistinquishable
1's from 0's) on traffic on the downlink. The SM calculates them on unsued portions of downlink
data slots.

The counters are cumulative from the last reboot or reset time.

The BER is calcuated adding the Primary and Secondary bit error counters together and dividing
that by the total bits counter.

Usually this ends up looking something like 1.3e-4 etc.

The more the decimal moves to the left (the higher the number to the right of the negative sign)
the less errors and the better the link.

Generally I've seen BER of -4 or lower (meaning higher number next to the negative sign) the
link efficiency is above 90 percent.

If you are seeing something like 2.3e+0 then that link is probably having interference problems
(low link efficiency).

Remember, the BER counters are cumulative, so if it shows something not so good like 1.435e-2
and you run a link test which shows 100 percent you might wonder why the BER is so bad. The
answer is probably intermittent interference. Which might not show up at the time you run a 2
second link test, but it causing a lot of bit errors on and off.

Sometimes I clear the counter and wait a few minutes to see what the curent bit error rate is.
Then compare that to the link test.

Generally I've seen stuff in the e-4 range usually better then 90 percent link efficienty. BER in
the e-2 range is usually above 70 percent but less than 90 and anything worse like e-1 or e+0 is
pretty bad and needs attention etc.
to forum · permalink · · 2009-05-16 15:52:04 ·
lutful
Premium
join:2005-06-16
Ottawa, ON

reply to smeghead
said by smeghead :

What is a good rate and what is a bad one?

This graph shows "good" versus "bad" BER/SNR values for Canopy FSK and 802.11
BPSK/QPSK modulation rates. Try to increase the link SNR, and you should see better BER
automagically in most scenarios.

Unfortunately whenever there is "strong" interference from nearby APs (or between your own
802.11 CPEs) a whole bunch of bits will get clobbered, and BER will approach 1 during a short
period. But at all other times, BER will depend on current link SNR.

Intralink mentioned Canopy is showing cumulative numbers (since last reset?) but even then
your second value of 0.924 is truly horrible but the first value of 1.38 is impossible since you
can't obviously have more error bits than the total number of bits you transmitted. So ignore
Canopy reported BER for now and just concentrate on finding the source of massive
interference.
 to forum · permalink · · 2009-05-16 16:59:55 ·

IntraLink
Premium,MVM
join:2002-08-14
Utah Valley

reply to smeghead
Nice graph.

But I don't think I've ever seen any of our Canopy get better than 1.0e-9 even if the SnR is
higher. So maybe with Canopy there is a cut-off.

True that you need to maybe add a better antenna if this is 900MHz or a dish if it's a 2.4 or 5GHz
system. That should narrow down you field of view and get you a better SnR (Jitter in Canopy
land) and maybe increase your power a bit too.