Rollup: Small City Municipal Broadband

Scott Helms khelms at zcorum.com
Sun Feb 3 21:49:05 UTC 2013


>
>
> And flooding doesn't affect pure glass, does it?
>

Not directly, so long as the cladding stays intact.  The problem with
flooding (for your scenario since your electronics will be centralized) is
mainly that it causes things to move around inside the cable runs and
depending on water flow you can end up with a lot of problems with
increased scattering if the cable gets stretched.


>
> > c) No, WHEN something breaks it is hard and expensive to figure out
> where.
> > This is true even if you're the layer 2 provider but it gets you out of
> > the problem of it works $A_provider_gear but not $B_provider_gear. You're
> > going to drive yourself nuts troubleshooting connections IF you do sign
> up
> > several partners especially if they choose different technologies.
>
> It would appear that opinions vary on this point.  You've clearly
> had your hands on some of the gear, so I'm not discounting your opinion
> by any means, but it seems that this may vary based on, among other
> things, how well one engineers the plant up front.  This will *not*
> be a lowest-bidder contract.  Or I won't do it.
>

Its not just the initial install.  Its that every time you do anything new
like adding in a new L2 vendor or technology or hook up a new end user.
 Glass doesn't suffer from ingress noise like RF driven systems but the
plant itself is just as sensitive to physical damage and is more sensitive
to stretching than coax or twisted pair.


>
> > d) No, it will always be your fault until you can prove its not. If you
> > don't know how to troubleshoot the technology your L2 partners are using
> > how can you ever do anything but accept their word that they have
> > everything set up correctly?
>
> As Owen notes, their hot-potatoing it will simply cost them more money,
> so they have incentive to be cooperative in finding these problems, and
> that helps almost an order of magnitude.
>

Respectfully the guys that will be doing the hot potato shuffle won't be
the owners or even people who have that much technical understanding.
 They'll be installers that work on the end user and their skill set is on
par with the guys who do contract installs for security systems and Dish
Network/Direct TV.  They don't care if their boss losses money, they don't
care if you lose money, all they want to is keep their install count up
since that's how they get paid.  If a given install is problematic and they
can shift the responsibility to someone else they (as a group) will.  I'm
not suggesting that everyone who does that kind of work is unskilled or
uncaring but as a group that's what you get.


> > > I can't see any difference between building it for their L2 access box
> and
> > > my own. I simply don't believe (b). (c) seems questionable as well, so
> > > I assume you have to mean (d).
> >
> > There are lots of differences, especially related to troubleshooting.
> > Remember, all of these devices are doing phase modulation (QAM, QPSK,
> etc)
> > so a simple OTDR test (which is similar to checking SNR on a RF system)
> > doesn't show many of the problems that prevent data connectivity on high
> > speed connections.
>
> No, but I'm pretty sure my Fluke rep will be happy to sell me boxes that
> *will* test for that stuff, and I will have a contractor to back me up.
>

No, actually they won't because Fluke doesn't sell a DOCSIS analyzer (for
RFoG) nor a PON analyzer.  You'll need a separate meter (for several
thousand dollars) for each kind of technology you want to be able to
troubleshoot.  For example, to handle modulated RF (RFoG) you'd use a JDSU
(or Sunrise or Trilithic).  Fluke is a very basic OTDR tool and they don't
address the various layer 2 technologies.

>
> Likely a division of whomever did the build, who will have reason to
> want it to run well, as I'll have their name plastered all over everything
> as well. :-)
>
> > > > Dry pairs are impossible to order these days for a reason.
> > >
> > > Certainly: because you have to get them from incumbents, who don't
> > > want you to use a cheap service to provide yourself something they
> could
> > > charge you a lot more money for.
> > >
> > > You assert a technical reason?
> >
> > Most of this is because the ILECs have gotten the regulations changed
> > but they successfully used some legitimate technical reasons (and other
> > less legitimate arguments) to get those rules changed.
>
> In my experience of watching it go by, nearly every reason that an ILEC
> has ever given for wanting something made illegal which would impact their
> competitive position was made up, to a greater or lesser degree.
>
> Many of them were public companies, and had open access imposed on them
> (some would say unfairly; I waver), and it's *expected* that this would
> be the case, but still...
>
> 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
>
>


-- 
Scott Helms
Vice President of Technology
ZCorum
(678) 507-5000
--------------------------------
http://twitter.com/kscotthelms
--------------------------------



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