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Getting Started with Celona Aerflex

A streamlined deployment model for enterprise private cellular networks

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Written by Team Celona
Updated this week

Celona Aerflex provides a lightweight, cloud-managed deployment architecture designed for rapid activation of private 4G/5G networks using Celona Access Points. This guide walks you through prerequisites, installation steps, configuration expectations, and important operational considerations before deploying AerFlex in your environment.

Before You Begin

Aerflex Access Point Requirements

AerFlex is currently supported on:

  • AP20, AP22 and AP21 hardware platforms (2025.1 software versions support Aerflex)

  • AP25 and AP24 support will be added in a future release.

Ensure your APs are assigned to a VLAN capable of reaching the public internet with the required firewall allowances.

AP Internal Subnets (Reserved)

AerFlex Access Points use specific internal subnets for data plane and fallback functions. These ranges must not be used anywhere in customer networks (VLANs, DHCP scopes).

For details, refer to the Aerflex Network Prerequisites and Firewall Configuration guide.

Deployment Steps

Activate Your Site

  1. Log in to the Celona Orchestrator.

  2. Create a new site or select an existing one.

  3. Choose AerFlex as the deployment mode.

  4. Assign APs to the Aerflex site.

Create a Site

What will you need?

  • The complete address of your site, including the ZIP code.

  • Physical mount height, azimuth, and downtilt for each of your antennas for installing Celona APs.

  • GPS locations of your Celona Indoor/ Outdoor APs.

  • For sites in the United States, contact details of Certified Professional Installers (CPI) and their CPI certificate ID.

  1. Navigate to the Sites section on the side navigation menu and click the Summary tab.

  2. To create a new site, click on the CREATE SITE button.

3. Assign a name and address to the site and select Aerflex as the deployment mode.

4. Select the appropriate spectrum configuration:

  • Select the appropriate Site Radio Technology depending on the expected APs that will be added to the site - 4G, 5G, 4G & 5G

  • 4G/5G Channel Width preference

  • Frequency Configuration - Refer to documentation if manual configuration is preferred.

  • For international sites , the user must select the custom spectrum start and end range for operations and preferred 5G channel width.

5. Under the Access Point Configuration, click on the ADD ACCESS POINTS. Select the preferred access points that need to be added to the site.

6. Users can now configure the spectrum bandwidth allocation for the access points according to their preferences.

  • 4G APs only: If the user has selected a 4G-only AP, select a minimum of 10 MHz from the spectrum selection.

  • 5G APs only: If the user has selected a 5G-only AP, an option to choose the Maximum Channel Width (for 5G APs only) displays. This applies to 5G APs only. Select either 20 or 40 MHz from the spectrum selection.
    ​Note:

    • Only 20 MHz channels are available for 5G. Therefore, select two contiguous blocks.

    • If 40 MHz is selected, please ensure your spectrum selection has 40 MHz contiguous blocks available.

  • 4G and 5G APs: Select bandwidth for 4G and 5G independently.
    ​Note: Users cannot use the same channels for both 4G and 5G.

7. Click on CREATE to complete.

If your Celona Access Points are deployed and can reach the Celona Orchestrator, auto-configuration begins when you click Create.

Upon first boot-up, you can update the Celona core services and Access Points to the latest version.

Configure Access Points

  1. Once the site is created, the core and spectrum services will boot up in the background, and status of the services can be found under the Edge Clusters page.

  2. As soon as your Access Points are powered on, they will go through an auto-upgrade process.

  3. Once the auto-upgrade is completed, configure the antenna parameters to initiate bootstrap and spectrum resource allocation. Refer Documentation.

  4. You can also follow the different states your AP goes through on the Orchestrator UI - from the AP summary table (status column) and from the AP details page (operational status card). You can expect to see the following states -

  5. Follow this LED guide to see what's happening at each step and to spot any issues if they come up.

    1. Follow the System LED for both AP20 and AP22.

    2. For AP20 and AP22

      2. As soon as the AP is plugged in, it will flash blinking yellow indicating that AP has not received a DHCP IP yet. Please check your DHCP server, and then reach out to support if further help is needed.

      3. After the AP receives a DHCP IP, it will blink solid yellow if it is unable to contact the Orchestrator. Please check your firewall settings, and then reach out to support if further help is needed.

      4. After the AP establishes Orchestrator connection, it will automatically go through the auto-upgrade and bootstrap process and will finally blink blue on the System LED.

    3. For AP21:

      2. As soon as the AP is plugged in, it will blink fast, indicating that AP has not received a DHCP IP yet. Please check your DHCP server, and then reach out to support if further help is needed.

      3. After the AP receives a DHCP IP, it will blink slowly if it is unable to contact the Orchestrator. Please check your firewall settings, and then reach out to support if further help is needed.

      4. After the AP establishes Orchestrator connection, it will automatically go through the auto-upgrade and bootstrap process and will finally display solid neon yellow on the LED.

  6. Refer to documentation to detail on Access Point configuration.

Setup Time Sync Source

👉 Refer to the guide here.

Configure SIMs and Device Groups

  1. Activate SIMs on the Celona Orchestrator.

  2. You can categorize your devices into Device Profiles using the the documentation here

  3. Apply traffic policies as required. Follow the detailed instructions here to complete the configuration steps.

👉 Activate Physical SIMs here

👉 Activate eSIMs here

👉 Setup External Network Domains here

👉 Setup a device profile here

Device onboarding occurs through the Aerflex cloud core and requires no on-premises hardware.

Internal Domain IP Range (Fixed Range)

Aerflex currently supports a single, fixed internal domain IP range:

192.168.10.1 – 192.168.13.254

Custom internal domain configurations or alternative IP ranges are not supported. Devices that are part of the Internal Domain will not be able to perform Handovers. Internal Domain should only be used for POC’s and demonstration of AerFlex functionality.

Monitoring & Troubleshooting

You can monitor:

  • AP health

  • Device registration

  • SIM authentication events

  • RF performance

All monitoring is available directly from the Celona Orchestrator and via Celona Monitoring APIs.

Operational Notes

Feature Availability Roadmap

The following capabilities will be available in future Aerflex releases:

  • AP25 platform support

  • Advanced configurations, including:

    • Layer-2 (L2) tunnels

    • Supernetting

    • IP Multicasting

Mobility Considerations

Aerflex is designed for general enterprise use cases and indoor/outdoor coverage.
However, it is not recommended for environments requiring high-speed mobility, such as:

  • AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles)

  • AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots)

  • Robotics fleets requiring rapid cell-to-cell handover

For these scenarios, Celona recommends the Celona Edge–based architecture, which provides optimized local data breakout and ultra-low latency mobility performance.

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