----- Original Message -----
From: "Jean-Francois Mezei" <jfmezei_nanog@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@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