Active Ethernet vs GPON - the price of fibre in South Africa

[Pixies]

What a joke all this is!
And what a terrible description of both technology options as well!

@Geoff.D take this as your official invitation to correct the record. Please. Do it for humanity.

 

[zAAm]

Hehe, just because you CAN contend GPON doesn't mean you have to congest. If you design GPON properly, you'll monitor each port and if any come close to congestion, you can lower the split ratio where necessary, giving more bandwidth. Also, this guy needs to go look up XGS-PON and 50 GPON. Eventually when the average consumer orders high enough bandwidth services to saturate a GPON port, you would overlay an XGS-PON layer on the same fibre, increasing your fibre bandwidth by 10, and his switches will need replacing every few years anyway. This is all marketing fluff and doesn't truly translate to customer experience. Even on a business side, you can actually dedicate bandwidth on a GPON network, so you'll never contend. The only true advantage for AE is a symmetrical 1G service, which is a bit too close for comfort for a standard GPON network.

But I digress, the guys are trying to differentiate themselves and are overreaching quite a bit - nothing new.

 

[eddief1]

Hehe, just because you CAN contend GPON doesn't mean you have to congest. If you design GPON properly, you'll monitor each port and if any come close to congestion, you can lower the split ratio where necessary, giving more bandwidth. Also, this guy needs to go look up XGS-PON and 50 GPON. Eventually when the average consumer orders high enough bandwidth services to saturate a GPON port, you would overlay an XGS-PON layer on the same fibre, increasing your fibre bandwidth by 10, and his switches will need replacing every few years anyway. This is all marketing fluff and doesn't truly translate to customer experience. Even on a business side, you can actually dedicate bandwidth on a GPON network, so you'll never contend. The only true advantage for AE is a symmetrical 1G service, which is a bit too close for comfort for a standard GPON network.

But I digress, the guys are trying to differentiate themselves and are overreaching quite a bit - nothing new.

Your statement assumes FNO's have done due diligence in their designs, monitor their ports for congestion, have a plan to reduce splits without re-splicing and downtime and an upgrade strategy to next gen PON - the thing is most don't.

 

[Speedster]

Your statement assumes FNO's have done due diligence in their designs, monitor their ports for congestion, have a plan to reduce splits without re-splicing and downtime and an upgrade strategy to next gen PON - the thing is most don't.

The weird thing is I get exactly the line speed I pay for on my Openserve GPON line. Is there anybody who doesn't?

 

[wingnut771]

Mine is Vuma trenched except if you ask Vuma - their books say Vuma aerial. Any idea which it is?

Just to add to the confusion, aerial can be underground so I would go with what Vuma say.

 

[KOPITE]

Hehe, just because you CAN contend GPON doesn't mean you have to congest. If you design GPON properly, you'll monitor each port and if any come close to congestion, you can lower the split ratio where necessary, giving more bandwidth. Also, this guy needs to go look up XGS-PON and 50 GPON. Eventually when the average consumer orders high enough bandwidth services to saturate a GPON port, you would overlay an XGS-PON layer on the same fibre, increasing your fibre bandwidth by 10, and his switches will need replacing every few years anyway. This is all marketing fluff and doesn't truly translate to customer experience. Even on a business side, you can actually dedicate bandwidth on a GPON network, so you'll never contend. The only true advantage for AE is a symmetrical 1G service, which is a bit too close for comfort for a standard GPON network.

But I digress, the guys are trying to differentiate themselves and are overreaching quite a bit - nothing new.

Look I think if you get the speed you signed up for and without any packet drops or higher latency you good to go. Does not really matter if it's split a million times.

 

[zAAm]

Your statement assumes FNO's have done due diligence in their designs, monitor their ports for congestion, have a plan to reduce splits without re-splicing and downtime and an upgrade strategy to next gen PON - the thing is most don't.

No, but I was making the point that you cannot say GPON by design will contend and congest. So I was disputing the claim about the technology.

That said, your statement about FNO behaviour is true, but a separate topic. I could contend an AE network just as easily, and I can promise you that Vumatel does, and they would be stupid not to. For the same reason you don't have a 20 lane road leading to an estate with 20 houses, you don't backhaul a 500 port 1G fibre switch with 500G. You just need to be sure that you have enough lanes or Gb that you don't start congesting. I mean, that is pretty much all an FNO, ISP or operator does - traffic management.

My point ultimately is that both technologies can be effectively deployed if you do it correctly, while not impacting any subscriber experience.

