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handsomeinked's avatar
handsomeinked
Up to speed
2 years ago

Stand Alone ONT

With the advent of FTTP on Virgin's network I was wondering if there's any chance we can nominate to have a stand alone ONT installed rather than a Hub5x. I realise the hub 5X has the ONT built in (sort of). But it would be great not to have to put the 5x into modem mode, when modem mode is finally supported as I a standalone ONT coupled with end user's own router would surely use less energy than two routers, albeit one in modem mode. Anyway, maybe I'm being too logical about this, I realise having two separate install models would potentially cause greater cost to VM, as in having to have two sets of inventory. That said, if, once the FTTP upgrade of their DOCSIS network is complete and they do start offering wholesale across both Nexfibre and the upgraded legacy network, surely they will end up having to go down the ONT route anyway to allow for wholesale customers' routers, I am making an assumption that wholesale customers will want to, as far as possible, use the same consumer units on Virgin's wholesale network as they do on Openreach et. al. 

Apologies for the rambling stream of consciousness I hope you can follow my logic. Also, I realise I am talking in open ended timescales but, one would hope VM have at least some of the business planning team thinking about these things. 

21 Replies

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  • legacy1's avatar
    legacy1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    we can only hope the hub 5x gets modem mode VM will need the  Hub5x in place to control rate limiting on their network 

    • handsomeinked's avatar
      handsomeinked
      Up to speed
      2 years ago

      Interesting point. I'm not familiar with how VM do this so, on their FTTP network do they perform rate limiting at the customer end of things / edge, or, in the core? If they do rate limiting at the core then, surely a stand alone ONT wouldn't have any impact on this as I assume OpenReach and other FTTP providers who do use ONTs will use rate limiting so either, the ONT can perform this at the edge, or, they perform it at the core? Thoughts?

      No shade at all, this is just a steam of consciousness as genuinely curious. 🙂 

      • IPFreely's avatar
        IPFreely
        Fibre optic
        2 years ago

        Unfortunately he's no idea what he's talking about. On a PON network all the rate limiting is done by the OLT.

        VM should be avoiding sending too much data to the Nexfibre OLT by using BNGs with rate limits set there, that's for downstream and their only involvement in rate limiting.

        A standalone ONT is fine. VMO2 choose to force a router on their customers again presumably for consistency with the cable service. 

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago

    You cannot have a separate ONT because VM user the MAC address of their hub to identify you to their network. They do not use a userid/password like some ISPs who use PPPoE.

    • IPFreely's avatar
      IPFreely
      Fibre optic
      2 years ago

      Hi Tudor, 

      XGSPON doesn't work that way. The ONT identifies the subscriber to the network and from there they are mapped across VLANs and delivered to VM. Whether that ONT is standalone or incorporated into a Hub the ONT is what matters. Relying on MAC is a DoCSIS thing. 

  • legacy1's avatar
    legacy1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    but VM would there not so useful realspeed to work just so they can blame are stuff

    • handsomeinked's avatar
      handsomeinked
      Up to speed
      2 years ago

      Totally get you @legacy1 and agree whilst VM are the only ISP on their network this makes total sense. However in a world where they have opened up their network to other ISPs, they are going to want to attract as many ISPs as possible and most won't want a white label service, they will want to offer the same kit as they do on OpenReach or CityFibre et. al. So I suspect ONTs will be the way forward, one day. Of course, any router can be built with Truespeed functionality, plus with an ONT the network provider can test the line speed to the ONT, so they will still be able to blame our kit if we chose not to use their router. 

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    When nexfibre and VM wholesale their networks the ISPs will be free to install whatever ONTs and routers they want in premises.

    • handsomeinked's avatar
      handsomeinked
      Up to speed
      2 years ago

      Totally agree, this is what I suspect it will look like in the future. One hopes VM will then drop their integrated hub/ONT and just deliver routers with a 10G RJ45 WAN port.... That said, I'll likely be very long in the tooth by the time they even get round to opening up the network fully! But hopefully I'll still have enough of my marbles left to bother switching to see what it's like and if the grass is greener... That said, I may not even be on the VM/Nexfibre network by the time all of this happens so it could all be a moot point. hahaha 🙂 

      • Roger_Gooner's avatar
        Roger_Gooner
        Alessandro Volta
        2 years ago
        IPFreely wrote:

        No, they won't.

        Yes, they can, rival ISPs can get their fibre and ONTs into premises and utilise VM's network to help get those ONTs connected to their OLTs. It's essentially the same thing that VM does with some of its RFoG network by using Openreach's ducts and poles to help get VM's fibre and ONTs into premises at one end and connections to VM's VHUBs (which house the OLTs) at the other end.

