Fibre Ready?

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tchart

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#113686 24-Jan-2013 13:04

So I get a flyer in the mail today (addressed to "the occupier") from Telecom telling me about the benefits of UFB and asking me to register my interest.

Now Im already on UFB with Orcon.

My question is what are Telecom going to offer in terms voice? Surely they arent going to use copper for voice and fibre for internet? Or are they finally going to offer some kind of VOIP?

I note on the flyer it says stuff about ensuring existing equipment is compatible which suggests a move off copper?

Behodar

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#750167 24-Jan-2013 13:09

I *think* there's an analogue phone port on the fibre equipment that Telecom (Chorus?) will provide. The VOIP hardware, as far as I know, resides back in the cabinet so there's no configuration required at the customer end.

Edit: Just found a pic of the Chorus ONT which has two phone ports and a "POTS" light. I'm pretty sure that Telecom will provide service from that. Do you have the Chorus ONT with Orcon or does the Genius box handle everything?

Edit 2: As indicated below, I had a few things wrong here :)

plambrechtsen

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#750169 24-Jan-2013 13:13

Behodar: I *think* there's an analogue phone port on the fibre equipment that Telecom (Chorus?) will provide. The VOIP hardware, as far as I know, resides back in the cabinet so there's no configuration required at the customer end.

There are two POTS analogue lines built into the Chorus ONT. As has been shown a number of times on the numerous photos of Chorus ONTs that have been shown here.

Behodar

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#750171 24-Jan-2013 13:16

Yup, found a pic, I just had to remember the magic word "ONT" :)

Zeon

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#750174 24-Jan-2013 13:17

They may not necessarily use those ports though.

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ubergeeknz

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#750175 24-Jan-2013 13:20

Behodar: Edit: Just found a pic of the Chorus ONT which has two phone ports and a "POTS" light. I'm pretty sure that Telecom will provide service from that. Do you have the Chorus ONT with Orcon or does the Genius box handle everything?

We don't use the ATA built into the ONT. I should imagine that Telecom (and other providers) may wish to do so when they release their offerings, although the issue remains that a router is still required in most cases and if the ISP is providing a router they might as well provide one with ATA capability...

Behodar

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#750193 24-Jan-2013 13:44

ubergeeknz: We don't use the ATA built into the ONT. I should imagine that Telecom (and other providers) may wish to do so when they release their offerings, although the issue remains that a router is still required in most cases and if the ISP is providing a router they might as well provide one with ATA capability...

I'd read somewhere that there are VOIP-capable line cards in the fibre cabinets (unless I'm mixing this up with copper cabinets) so I assumed that there would only be "thin" equipment at the customer end.

When you say that a router is required, is this a pure router or is it a combined router and "fibre modem" like the current ADSL routers? What happens if you just run an Ethernet cable directly from GE1 on the ONT to your computer? Can you just run a PPPoE client or is it more complicated than that?

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linw

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#750212 24-Jan-2013 14:00

The ONT is the "fibre modem". The ONT provides Ethernet connections so you could directly connect a computer but, most of us would want the Ethernet cable to go to a router.

And if the ISP didn't want to use the ONT ATA ports, they would provide a router with ATA ports. This router/ATA would also have wireless capability. And guess what, that is exactly what ISP's provide!

Also, the fibre cabinets don't have any electronics in them. They don't even have power. They are just big junction boxes.

plambrechtsen

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#750213 24-Jan-2013 14:01

Behodar:
ubergeeknz: We don't use the ATA built into the ONT. I should imagine that Telecom (and other providers) may wish to do so when they release their offerings, although the issue remains that a router is still required in most cases and if the ISP is providing a router they might as well provide one with ATA capability...

I'd read somewhere that there are VOIP-capable line cards in the fibre cabinets (unless I'm mixing this up with copper cabinets) so I assumed that there would only be "thin" equipment at the customer end.

When you say that a router is required, is this a pure router or is it a combined router and "fibre modem" like the current ADSL routers? What happens if you just run an Ethernet cable directly from GE1 on the ONT to your computer? Can you just run a PPPoE client or is it more complicated than that?

The VoIP cards in the Cabinets is called "ISAM-V" where they have a voice card in the ISAM rather than trunking it all the way back to the exchange. That's a completely different solution where the Line Card in the exchange is no longer used, but the Voice service over copper is terminated at the Cabinet and then run over the fibre MPLS core back to it's handover. The cabinet now needs to provide the ring & battery and all that normal POTS stuff that the exchange used to provide. It also means when your backhaul connection is cut it's a single pair or two of fibre cables you need to splice back together rather than a 400pair of copper cables.

