Comments on: Symmetric Gigabit Fiber Access http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/ Ron K. Jeffries -- Listen, read, think, write. Rinse and repeat as needed. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:50:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Cloudy Thinking » Blog Archive » Brisk Demand for Broadband http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/#comment-2746 Cloudy Thinking » Blog Archive » Brisk Demand for Broadband Wed, 01 Mar 2006 04:16:33 +0000 http://blog.eronj.com/?p=602#comment-2746 [...] [see also this note on fiber access] [...] [...] [see also this note on fiber access] [...]

]]> By: Om Malik on Broadband : » Verizon Fiber & Unnecessary Roughness http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/#comment-2685 Om Malik on Broadband : » Verizon Fiber & Unnecessary Roughness Sat, 04 Feb 2006 01:42:24 +0000 http://blog.eronj.com/?p=602#comment-2685 [...] Business Week article about how Verizon wants to reserve 80% of its network bandwidth for itself, caused a minor ruckus yesterday as one after another, everyone brought up the issue of network neutrality and started the finger pointing. Given the Bells past record, that was hardly a surprise. Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that Verizon Communications (VZ ) is setting aside a wide lane on its fiber-optic network for delivering its own television service. According to Marvin Sirbu, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who examined the documents, more than 80% of Verizon’s current capacity is earmarked for carrying its service, while all other traffic jostles in the remainder.It did not make much sense, given how Verizon is building its network. They are using passive optical network technology (PON), where the transport bandwidth of a fiber is shared amongst N-homes, where N-varies between 8-and-16 homes. Verizon FTTH is split into two parts - one part for video transmissions and the other for data-Internet traffic. The video part of the network needs roughly 6 MHz of the spectrum to send one TV channel, and that’s why the company can currently offer only upto 120 channels. The video signals are sent to your TV set pretty much like how cable companies send their signals to consumer homes. This is TV, not IPTV, and it sucks up most of the available capacity on the network. [...] [...] Business Week article about how Verizon wants to reserve 80% of its network bandwidth for itself, caused a minor ruckus yesterday as one after another, everyone brought up the issue of network neutrality and started the finger pointing. Given the Bells past record, that was hardly a surprise. Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that Verizon Communications (VZ ) is setting aside a wide lane on its fiber-optic network for delivering its own television service. According to Marvin Sirbu, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who examined the documents, more than 80% of Verizon’s current capacity is earmarked for carrying its service, while all other traffic jostles in the remainder.It did not make much sense, given how Verizon is building its network. They are using passive optical network technology (PON), where the transport bandwidth of a fiber is shared amongst N-homes, where N-varies between 8-and-16 homes. Verizon FTTH is split into two parts - one part for video transmissions and the other for data-Internet traffic. The video part of the network needs roughly 6 MHz of the spectrum to send one TV channel, and that’s why the company can currently offer only upto 120 channels. The video signals are sent to your TV set pretty much like how cable companies send their signals to consumer homes. This is TV, not IPTV, and it sucks up most of the available capacity on the network. [...]

]]> By: Cloudy Thinking by Ron K. Jeffries » Blog Archive » Fast Uplinks Make Sense http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/#comment-2671 Cloudy Thinking by Ron K. Jeffries » Blog Archive » Fast Uplinks Make Sense Wed, 01 Feb 2006 03:56:20 +0000 http://blog.eronj.com/?p=602#comment-2671 [...] If you read my Symmetric Gigabit Fiber Access post, you already know that new “active star” fiber solutions deliver up to gigabit Ethernet bandwidth to a residence, where it splits out into several 100 Mbps Ethernets. [...] [...] If you read my Symmetric Gigabit Fiber Access post, you already know that new “active star” fiber solutions deliver up to gigabit Ethernet bandwidth to a residence, where it splits out into several 100 Mbps Ethernets. [...]

]]> By: Ron K. Jeffries http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/#comment-2670 Ron K. Jeffries Wed, 01 Feb 2006 01:53:40 +0000 http://blog.eronj.com/?p=602#comment-2670 An industry guru writes: I think you’re dead wrong when you write “There’s nothing wrong with PON…” When “N = 8 to 16”, the telco has to build a new fiber all the way from the CO for every 8 to 16 subscribers. And, the telco has to build out the whole feeder route before it can hook up a single subscriber. That’s an enormous front-end load with no prospect of an ROI for years, maybe decades. I’ve been watching Verizon pursue this folly in Plano for the last 9 months. (I’ve got lots of pictures.) They’ve spent millions and haven’t hooked up a single customer yet. One of the strongest arguments for an active architecture is that N = several hundred, not 8 to 16. One of the strongest arguments for Ethernet is that it’s the future. Those points plus the higher throughput achievable with an active architecture make for a pretty compelling story. An industry guru writes:

I think you’re dead wrong when you write “There’s nothing wrong with PON…”

When “N = 8 to 16”, the telco has to build a new fiber all the way from the CO for every 8 to 16 subscribers. And, the telco has to build out the whole feeder route before it can hook up a single subscriber. That’s an enormous front-end load with no prospect of an ROI for years, maybe decades.

I’ve been watching Verizon pursue this folly in Plano for the last 9 months. (I’ve got lots of pictures.) They’ve spent millions and haven’t hooked up a single customer yet.

One of the strongest arguments for an active architecture is that N = several hundred, not 8 to 16. One of the strongest arguments for Ethernet is that it’s the future. Those points plus the higher throughput achievable with an active architecture make for a pretty compelling story.

]]> By: Ron K. Jeffries http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/#comment-2668 Ron K. Jeffries Tue, 31 Jan 2006 21:13:38 +0000 http://blog.eronj.com/?p=602#comment-2668 Fair question. If you do not need higher bandwidth ( performance) PON can cost less if (a BIG if...) you can uniformly use the maximum splits. In real networks, active star with GbE can pencil out approx. the same as a much slower PON system Fair question.

If you do not need higher bandwidth
( performance) PON can cost less if
(a BIG if…) you can uniformly use
the maximum splits.

In real networks, active star with GbE
can pencil out approx. the same as a
much slower PON system

]]> By: DTD http://blog.eronj.com/2006/01/28/symetric-gigabit-fiber-access/#comment-2666 DTD Tue, 31 Jan 2006 19:16:37 +0000 http://blog.eronj.com/?p=602#comment-2666 What does PON have over Ethernet? What does PON have over Ethernet?

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