MikroTik SXT 5 ac / DynaDish 5 Replacement Guide: Item-by-Item Spec Comparisons, Six Decision Dimensions and a Migration Plan You Can Actually Run

Where Things Stand: Four Mainstays Withdrawn, No Replacement Guidance

The SXT and DynaDish families are the two highest-volume categories in MikroTik 5 GHz outdoor deployments: the SXT line handles short- to medium-range CPE and point-to-point work, while the DynaDish 5’s integrated 25 dBi dish covers the long-haul end. Both product lines have changed status officially — the SXT 5 ac and DynaDish 5 pages now sit under Wireless systems / Discontinued, the SXT Lite5 is likewise marked as discontinued, and the Disc Lite5 has been removed from the site altogether, returning a 404.

For the operator, “Discontinued” does not mean the hardware stops tomorrow. It means three much more concrete things (the same pattern applies to the Ubiquiti and Cambium retirements covered in the 5 GHz end-of-life replacement guide):

• The new-purchase channel is closed. You can no longer restock the original model through authorised distribution. Expansion and failed-unit replacement now come down to burning off channel inventory or turning to the secondhand market.
• The hidden cost of secondhand spares. Batch, firmware revision and RF ageing on a used SXT are all unknown. We have seen plenty of cases where a link produces worse numbers after the swap than the original design predicted — the budget was run against a new device, and what went up the tower was a three-year-old unit that had been running hot.
• Software lifecycle carries no promise. RouterOS downloads are still available for discontinued hardware, but there is no long-term guarantee of software support at the tail end of a hardware lifecycle, and the continuity of security patches has to be treated as an open question.

One thing should be made clear: MikroTik still sells 5 GHz outdoor models (SXTsq, LHG, NetMetal, BaseBox and others). In other words, what has been retired is the value-favourite classics, not the entire 5 GHz line. That leaves a real problem — the models still on sale no longer map cleanly onto the discontinued ones in either price or form factor, so working out a model-by-model substitution becomes the operator’s own job. Everything from section 3 onward is exactly that exercise.

The Discontinued List and the Official Wording

Full specifications of the four discontinued devices

What the vendor says — and what it does not

On the product pages, MikroTik’s only statement is the single word “Discontinued.” There is no reason given and no successor named (the RELATED PRODUCTS block is empty or has nothing of substance in it). Just two passages can be quoted verbatim from those pages, both on the SXT 5 AC page:

The first passage is a software-update commitment that applies during the sales window. The second matters a great deal for migration planning: MikroTik confirms officially that its 802.11ac products are backwards compatible with legacy 802.11an gear. Combined with the fact that both ends can fall back to standard 802.11 mode, this gives large networks an official basis for a staged replacement (how that works and what it requires is covered in Phase 4 of section 9).

Following this guide’s editorial rule: since the vendor states no reason for discontinuation, no reason is speculated here. Since the vendor names no replacement, the mapping table below is an engineering judgement made by LigoWave from publicly available specifications, and every basis for that judgement can be checked.

Master Replacement Mapping

How the classes are defined. Direct replacement = same form factor, gain difference ≤2 dB, same interface tier, existing power can be reused, link budget and coverage essentially unchanged, no site survey needed. Partial replacement = one factor needs to be re-checked (a gain difference of 3–5 dB, or a change in beam shape), and the link budget in section 6 must be run before anything is ordered.

Spec Comparison, Item by Item

4.1 SXT 5 ac vs LigoDLB 5-15ac — the main CPE, head to head

4.2 DynaDish 5 vs LigoDLB 5-20ac — the 5 dB question on long links

4.3 SXT Lite5 / Disc Lite5 vs LigoDLB — replacing the two Fast Ethernet veterans

4.4 Side by side: MikroTik’s current models vs LigoWave

Staying inside the MikroTik ecosystem is a perfectly legitimate choice, so here are the published specifications of its current models, laid out for a like-for-like comparison of the two routes:

The trade-off between the two routes comes down to this. If your operations team leans heavily on RouterOS routing, firewall and scripting, and you want a single box that also routes, staying with MikroTik is the smoother fit. If the sites are pure wireless access or backhaul (bridge duty), you want centralised bulk management, or you care about a clean 6 GHz evolution path (MikroTik’s 6 GHz models, SXT 6 and BaseBox 6, are also discontinued), then the LigoWave route offers more certainty on lifecycle and operational model. The two are not mutually exclusive — using them side by side within one network, chosen by site type, is a pattern we see in the field.