In the fibre world there is no copper backhaul so the voice service is either delivered via the Chorus ONT's ATAs, or as Orcon are doing it using their own ISP supplied CPE router which has ATAs built in. The downside to using the ISP router is that you need to expose your Voice network to your public customer base and need to sort out all sorts of QoS trickery both upstream and downstream to get reliable phone calls when someone is downloading or uploading a large file.
The Chorus ONT doesn't have those issues, but it does have a whole stack of other interesting issues around how to provision them.

The broadband connection typically either uses a PPPoE on VLAN 10 connection, or a IPoE standard DHCP request that the network injects the subscriber information into the session payload so the BNG can uniquely identify the subscriber and authorize them. That's up to the ISP on how they want to implement their service with their own CPE devices they supply to the subscriber.

linw: Also, the fibre cabinets don't have any electronics in them. They don't even have power. They are just big junction boxes.

Wrong.. The Chorus fibre cabinets all have an ISAM in them or more than one if they are a large cabinet. With different line cards that deliver GPON Fibre for UFB rather than ADSL/VDSL.

Behodar

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#750217 24-Jan-2013 14:06

Thanks for that; some of the stuff I was a bit unsure about now makes more sense :)

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#750245 24-Jan-2013 15:07

On a side note,

Been on one of those ISAM-V cards (we were infact accelerated guineepigs I'm lead to believe) since the 2010 EQ when our copper distro box was severed from exchange in 5 different places due to lateral spreading near the avon river in Brighton. After fixing the 3rd feed bundle of stretched links they gave up and got these cards in our whisper cabinet pronto to give us voice back.

But interesting they are asking for interest... perhaps consumer VDSL and Fibre directly from them is on the way... *mutters about new house being BoF for a year or so yet*

Behodar

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#750251 24-Jan-2013 15:23

Oblivian: But interesting they are asking for interest... perhaps consumer VDSL and Fibre directly from them is on the way... *mutters about new house being BoF for a year or so yet*

I've heard late March/early April. Chorus is apparenting aiming to have UFB year 4 and 5 maps out at about the same time.

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sbiddle

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#750332 24-Jan-2013 17:20

Oblivian: On a side note,

Been on one of those ISAM-V cards (we were infact accelerated guineepigs I'm lead to believe) since the 2010 EQ when our copper distro box was severed from exchange in 5 different places due to lateral spreading near the avon river in Brighton. After fixing the 3rd feed bundle of stretched links they gave up and got these cards in our whisper cabinet pronto to give us voice back.

But interesting they are asking for interest... perhaps consumer VDSL and Fibre directly from them is on the way... *mutters about new house being BoF for a year or so yet*

There are a lot of customers who are essentially "VoIP" customers using ISAM-V cards back to the NEAX's. One of the plans in the early days of the cabinet rollout plans was to only deliver voice services from the cabinets using ISAM-V cards, effectively delivering everything as IP to the cabinets. This didn't happen, but as the cabinetisation rollout started it became clear some copper MPF feeders where basically end of life, so these cards were used for voice services and the copper decommissioned. These cabinets were all clearly marked on the Cabinet notice rollout schedule.

ISAM-V cards are now available to wholesale customers (ie any ISP) using the Baseband IP service. This means they can deliver voice services using this.

tchart

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#750359 24-Jan-2013 18:17

Thanks everyone.

Hopefully Telecom will join the UFB wagon soon!

InstallerUFB

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#750472 24-Jan-2013 22:44

plambrechtsen:<snip>
linw: Also, the fibre cabinets don't have any electronics in them. They don't even have power. They are just big junction boxes.

Wrong.. The Chorus fibre cabinets all have an ISAM in them or more than one if they are a large cabinet. With different line cards that deliver GPON Fibre for UFB rather than ADSL/VDSL.

Some more clarification on the cabinet types - the Chorus FTTN (Fibre to the Node) older cabinets (without the rounded off end/ but double front doors and sometimes triple doors) these have the ISAMs, with card veriations, for copper delivery only. (the cabinet design is generaly not suitable for distribution fibre construction)

The newer large cabinet versions that have a rounded off side/end can have fibre delivery, these again have ISAMs but might have GPONs fitted (these are not generaly used in urban UFB design)

The smaller (single door) rounded off end cabinets have no active equipment and are connected back to a building, via fibre to the GPONs (theses are the ones found in most current Urban UFB design)

Chorus BOF cabinets again dont have active components

Edit: reworded for clarification