[SOLVED] How to work with Point of Presence for Optical Cable providers

[rchamlen]

I folks .... I have not posted here for a LONG time .... but here goes. So.... I just did battle with a (I guess currently unnamed) optical internet provider .... ultimately cancelled my installation - but many questions were left. As usual, the provider was completely unable to give me any reasonable technical answers other than basically "is it plugged in". Frustrating.

I know basically nothing about optical networking, except for what I have been able to research over the last few days, and like I said, I have some unanswered questions that the provider was totally unable to answer, so I am trying you folks. So, I am aware of the various protocols over the fiber (EPON, GPON, XGS-PON, etc), but my questions, I believe, really have nothing to do with those protocols. It is my understanding that, whatever provider you use, THEY will supply (and interface with) a .... call it a terminator .... for their fiber that sits at their POP in the house. Most of the time this widget is called an Optical Network Terminal (ONT). Also, at least to my understanding, the ONT is the widget that converts the optical protocols, to TCP/IP 100BaseT protocols that interface with the wired (or wireless) LAN.

Although it is not a perfect comparison, for cable providers, the "cable modem" converts the signals on the cable into the same TCP/IP 100BaseT protocols, and it also carries an IP address that it then passes on to the LAN gateway/router, which then acts as a DHCP server for the LAN. Pretty straightforward stuff.

Well, I guess my expectation is/was that the ONT supplied by the optical provider acted in much the same manner - i.e. the provider would interface with, update with, and assign (basically) an IP address visible on the outside network, then the ONT would execute essentially the same protocols as a cable modem on the LAN side .... so that essentially the gateway/router/firewall (which I supply and manage) is essentially "invisible" to the provider as far as configuration and management goes. also so that essentially ANY gateway/firewall I provide should be compatible with the ONT the supplier provides.

The only thing I could get out of their "tech support", and even that just by chance, was to run the "modem" they supply (which is a full fledged all-in-one gateway, firewall, switch/wireless router) as a bridge .... which seems awfully wasteful, and probably redundant if my understanding of how things work is correct.

Am I correct in this, or am I missing something?

After many tries, I just could not get an answer to this from the provider .... and we opted not to go ahead with running the optical cable with the chance the setup I wanted would not work. For my own reference though I want to know .... you never know, I might go back to them, since the claim to have a MUCH higher bandwidth than my local cable provider gives me....

 

[USAFRet]

Thats ok - go for it! I pretty much got my question answered. I'll keep following and see if there are any nuggets I can pick up.

Some of the speed discussions so far are enlightening (and also go to the question of whether they are blowing smoke up my .... you know what)

Right now with my cable I am seeing 225 mbps upload and 5.5 mbps upload (I am paying for 250 or so). The optical provider claims they support 940 mbps up and down. Right. I'll believe it when I see it ..... but I wont see it unless I have the fiber strung to my POP...

If you're paying for 250 and seeing 225, that is well within the range of "up to".

 

[bill001g]

This is where know the exact ISP helps, fiber installs is not standard. In the USA you seldom see the router type device with a direct fiber connection as the photos linked in the thread. They almost always put in a device called a ONT. Now this is only for ISP that offer fiber all the way to the house . Other ISP offer fiber to the curb and then run some kinda of DSL over phone wires or something similar to a cable modem over coax. You would have to search to see if someone has found the details of how centurylink runs their network.

As you have found there are lots of variations on how vendors carry the optical signals. There is a difference between the network speed and what they offer the end consumer. One very popular type of gpon is 2.4g down and 1.2g up. Now this is total shared by all the users connected to the same fiber. They can't actually offer plans that are say 1gbit up and down since if 2 people would test upload at the exact same time it would not work. ATT is now offering 1g up and down because they are using a type of gpon that has a network speed of 10gbit up and 10gbit down.

Although ATT installs what looks like a ONT they also require you to use their router which has a optical connection even though the older system they used had a ONT type device but still required their router.

The ISP can make it almost impossible for you to use your own equipment. In addition to having to figure out what exact kind of gpon adapter you need there are other software options they may not tell you. ATT actually uses a addition security option called 802.1x and uses certificates installed on the device to authenticate to the network. They really want to make it impossible for you to use your own equipment.