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    VM is going to have a real mixed bag of network provision in a few years.

    Is it really going to be viable in comparison with Openreach?

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    There will be just two big network operators - Openreach and VM. Openreach plans to deliver FTTP to 25m homes and businesses by December 2026 with 12.8m already done. VM is migrating its 16.2m to XGS-PON with fibre to last the cabinets planned for completion by 2028 and, in collaboration with nexfibre, 5m by 2026 with the option of 7m by 2028. So, by 2028 VM and nexfibre could have over 23m premises covered.

  • IPFreely's avatar
    IPFreely
    Fibre optic
    2 years ago

    To be honest it's a little worrying how many of the posts in this thread have been written with confidence but are completely wrong.

    XGSPON is not DoCSIS, please check your facts before sharing them. 

    On a PON network rate limiting is done by the OLT, nothing in the subscriber's home is required to participate. The ONT doesn't even need to know what tier it's provisioned at. It transmits when the OLT tells it it can and receives data when the OLT sends it. 

    Subscribers are identified by their ONT. It is mapped to VLANs, usually 2 of them stacked, and delivered to the ISP. There will be a mapping of subscriber to VLAN and, often, the wholesale provider will also insert some metatdata into the client's DHCP request when they forward it to the ISP too. PPPoE is not required and the Openreach / CityFibre ISPs using it only use it because of other requirements on their side. 

    ISPs can't plug any old thing they want into a PON network. XGSPON is a shared network and one where there are no hard standards on interoperation between vendors. Once up and running that's all standardised but compatibility profiles have to be built and the network provider has to authorise every ONT on their network that they can map it to a subscriber. To connect any vendor's kit to a Nokia OLT means paying Nokia extra, not requiring any of the Nokia-proprietary MIBs and having interoperability tests done.

    The only kind of network where an ISP can plug anything into it is a point to point fibre network. Nothing shared, just have to use the right type of optic, no provisioning, no need to authenticate the subscriber as the fibre is all theirs. 

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    I'm not suggesting sharing the physical connections (although no contracts have been signed let alone anything implemented). I'm just saying that I can think of two ways of getting other ISPs on board:

    1. Grant access on VM's network on a wholesale basis, i.e. the ISPs become resellers of VM's services. Mind you, they still need marketing, sales, customer service, billing, etc.

    2. Use VM's infrastructure to get fibre from their OLTs to their ONTs in premises with the aid of VM's infrastructure, kind of similar to how ISPs do it with Openreach's ducts and poles under PIA. As VM's new network is being built and is far from finished, we can only speculate how this will be done.

    • IPFreely's avatar
      IPFreely
      Fibre optic
      2 years ago
      Roger_Gooner wrote:

      I'm not suggesting sharing the physical connections (although no contracts have been signed let alone anything implemented). I'm just saying that I can think of two ways of getting other ISPs on board:

      1. Grant access on VM's network on a wholesale basis, i.e. the ISPs become resellers of VM's services. Mind you, they still need marketing, sales, customer service, billing, etc.

      2. Use VM's infrastructure to get fibre from their OLTs to their ONTs in premises with the aid of VM's infrastructure, kind of similar to how ISPs do it with Openreach's ducts and poles under PIA. As VM's new network is being built and is far from finished, we can only speculate how this will be done.

      Wait, what? You aren't suggesting physical connections? What do you think this means? My emphasis on one section.

      Roger_Gooner wrote:
      IPFreely wrote:

      No, they won't.

      Yes, they can, rival ISPs can get their fibre and ONTs into premises and utilise VM's network to help get those ONTs connected to their OLTs. It's essentially the same thing that VM does with some of its RFoG network by using Openreach's ducts and poles to help get VM's fibre and ONTs into premises at one end and connections to VM's VHUBs (which house the OLTs) at the other end.

      You're literally saying that that rival ISPs can put their own fibre into VM's network. That isn't what wholesaling is and it's not what VMO2 are doing right now: the product they buy from Nexfibre is provided in a similar manner to the Openreach wholesale products and they connect to the Nexfibre network after the OLT has terminated the XGSPON.

      Wholesale and passive infrastructure access are not the same thing. Openreach provide passive infrastructure access because they have to, it's required by Ofcom. Nexfibre, MS3, CityFibre, Netomnia, etc, don't, but are wholesale only. They own and operate their fibre networks, their ducts and poles where they have them, their OLTs. Their products are bitstream products, the wholesale customers get 1s and 0s, not unbundling of physical plant or leasing of fibre or wavelengths to regular PON customers.