I have limited experience with them personally to be honest .. however, I have seen many providers rip them out in favor of other competing gear especially in the DSLAM space. I have heard from several folks that that their PON equipment has matured a better with less issues ...
Many folks that I dealt with ripped out Zhone in favor of Calix primarily .... When I ask some folks on my team what they liked/disliked about Zhone (who were working at other providers at the time where they used it heavily), their comment is "f**k**g **it" .... stability issues with software is the first thing I hear. When I was running a consulting company, I came across them often and generally never heard much positive (again, primarily DSLAM) other than folks liked them because of price.... I was just on a call a couple of weeks ago with a KY/TN provider who has Zhone deployed for many years - they are investing zero additional into Zhone and moving to Calix ... similar comments that on the DSLAM side they had a lot of grief - on the PON side they had "less grief". So definitely my comment is less from hands on so much but from having heard negative feedback for many years from many providers .. glad to hear your experience with them to date has been solid it sounds like.. -----Original Message----- From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Mark - Myakka Technologies Sent: Monday, February 15, 2016 10:07 PM To: Paul Stewart <af@afmug.com> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Active or GPon? Paul, What's wrong with zhone? Running 1800+ GPON customers on them with no issues. -- Best regards, Mark mailto:m...@mailmt.com Myakka Technologies, Inc. www.MyakkaTech.com Proud Sponsor of the Myakka City Relay For Life http://www.RelayForLife.org/MyakkaCityFL Please Donate at Please Donate at http://www.myakkatech.com/RFL.html ------ Saturday, February 13, 2016, 3:01:09 PM, you wrote: PS> That assumes you want to work on Zhone gear Lￜ why not PS> Calix/Adtran etc?ￜ Personally I much prefer Calix for that kind of PS> stuffￜ PS> ￜ PS> Paul PS> ￜ PS> ￜ PS> From: Af [mailto:af-boun...@afmug.com] On Behalf Of Lewis Bergman PS> Sent: Saturday, February 13, 2016 8:14 AM PS> To: af@afmug.com PS> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Active or GPon? PS> ￜ PS> What about somebody like Zhone? Last time I evaluated them they had PS> a "pizza box" GPON you could get into pretty cheap yet they still PS> had all the components you could want from the OLT to ONT to a PS> pretty inexpensive TR069 management SW platform. Making good money PS> in this business always seems to be about reducing truck rolls. AE PS> doesn't provide that much info end to end while GPON and TR069 seem PS> to be able to drown you in whatever you want to see.ￜ PS> Like others have said, to me it is the cabinets spread over PS> everywhere that really turns me off. Negotiating, paying for, and PS> maintaining all those spaces just makes my head hurt. I don't know PS> what the possibility to turn 110 homes into something more are. If PS> designed right you could always migrate it to GPON to fold it into a PS> unified management system. The numbers we looked at the ONT cost PS> savings started to catch up with active around 75 users I think. PS> ￜ PS> On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 6:28 AM Chris Fabien <ch...@lakenetmi.com> wrote: PS> Josh, PS> I don't think anyone is disputing that gpon is the right solution PS> for an isp with 1000s or millions of users. But Andreas asked about PS> 110. PS> That size of project is something I think a lot of WISP are likely PS> to be working on. Our fiber network is currently several projects of PS> that size - 50 to 200 homes within a few miles of a powered cabinet PS> in a remote area. Active was the cheapest way for me to do that and PS> supports 1gig to each home. PS> Power for a 20u cabinet ( 288 ports in our design) will be about PS> $30/mo when fully loaded. And just 2 strands back to our NOC instead PS> of 9 with PON which is very significant if you happen to be leasing PS> those strands, which we are in one case. PS> On Feb 13, 2016 4:48 AM, "Josh Reynolds" <j...@kyneticwifi.com> wrote: PS> Eric it doesn't matter. That's 1024 strands, 1024 SFPs, more power PS> usage, more cooling, in multiple bigass cabinets. PS> Does. Not. Scale. PS> You take that into a dense suburb and that's what you end up with. PS> This is precisely why every decent ISP of size is deploying GPON and PS> not "active" fiber. The costs to get up _and_ maintain active is PS> several magnitudes higher. Let's say you were comcast and you were PS> rolling this out to your 22 million users on active. That's 22 PS> million SFPs, 22 million ports, an asston of strands, huge cabinets, PS> large batteries that have to get changed out every few years, HVAC, etc. PS> Even on a relatively common GPON deployment (32 way), you're talking PS> about a 32x reduction in port count, sfps, strands to pops, etc. PS> from 22million ports to 687k. That's nothing to sneeze at. PS> On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 3:24 AM, Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuh...@gmail.com> wrote: >> That's assuming all 1024 active ports are in one central location and >> not distributed around, like 96 ports in one place, accomplished with >> a pair of 48-port 1u switches (fed on a 10Gbps ring) accompanied by a >> beefy UPS, in a weatherproof ventilated 16U cabinet. >> >> Multiply by location of several network nodes each with anywhere from >> 1 to 6 1U switches. >> >> On Feb 12, 2016 7:47 PM, "Josh Reynolds" <j...