Six Decision Dimensions Beyond the Spec Sheet

Gain and throughput are only half of a selection decision. In real replacement projects, the six dimensions below often carry as much weight as the RF specifications.

Dimension 1: Wireless protocol and scheduling

If you also run Cambium ePMP gear, note that iPoll 3 is incompatible with Cambium’s own TDMA as well — the protocol question is covered in more depth in the Cambium ePMP 5 GHz replacement guide.

This dimension is a draw: NV2 and iPoll 3 are both proprietary TDMA and each is closed to the other. The real difference lies in the ability to transition — MikroTik states its 802.11 backwards compatibility explicitly, which gives a staged approach (“new CPE joins in standard 802.11 mode, the base station switches last”) an official basis. If your network runs NV2 (check it in the wireless settings in Winbox), you have no option but to swap whole links in pairs, so build your schedule around that constraint.

Dimension 2: Power and site-modification cost

The SXT 5 ac’s 15–60 V wide-range input is a genuine design strength, and it means most existing MikroTik sites need no power work at all when they move to LigoDLB. One caution during the job: the LigoDLB is a 24 V passive device, so never connect an 802.3af switch’s 48 V output to it directly — the mismatch carries a risk of damage. The correct procedure is to disable PoE on the switch port and feed the device through a 24 V injector.

Dimension 3: Network management and bulk operations

MikroTik’s operating model is logging into each device with Winbox — flexible, but dependent on how fluent your engineers are with RouterOS, and prone to parameter drift when you are replacing dozens of sites in bulk. LigoWave manages centrally through WNMS, so bulk configuration pushes, firmware upgrades and status monitoring all happen in one place. In fairness, the maturity of the RouterOS ecosystem and its community resources are real MikroTik advantages: if your team already has a full set of RouterOS automation scripts, include that honestly when weighing reasons to stay. Conversely, if your team is worn down by editing configuration device by device across dozens of sites, WNMS’s template-driven deployment is a direct reason to switch.

Dimension 4: Lifecycle and supply certainty

Once the SXT 5 ac and DynaDish 5 are discontinued, spare-parts supply narrows to two sources — channel inventory and the secondhand market — and neither gives you any control over batch or condition. The LigoDLB 5ac line, by contrast, is in production and still receiving firmware. There is no tactful way to put this one: for a carrier-grade link, “a guaranteed new unit within two weeks of a failure” is itself part of the availability metric. Before purchasing, estimate your risk exposure as failure rate × lead time, rather than waiting for a failure and then going looking for stock.

Dimension 5: Evolution path (6 GHz)

LigoDLB ac and the LigoDLB 6 series (5.9–6.4 GHz) share the same hardware platform and the same iPoll 3 protocol, so a network can move smoothly from 5 GHz to 6 GHz within one management system. Set that against MikroTik’s 6 GHz position: the SXT 6 (RBSXTG-6HPnD) and BaseBox 6 are both marked Discontinued on the official site, and the SXT 6 is expressly “sold only to licensed spectrum holders.” In other words, in regions where 6 GHz is open or licensed, MikroTik’s current line-up contains no purchasable 6 GHz fixed-wireless device. Since 6 GHz regulation varies by country (5925–7125 MHz is not open for civilian use in mainland China), whether this dimension matters depends on your market — check local rules first.

Dimension 6: Procurement and spare-parts cost structure

The “sticker price” of a discontinued model is meaningless now — the $109 SXT 5 ac and $199 DynaDish 5 were official reference prices before discontinuation, and the real cost today is inventory premium or secondhand discount plus inspection. LigoWave pricing follows channel quotes (no invented numbers here), but there is one certain difference in cost structure: the LigoDLB shares a platform with the LigoDLB 6 and a common WNMS and 24 V power scheme across the range, so spares can be shared between models instead of a separate stock buffer for every SKU. When you build an annual spares budget, the product of “number of SKUs × stock depth per SKU” is what you want to keep small.

