Cape Town fibre questions

[CPTBoy]

As far as I can read, Vumatel is a better option to use than Octotel ( both are coming to our neigbourhood )

Question 1:

Vumatel is better because you don't "share" the fibre line with anyone else ( I don't know the exact techinical term ), where as Octotel does some kind of bandwidth pool sharing per line?

Question 2:

For those in CPT using Fibre, who would you recommend for having the best routes out to international. I've read some ISP's first route back to JHB and then break out.

Thanks

 

[digitalis]

As far as question 1 is concerned, I doubt that is the case. Normally when operators trench fibre they put in a dedicated fibre pair to each house. I don't think there is any difference between Vuma and Octotel in this regard.
However, if you're in one of the areas where Vuma is putting in aerial fibre (e.g. Observatory Cape Town) then Vuma will be using a different network architecture call a PON 'Passive Optical Network'. This uses splitters to share a single fibre pair with multiple customers. They have to do this because stringing the cables between electricity poles puts limits on the cable weight.
That being said, I doubt the PON architecture will limit any real-world performances for most customers.

 

[image132]

I've posted this before in another thread but yes Vumatel run an active optical network. Look under their FAQ section. As you said this means you have a dedicated fiber strand to your house.

As for real world performance:



This was done by a forum memeber Jacof. Its a graph of 3 different users all with 100mb lines and all with the same ISP running speedtests every 10min. The blue line is someone on Vumatel, the green is someone on Octotel and the pink is someone on Openserve. As you can see the only hiccup the vumatel line had was because forum user coop started using his line/downloading.

Vumatel gives you 100mb+ on 100mb lines, something they actually promise on their front page, where as all other ISP's give 95-98 at best. The difference is 5-10mb but many people prefer the consistency.

If I had your choice I'd absolutely go with Vumatel, just make sure its not fibrehoods. There are lots of horror stories about fibrehoods around the forum.

 

[CPTBoy]

Fantastic, thank you guys!

 

[savage]

As far as question 1 is concerned, I doubt that is the case. Normally when operators trench fibre they put in a dedicated fibre pair to each house. I don't think there is any difference between Vuma and Octotel in this regard.

PON you have a dedicated fiber in your house, which runs to a spliter and either 16, or 32 other subscribers then share the same fiber from the spliter to the provider. The port is shared at the provider between either 16, or 32 subscribers, and all data (albeit encrypted) is transmitted to all 16 or 32 customers on the same spliter. Break the encryption, and you have effectively eaves drop on your neighbors traffic (there have been cases where this happened in the US and UK). Also, a fiber break before the spliter would mean that all 16 or 32 customers behind the spliter is affected.

ActiveNetworks (which Vuma runs) is dedicated, point-to-point fiber between you and their equipment. You have a dedicated port on their equipment, with the bandwidth guaranteed for your use. Your fiber is also not shared, and your data is not transmitted to other subscribers.

No, there are fundamental differences between passive optical networks (PON), and active optical networks (AON).

 

[Kyoto]

PON you have a dedicated fiber in your house, which runs to a spliter and either 16, or 32 other subscribers then share the same fiber from the spliter to the provider. The port is shared at the provider between either 16, or 32 subscribers, and all data (albeit encrypted) is transmitted to all 16 or 32 customers on the same spliter. Break the encryption, and you have effectively eaves drop on your neighbors traffic (there have been cases where this happened in the US and UK). Also, a fiber break before the spliter would mean that all 16 or 32 customers behind the spliter is affected.

ActiveNetworks (which Vuma runs) is dedicated, point-to-point fiber between you and their equipment. You have a dedicated port on their equipment, with the bandwidth guaranteed for your use. Your fiber is also not shared, and your data is not transmitted to other subscribers.

No, there are fundamental differences between passive optical networks (PON), and active optical networks (AON).

Went looking for examples of the encryption on PON being hacked and could not find anything, may l was looking for the wrong thing, can you please PM any links you may have

 

[savage]

I doubt you will see "examples" of how to do it, and I most certainly won't be providing any either...

Security research paper

SANS Risk Analysis

Actual hack that took place in the EU (paid for content)

AES-256 bit encryption cracked in seconds

There's really many, many papers and examples. Just need to know what you're looking for.

The encryption is based on AES, and it's not too difficult to crack AES. Spliters (which is a very good entry point to gain access to the fiber) is also not always securely protected, and frequently inside man holes, up on poles, etc.

 

[Archer]

Octotel says they run an active network if doing suburbs and the like

 

[Syphonx]

Octotel says they run an active network if doing suburbs and the like

Not aware of any active ethernet on their network, it's all GPON.

 

[rph72]

Is Openserve the only fibre provider in Pinelands? Seems they went the aerial route. Therefore it must be GPON?

 

[ponder]

Is Openserve the only fibre provider in Pinelands? Seems they went the aerial route. Therefore it must be GPON?

I think so yes, frogfoot has plans but no eta. As far as i'm aware all openserve ftth is gpon, they do have active ethernet but not deployed for residential.

What speed are you interested in and what's your concern wrt gpon?

32:1 split with 32x 100Mb/s users you get ~70Mb/s but what are the chances of all of them being 100Mb/s and active at the same time? The average ftth speed sold in sa is <100Mb/s

 

[rph72]

No issues really, each network type has its pros & cons. Was just surprised that they went the aerial route. My area is also earmarked for aerial. Suppose one doesn't have a choice in the end.

 

[Syphonx]

No issues really, each network type has its pros & cons. Was just surprised that they went the aerial route. My area is also earmarked for aerial. Suppose one doesn't have a choice in the end.

Aerial route is cheaper, that's why.

 

[rph72]

I think so yes, frogfoot has plans but no eta. As far as i'm aware all openserve ftth is gpon, they do have active ethernet but not deployed for residential.

Just heard that Vumatel is the only provider that may use electricity poles to string their aerial fibre. Took them 2 years to get this permission. :wtf: