Enterprise GPON / Zhone Questions

William Herrin bill at herrin.us
Wed Dec 12 18:51:32 UTC 2018


On Tue, Dec 11, 2018 at 10:47 PM Baldur Norddahl
<baldur.norddahl at gmail.com> wrote:
> Compared to the traditional approach, you will only have one centralized
> GPON switch to manage. All the small ONT switches are managed through
> this. Complaints about the interface is vendor specific. Because there is only
> one centralized switch, it would be fairly cheap to switch vendor. Much cheaper
> than to rewire with copper in any case.

Except you won't have one central GPON switch because LANs change
incrementally.

That throwback in office 412 with the fax machine? Can't simply buy
him a pots line. You get to futz with fax over the converged phone
system.

Speaking of the converged phone system, you're now committed to VoIP
on a VLAN. When you decide you want to switch to a physically
separated network for the phones, well, that's too bad because your
cabling infrastructure doesn't make that possible.

The AV lab gets screwed. You're running the coax they need through the
noisy electrical riser because you didn't build dedicated comms risers
and closets. Naturally nobody checked with them so you don't yet
realize they can't do what they need to do with video over IP
equipment.

And what will you do in 5 years when they want the computer lab in 204
upgraded to 100Gig? Maybe run some fiber all the way back to the
campus head end because as expensive as that is, it's still cheaper
than replacing the OLT with 100-gig capable equipment and then
replacing all the ONTs in the building because oops, there's no 100
gig OLT compatible with the old ONTs and you'd have to take the
building down for a week to forklift-upgrade the whole mess.

Folks have advised Nick rip it out now because they foresee the
slow-motion train wreck on its way. That may be extreme, but certainly
he should take immediate action to preserve his options. For example,
I would demand the creation of comms closets and risers before the
building opened and I'd threaten to quit if they weren't. At least
then the inevitable modifications can be structured and planned
instead of turning in to an ad-hoc mess.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
Dirtside Systems ......... Web: <http://www.dirtside.com/>



More information about the NANOG mailing list