In a message written on Wed, Jan 30, 2013 at 10:00:47PM -0500, Jay Ashworth wrote:
That can be fixed in other ways. It would be easy to make a standard SNMP mib or something that the service provider could poll from the customer gateway, and service providers could require compatable equipment. There are ethernet OAM specs.
"Customer gateway". Isn't that the box you're denigrating? :-)
Or do you mean the "FSLAM"?
No, there's an important distinction here, and we have a great example today. The Cable Modem. The Cable Modem is in many ways very similar to a FTTH ONT. It takes one media (cable, fiber), does some processing, provides some security and a test point to the provider, and then hands off ethernet to the customer. A majority of customers then plug in a Home Gateway (router, one of those linksys/netgear/belkin things), although some plug in a single device. What goes wrong? Well, the Home Gateway sees a 1000Mbps GigE to the cable modem, and tries to send at that rate. The cable modem is only allowed to transmit to the plant at maybe 10Mbps though, and so it must buffer and drop packets, at what appears to be L2. At which point virtually any ability the customer had to do QoS is gone! I believe some Verizon FIOS customers had similar issues with GigE to the ONT, and then 100Mbps upstream service. Havng the two separate devices significantly degrades the customer experience in many cases, particularly where there is a speed mismatch. I want to chuck the cable modem and/or ONT out the window never to be seen again, and let the customer plug their home gateway in directly. No middle box to buffer or drop packets, or otherwise mangle the data stream in bad ways. I have no issues with the Home Gateway responding to OAM testing from the provider. I have no issues with it learning part of its config (like a maximum transmit speed) from the provider. A Cable Modem or ONT is a glorified media converter which should not exist. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/