How to Calculate the Link Budget

For any replacement where gain differs — the DynaDish 5 at 25 dBi being the obvious case — running the numbers beats guessing. The whole method is four steps, and every input comes from the published specifications already listed above.

Step 1: Work out free-space path loss (FSPL)

Taking 5.8 GHz (f = 5800 MHz), three typical distances:

Step 2: Work out received signal level (RSL)

Worked example: a 10 km link with LigoDLB 5-20ac at both ends, transmit power taken at the mid-range 25 dBm for 80 MHz, and 1 dB of cable and connector loss:

RSL = 25 + 20 + 20 − 127.7 − 1 = -63.7 dBm. Against the 5-20ac’s sensitivity range at 80 MHz (-90 to -64 dBm), -63.7 dBm sits right on the edge of the top rate (MCS9 needs roughly -64 dBm) — the link will work, but with no fading margin. Good practice is to hold back 10–20 dB for rain fade and Fresnel-zone intrusion, so the sensible move at 10 km is to drop to 40 MHz (about 3 dB better sensitivity) or fit a higher-gain external antenna. That also lines up with the vendor’s published guidance of PtMP 10 km for the 5-20ac.

The same link with DynaDish 5 at both ends (25 dBi, transmit power estimated at the same 25 dBm) gives RSL = 25 + 25 + 25 − 127.7 − 1 = -53.7 dBm, a full 10 dB better than the 5-20ac arrangement. That is what a “5 dB gain difference” actually looks like once it is counted at both ends, and it is why we split DynaDish replacement into two distance bands.

Step 3: Choose the replacement tier from the gain difference

Step 4: Three checks that often get missed

• Fresnel zone: the first Fresnel zone radius is r = 17.32 × √(d/4f) in metres, with d in km and f in GHz. On a 5.8 GHz / 10 km link the midpoint first Fresnel zone is about 11 m across — confirm that at least 60% of it is clear of obstructions before the swap. Blockage hurts a link more than the antenna gain difference does.
• Rain fade: attenuation rises with frequency, so on long 5 GHz links in wet regions build rain fade into the margin (5–10 dB is a common allowance).
• Regulatory power: a change in the sum of the two antenna gains shifts your EIRP, so after the swap re-check the transmit power setting against the local 5 GHz EIRP ceiling and dial it down in the device if needed.

Deployment Scenarios and Configurations

Strengths and Limitations

Five real strengths

1. A generational jump in interface and throughput (for the Lite5 and Disc Lite5): from a Fast Ethernet port and 802.11a/n to a gigabit port and 802.11ac at 500+ Mbps — on the same tower position and the same spectrum, capacity moves up a tier.
2. 5/10 MHz narrow channels: the SXT 5 ac starts at 20 MHz, while in interference-dense environments narrow channels are a practical tool you can actually reach for.
3. No power work needed (24 V sites): the SXT 5 ac’s wide-range input means the existing injector on site can feed a 24 V passive LigoDLB directly.
4. A complete product ladder: 15 dBi wide beam, 20 dBi narrow beam, connectorised models and an all-in-one 90° sector base station — CPE and base station covered from one platform, with no third-party antennas to bolt on.
5. A definite 6 GHz evolution path: MikroTik’s 6 GHz models are all discontinued, while the LigoDLB 6 shares platform and protocol with the 5ac, making it a ready-made upgrade route in regions where 6 GHz is available.

Three limitations, stated plainly

Migration Plan (Six Phases)

The sequence follows one principle — get the numbers right, validate on a small scale, then go wide — and every phase has defined inputs, outputs and exit criteria. Networks of ten sites or fewer can merge phases two and three; for networks in the hundreds, follow the order strictly.

Per-site cutover checklist

References

1. MikroTik product pages (SXT 5 AC / DynaDish 5 / SXT Lite5, marked Discontinued): mikrotik.com
2. MikroTik manuals and specification pages for each model (cdn.mikrotik.com)
3. LigoWave official data sheets (LigoDLB 5ac / 5-15ac / 5-20ac / 5-90ac, download.ligowave.org): download.ligowave.org

All specifications, official statuses and quoted text in this article were verified on 2026-09-14. Vendor policies can change, so re-check both vendors’ latest pages before a formal publication or tender submission.

Frequently Asked Questions