 

[freematrix]

Can Laurie then give us a heads up on how to find out if you've been split many times by the FNO and ISP. I surely don't split my money to pay the ISP. Why can they not play open cards on what you actually paying for. I do not mind paying for a decent service and getting what i actually pay for.

Who regulates the FNO's and ISP's and why are they getting away with it.

I don't mind paying for an uncontested 1Gbps line

I think you need to differentiate the ISP to the FNO. ISP's are delegated to by the FNO's and dont have this information on how many times the FNO splits the line. ISP's get charged a fixed rate by the FNO irrelevant if the line is split 128 times or 2 times. Its the FNO's who control 80% of the price you pay for fibre. The ISP's fight for the few rands there after.

 

[zAAm]

I think you need to differentiate the ISP to the FNO. ISP's are delegated to by the FNO's and dont have this information on how many times the FNO splits the line. ISP's get charged a fixed rate by the FNO irrelevant if the line is split 128 times or 2 times. Its the FNO's who control 80% of the price you pay for fibre. The ISP's fight for the few rands there after.

True, but the FNO also spent 80% of the money on the infrastructure, so it's in their interest to split and aggregate it just enough to be cost effective (you can't have Vumatel charge 2x the price of Openserve etc.), but also to ensure it does not impact customer experience (by the same breath, if Earl's discount FNO is half price of Openserve, but provides a terrible service, everyone will move - price isn't everything).

It's the FNO's responsibility to give a good customer experience in the last mile, and the ISPs responsibility to give good customer experience towards local and international peering locations (internet)...

 

[eddief1]

The weird thing is I get exactly the line speed I pay for on my Openserve GPON line. Is there anybody who doesn't?

nobody is saying because you on GPON you will not get the speeds you paying for. Openserv are actually good, their reluctance to sell symmetrical products for a long time and limiting max to 200Mbps down for just as long shows this. They know the risk.

Laurie is taking exception with ISP's/FNO's selling dedicated 1:1 Business services as fact - when in reality the underlying network is unknown at best, he is 100% correct here.

These business then end up paying premium rates for a supposed superior business service when in reality they get the same link as the house next door on the R700 package - they not even split residential/business on the OLT's to apply some sort of QOS. So what they paying extra for? It's a lie in my opinion

Cybersmart guarantees by providing a dedicated wavelength per customer, and they doing that today - you can't really fault that.

 

[eddief1]

No, but I was making the point that you cannot say GPON by design will contend and congest. So I was disputing the claim about the technology.

That said, your statement about FNO behaviour is true, but a separate topic. I could contend an AE network just as easily, and I can promise you that Vumatel does, and they would be stupid not to. For the same reason you don't have a 20 lane road leading to an estate with 20 houses, you don't backhaul a 500 port 1G fibre switch with 500G. You just need to be sure that you have enough lanes or Gb that you don't start congesting. I mean, that is pretty much all an FNO, ISP or operator does - traffic management.

My point ultimately is that both technologies can be effectively deployed if you do it correctly, while not impacting any subscriber experience.

Absolutely, the tech is sound if used as intended.

I'll be nervous as an FNO, GPON is old now, like 2007 ... with the ISP's in ZA only differentiating themselves by either price or speed this is pushing 1Gbps packages to R1k, inevitably this will lead to multiple 1G clients per PON port. While "baseload" can easily be monitored, monitoring for microbursts in this scenario, which can be many 100's of thousands of packets per second and last only milliseconds is not so easy. It's gonna be a problem for some FNO's guaranteed

 

[Tman543]

AFAIK
Everyone + vuma aerial = GPON
Vuma trenched = active ethernet

What about Vuma Reach in the ground?

Also I have seen Vuma aerial fibre and trenched in the same road, just one side is trenched and the other is on the street light poles...

 

[wingnut771]

What about Vuma Reach in the ground?

Also I have seen Vuma aerial fibre and trenched in the same road, just one side is trenched and the other is on the street light poles...

I think Reach is also GPON. Like I said earlier, aerial can be over and underground afaik.

 

[zAAm]

Absolutely, the tech is sound if used as intended.

I'll be nervous as an FNO, GPON is old now, like 2007 ... with the ISP's in ZA only differentiating themselves by either price or speed this is pushing 1Gbps packages to R1k, inevitably this will lead to multiple 1G clients per PON port. While "baseload" can easily be monitored, monitoring for microbursts in this scenario, which can be many 100's of thousands of packets per second and last only milliseconds is not so easy. It's gonna be a problem for some FNO's guaranteed

You're right, which is why FNOs are hopefully already looking at XG(S)-PON to supplement their network once this inevitably comes. You can overlay it on top of GPON without affecting any of the existing clients and just connect the high bandwidth guys on the XGS-PON layer. I think at the moment we're not quite there yet - or at least only in extremely few select areas/scenarios.

