Richard, Thanks for the information on these. Do you mind me asking what is a ballpark for these devices? From what I have read/heard, the Huawei D-CMTS was a 16x4 unit software upgradeable to 32x4 I thought. Is the one you have software upgradeable to 32x4? Are these DOCSIS 3.1 capable. Better yet, what does DOCSIS 3.1 or pre- DOCSIS 3.1 mean? On Thu, Feb 4, 2016 at 10:13 PM, Richard Holbo <holbor@sonss.net> wrote:
I'm in the middle of pulling some Cisco 7246VXR-UBR's (antiques) and replacing them with the Huawei D-CMTS devices. From what I understand of your needs, the Huawei devices will do what you are looking for. We are running 8x4, but can upgrade the licenses to 24x4 if we need the bandwidth, although at that point you will be more limited by the gig uplink. I'm designing them to not serve more than 250 customers per cmts and they are running a single vlan on the cable side back to an ISC DHCP server with very simple config files served via tftp. This allows me to group the CMTS's for reasonably efficient use of IP. Have not done IP6 on these yet, but will fairly soon. They are actually designed to run as a ONT from the Huawei OLT (GPON), but will also accept a standard SFP and run off ethernet (that's how I'm doing it). Compared to the other small CMTS's I looked at these are hard to beat. they are Hardened and can be mounted anywhere. The config to do what I'm using them for is really simple (I'm a big believer in KISS). Have had some in service for a few months now with no issues.
I've used some 24 port VDSL switches in the past for MDU's and may actually pull some of those and use these where there is RG6 house wiring as they support a LOT more management than any of the smaller DSLAMS I've looked at.
In this configuration I can easily support 100mbit service on DOCSIS 3, and my unlimited modems will speedtest all the way to 280mbs.
FWIW
/rh
On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 10:24 AM, Colton Conor <colton.conor@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, we are in the USA. So based on everyones recommendations, I am going to stay far away from EURODOCSIS. I was told be a vendor that Arris and other USA FCC certified cable modems could easily be flashed to EURODOCIS mode, so I did not think the CPE side was that big of a deal (is that even true). I was not aware that there were so many differences besides just the channel width.
So, assuming we are talking about DOCSIS only (and not EURODOCSIS), what do you recommend? I like the idea of being able to upgrade to 3.1, but not sure if there are any small systems capable of this? By small I mean something that could feed less than 100 units, and be economical to do. Cable has the advantage of cheap modems, so it's really the CMTS side.
Please remember I am only interested in data internet services over this plant. Something that works for garden style layouts where I can bring fiber or coaxial to the side of a garden townhome that has between 4 to 16 units inside of it. The reason I requested a harden outdoor unit is that most all of the garden style properties have both the phone and coaxial drops on the outside of the building. There is no central closet or room. Plus we are in the south, so hardened for the heat exposure makes sense.
A remote MAC-PHY (or pre remote MAC-PHY, ala mini CMTS) sounds like what I want. I will check into Huawei and Gainspeed. Who else makes these?
On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 11:24 AM, Scott Helms <khelms@zcorum.com> wrote:
Nick,
Absolutely, if your plant is in Europe or one of the other areas (lots of Africa and the middle East is like that) that adopted EuroDOCSIS I'd agree wholeheartedly. I didn't see Colton say where they're located, but all North America is the US flavor so that's what I assume on NANOG.
That being said, the best thing that seldom gets mentioned about D3.1 is getting us to unified channelization. Scott Helms wrote:
That very small upside for an extreme downside.Trying to hire someone to work on your system with Euro channelization, not to mention buying amplifiers and passives is a huge PITA.
... if your plant is in the US.
I have customers in Europe who decided to do US DOCSIS and they universally wish they had used the local "flavor".
as you say, eurodocsis works well in europe.
3.1 will be a major improvement when it materialises.
Nick