In any case the fairly standard fiber install is to get them to put the optical cable in the best place for you that they will do without charging extra. You should be able to then use ethernet from whatever device they use. If is a router you can disable the wifi radios and just deal with the double NAT if you want to use your own router. Even if the ISP has very inexpensive routers they likely can pass 1gbit traffic wan/lan so the extra hardware will not be the bottleneck. There many times is a artificial bottleneck in the network. This is how they offer different rate plans using the same fiber.

 

[rchamlen]

In my case, CenturyLink installs optical fiber all the way into my house, and terminates it with an ONT at my POP in my basement. My first clue to what they are doing is that they offer a "Modem", which is really just a standard ethernet gateway with only 10/100/1000 mbps wired ports, and no optical ports at all. Standard hardware you can buy anywhere (and which I already have in place with my Netgear mesh system)

They "claim" that the 940 mbps bandwidth is individual bandwidth, and not "shared" by neighbors ... but I would have to try it to know whether they are really delivering anything close to that.

last time I tried running NAS units in series it was a total mess. Never again

I dont know .... I have some soul searching to do. I originally told the door-knockers trying to sell me this that I was after better customer service than I had been getting from Comcast. Definitely not the case here - I could not get a single technical answer out of them. And the fact they call the C4000 a "modem" chaps my .... you-know-what. On the other hand, If I can really get 900+ mbps bandwidth, that would be .... cool to see.

(in one single series of exchanges here I got much, much, more clear discussion than several hours of phone calls (and sitting on hold) than I got from them - which is why I came here. Mostly this has solidified alot of what I was able to glean from research, but there is new info also. Thank you again to all!)

 

[kanewolf]

On the other hand, If I can really get 900+ mbps bandwidth, that would be .... cool to see.

But of little practical value for most people. If the price is lower for equivalent speeds, then there is justification. If you really need symmetric upload speed because you are doing cloud backups or something, then fiber has advantages.
What is your ACTUAL usage? 40Mbit average? Maybe 100Mbit if you have two 4K streams running. Gigabit service, unless cost competitive with "slower" service is not usually utilized.

 

[gggplaya]

But of little practical value for most people. If the price is lower for equivalent speeds, then there is justification. If you really need symmetric upload speed because you are doing cloud backups or something, then fiber has advantages.
What is your ACTUAL usage? 40Mbit average? Maybe 100Mbit if you have two 4K streams running. Gigabit service, unless cost competitive with "slower" service is not usually utilized.

Many games now are over 100GB large. Thats going to get much bigger with these nextgen consoles as they learn how to utilize the directstorage api’s and things like that. Sometimes if you havent fired up your console, several games will download huge updates as soon as you turn it on. This will saturate a 100mb connection for a long time.

Some game stores like Epic games and Steam will fully saturate my gigabit connection for upwards of 30 minutes to an hour when I download a new game. Sustaining 60-100MB/s for the whole time. I cant imagine that on a slower connection. Without my router running Cake traffic shaping, other people in the house would suffer.

 

[USAFRet]

But of little practical value for most people. If the price is lower for equivalent speeds, then there is justification. If you really need symmetric upload speed because you are doing cloud backups or something, then fiber has advantages.
What is your ACTUAL usage? 40Mbit average? Maybe 100Mbit if you have two 4K streams running. Gigabit service, unless cost competitive with "slower" service is not usually utilized.

Indeed.
I have 100/100 service from Verizon. Could easily get symmetrical gigabit, if I wanted to pay for it.

Between me and the wife, see zero need so far.

Now...if I still had a house full of teenagers...maybe.

 

[kanewolf]

Many games now are over 100GB large. Thats going to get much bigger with these nextgen consoles as they learn how to utilize the directstorage api’s and things like that. Sometimes if you havent fired up your console, several games will download huge updates as soon as you turn it on. This will saturate a 100mb connection for a long time.

Some game stores like Epic games and Steam will fully saturate my gigabit connection for upwards of 30 minutes to an hour when I download a new game. Sustaining 60-100MB/s for the whole time. I cant imagine that on a slower connection. Without my router running Cake traffic shaping, other people in the house would suffer.

Another reason I am glad I am not a gamer. Not everyone is. We don't have sufficient background from the OP to comment on the usability of gigabit service. But when the statement is made "that would be .... cool to see." the utility has to be questioned.