On 13-01-31 17:04, Scott Helms wrote:
switch you can VLAN. One fiber goes to the splitter on the provider side and then from there it splits into 8/16/32/64 connections that go to customers. You can't exchange one of the customer side ports to make another provider interface.
Actually you can. Say you have 3 ISPs service a neighbouhood. 3 separate OLTs. Each with 1 line going to the "connect to customers room". So in that room, you have say 100 fibres serving 100 homes. You have the 3 lines that come from the 3 OLTs, and splitter 1, splitter 2, splitter 3 attached to each of those lines from OLTs. If I am home #57 and I want to be with ISP#2, then they will patch fibre strand #57 into splitter #2. You could theoretically have the splitters at the neighbouhood too. 3 splitters in the box, and when a customer subiscribes, its link is attached to whcihever splitter is associated with the ISP. HOWEVER: This means that each ISP need to have an OLT in the MMR premises, buy their own 32 way splitter etc. An ISP will be losing mega money at first because the initial investment will be grossly underused. If you have a single FTTH plant with single OLT that is shared, then new ISPs can easily add one or 2 customers in a neighbouhood using existing infrastructure ad contributing their fair share of the cost of the shared OLT. And this makes it much easier for a small ISP to serve a larger region (and hence raise chances of growing and gaining enough customers to be viable) Canada went through this "facilities based" debate in 2009-2010 and the CRTC's decision was quite clear. Their mandate was to go facilities based (where small ISPs would put their own equipment in CO and in neighbouhoods), but the process clearly showed it was not a viable solution to enable small ISPs to grow sufficiently to provide real competition to the incumbents. So the CRTC rules that incumbents had to continue to share not only the very last mile, but also aggregation networks to enable a viable competitive environment that spanned the incumbent's whoe territory instead of small pockets where there might be competition (small pockets being down to single multi dwelling units for instance).