Muni fiber: L1 or L2?

Mon Feb 4 21:39:13 UTC 2013

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_nanog at vaxination.ca>

> > Subscribers don't care if the hand off is at layer 1 or layer 2 so
> > this is moot as well.
> 
> This is where one has to be carefull. The wholesale scenario in Canada
> leaves indepdendant ISPs having to explain to their customers that they
> can't fix certain problems and that they must call the telco/cableco to
> get it fixed. (in the case of a certain cable company, they can't even
> call them, it has to be done by email with response of at least 48
> hours).

Yes, and Scott is *horribly* pessimistic (in my opinion) about how 
difficult it will be to have ISP clients who a) understand this and b)
don't tolerate it.  I will have more to say on this below.

> Another aspect: customers espect to be able to switch seamlessly from
> one ISP to the next. But ISP-2 can't take over from ISP-1 until ISP-1
> has relinquised control over the line to the end user. In a layer 1
> scenario, it means ISP-1 has to physically go and deinstall their CPE
> and disconnect strand from their OLT, and then ISP-2 can do the
> reverse and reconnect evrything to provide services.
> 
> What happens when ISP-1 isn't interested in a quick disconnect and
> ISP-2 has to wait days/weeks with end use without service ?

What happens is that they tell us, the hometown fiber network operator
that they're switching to ISP-2, who has already put in their own Take 
order to us, and we splash cut the pair, with no responsibility to ISP-1
whose contract warns them that *our residents* take priority, and if they
screw up, they'll lose by it.  Customer happy, and foot-dragging ISP --
who should -- takes the brunt.  They do it too much, they pay.

> In a layer2 service, it is a matter of reconfiguring the OLT to pass
> ethernet packets to a different VLAN to a different ISP. No physical
> changes required and it can be almost tranparent to the end user who
> just has to make a new DHCP request and be provisioned by ISP-2.

Yes, and that's why my *primary* goal will be to provide L2 service
with city-owned ONTs.  Making sure the plant is L1 *compliant* is my
secondary goal, so I don't lock out PtP or L1 clients.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
Ashworth & Associates     http://baylink.pitas.com         2000 Land Rover DII
St Petersburg FL USA               #natog                      +1 727 647 1274