In terms of monitoring, microbursts very rarely impact actual customer experience though. You'll also monitor peak load, not base, to ensure that bursty traffic is not being affected either. The equipment generally have no issue giving this information (unless you're using bargain bin stuff).

 

[zAAm]

nobody is saying because you on GPON you will not get the speeds you paying for. Openserv are actually good, their reluctance to sell symmetrical products for a long time and limiting max to 200Mbps down for just as long shows this. They know the risk.

Laurie is taking exception with ISP's/FNO's selling dedicated 1:1 Business services as fact - when in reality the underlying network is unknown at best, he is 100% correct here.

These business then end up paying premium rates for a supposed superior business service when in reality they get the same link as the house next door on the R700 package - they not even split residential/business on the OLT's to apply some sort of QOS. So what they paying extra for? It's a lie in my opinion

Cybersmart guarantees by providing a dedicated wavelength per customer, and they doing that today - you can't really fault that.

If an FNO sells you a dedicated business service (not talking business class internet here) over GPON without dedicating that bandwidth, they are scamming you. You can sue them for false advertising if you experience congestion . Business class internet is generally a bit different though - it's not uncontended or dedicated, but it's QoS managed and you'll generally have access to better 24/7 support etc.

Using dedicated wavelength per customer is certainly the most scalable, but it comes at a cost unfortunately, and you're generally limited by the upstream equipment in any case. Either you pass that cost on to the customer, you make a loss, or you need to use lower cost equipment that might end up failing often etc. Always a balance, but I definitely find their solution interesting.

 

[Geoff.D]

Mine is Vuma trenched except if you ask Vuma - their books say Vuma aerial. Any idea which it is?

Whether the cable is trenched or aerial makes NO DIFFERENCE to the service provided.
There is NO SUCH THING as an exclusive only aerial fibre network anymore. It is ALWAYS a mixture. In some areas there might be no overhead infrastructure. It is the equipment used to provide the service that determines the nature of the service, (active or passive) and then asymmetrical or symmetrical and then only the capacity of the service.

 

[zAAm]

Whether the cable is trenched or aerial makes NO DIFFERENCE to the service provided.
There is NO SUCH THING as an exclusive only aerial fibre network anymore. It is ALWAYS a mixture. In some areas there might be no overhead infrastructure. It is the equipment used to provide the service that determines the nature of the service, (active or passive) and then asymmetrical or symmetrical and then only the capacity of the service.

Agreed. Depends on the area - no difference. There are some people saying maintenance in more on aerial, but these days people are just as likely to dig up fibre than they are to drive over the pole.

 

[Geoff.D]

Hehe, just because you CAN contend GPON doesn't mean you have to congest. If you design GPON properly, you'll monitor each port and if any come close to congestion, you can lower the split ratio where necessary, giving more bandwidth. Also, this guy needs to go look up XGS-PON and 50 GPON. Eventually when the average consumer orders high enough bandwidth services to saturate a GPON port, you would overlay an XGS-PON layer on the same fibre, increasing your fibre bandwidth by 10, and his switches will need replacing every few years anyway. This is all marketing fluff and doesn't truly translate to customer experience. Even on a business side, you can actually dedicate bandwidth on a GPON network, so you'll never contend. The only true advantage for AE is a symmetrical 1G service, which is a bit too close for comfort for a standard GPON network.

But I digress, the guys are trying to differentiate themselves and are overreaching quite a bit - nothing new.

But is and will always irritate those of us who know how this all works.

 

[Pixies]

Whether the cable is trenched or aerial makes NO DIFFERENCE to the service provided.
There is NO SUCH THING as an exclusive only aerial fibre network anymore. It is ALWAYS a mixture. In some areas there might be no overhead infrastructure. It is the equipment used to provide the service that determines the nature of the service, (active or passive) and then asymmetrical or symmetrical and then only the capacity of the service.

Thanks for taking the time to emphasize those points, please take a look at my request at the top of this page?

 

[Geoff.D]

Agreed. Depends on the area - no difference. There are some people saying maintenance in more on aerial, but these days people are just as likely to dig up fibre than they are to drive over the pole.

Aerial fibre has an inherent safety factor built in you can see where it is.
But poles unfortunately have this filthy habit of jumping into the road at night and when drivers are drunk.