@kyneticwifi.com> wrote: >>> >>> If you're doing a super small project, no more than a hundred or two >>> hundred customers in an area, then it can make sense. There comes to >>> be a point where the port cost of active does NOT scale. >>> >>> 1024 subs on GPON with a modest 32 way split is done with 32 GPON >>> SFPs, 32 ports, 32 way split per GPON SFP. 2 line cards in a 2U >>> chassis. >>> >>> On active, that's 1024 active ports and SFPs. That's insane. >>> >>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 9:44 PM, Chris Fabien <ch...@lakenetmi.com> wrote: >>> > I am also a proponentￜ of active. Especially for small projects >>> > like this. >>> > Very low cost of entry. >>> > >>> > We looked at gpon including Alphion and ended up with still >>> > needing all the strands home run to the cabinet to fully load up >>> > each PON or we ended up with a bunch of money wasted on PONs that >>> > would never be fully utilized if we did splitting closer to the >>> > customer. >>> > >>> > On Feb 12, 2016 10:30 PM, "Andreas Wiatowski" >>> > <andr...@silowireless.com> >>> > wrote: >>> >> >>> >> So,ￜ I understand the benefits of GPon ... What brand would you >>> >> consider? >>> >> ... I have been looking at Alphion. Huawei seems like a good option... >>> >> But >>> >> much more expensive. >>> >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> >> Cheers, >>> >> >>> >> ______________________________ >>> >> >>> >> Andreas Wiatowski | CEO >>> >> >>> >> Silo Wireless Inc. >>> >> >>> >> Emailￜ andr...@silowireless.com >>> >> >>> >> 19 Sage Court >>> >> >>> >> Brantford, Ontario N3R 7T4 (CANADA) >>> >> >>> >> Tel +1.519.449.5656 Extension-600|Fax +1.519.449.5536 |Toll Free >>> >> +1.866.727.4138 >>> >> >>> >> -------- Original message -------- >>> >> From: Josh Reynolds <j...@kyneticwifi.com> >>> >> Date: 2016-02-12 10:21 PM (GMT-05:00) >>> >> To: af@afmug.com >>> >> Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Active or GPon? >>> >> >>> >> You realize the transport core to the gpon OLT chassis is still >>> >> active fiber in many designs, right? I also am unsure if you are >>> >> aware of the upgrade process to NG-PON2 - you can run it on the >>> >> same fiber strand as your existing PON split. Add the new card >>> >> into the chassis and move the split over to the new SFP. Upgrade >>> >> the customers at your leisure. >>> >> >>> >> On Feb 12, 2016 9:13 PM, "Eric Kuhnke" <eric.kuh...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> Key part there is, is going to be...ￜ is it available or shipping now? >>> >>> If somebody wants to start a build now, the choice is between >>> >>> GPON or active. >>> >>> >>> >>> Having an active fiber path, even with just one strand (for BiDi >>> >>> optics) >>> >>> gives you a nearly infinite lifespan of the installed light path >>> >>> and cable plant, if things are maintained correctly. With a >>> >>> dedicated light path from each powered network node to the >>> >>> customer you could upgrade to active-E 10, then 40, then 100Gbps >>> >>> someday.ￜ Yes we will see customers with 10GbE optics in the >>> >>> next ten years. And maybe in 20 or 30 years from now it'll be >>> >>> cheap and easy to connect each customer with an SFP-sized >>> >>> coherent QPSK 100GbE optic at each end. >>> >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 7:08 PM, Josh Reynolds >>> >>> <j...@kyneticwifi.com> >>> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>> >>>> 10-40Gbps on NG-PON2 is going to be the real deal, and betting >>> >>>> against it vs active ethernet at scale for residential service >>> >>>> is just... >>> >>>> dumb, to be honest (IMO). >>> >>>> >>> >>>> The size of your backbone ends up being monstrous with active, >>> >>>> as well as having to keep the cabinets powered, UPS+batteries, >>> >>>> enclosurers maintained, etc. PON is simply so much cheaper are >>> >>>> scale, and in residential every dollar counts. >>> >>>> >>> >>>> On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 8:56 PM, Eric Kuhnke >>> >>>> <eric.kuh...@gmail.com> >>> >>>> wrote: >>> >>>> > I did forget to mention that I'm firmly on the side of >>> >>>> > activeE being the best choice, for one big reason...ￜ You >>> >>>> > can use all kinds of SFP-based equipment (24/48-port 1U >>> >>>> > switches) or chassis based switches and routers with >>> >>>> > 24/48-port blades from a huge variety of manufacturers. >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > There's a lot of 48-port SFP stuff out there on the >>> >>>> > grey/refurb/used market that came out of datacenters, and no >>> >>>> > longer meets the bandwidth needs for people who are doing >>> >>>> > 10GbE (or 2x10GbE) to each bare metal hypervisor. >>> >>>> > But >>> >>>> > that same equipment is perfect for activeE. >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > Same idea as a Cisco 3750G-48 is no longer enough bandwidth >>> >>>> > for 1000BaseT to the server in colo environments, but is >>> >>>> > perfect for MDU use. >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > GPON/EPON/whateverPON is all a mess of manufacturer >>> >>>> > proprietary CPEs and non-interoperable stuff. Whereas with >>> >>>> > activeE and a real ethernet port for each customer you can >>> >>>> > use $30 media converters as your demarc. >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 4:53 PM, Andreas Wiatowski >>> >>>> > <andr...@silowireless.com> wrote: >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Hi all, >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Looking to do my first ftth for about 110 homes. >>> >>>> >> If I do active,ￜ what switch platform would you use for >>> >>>> >> sfp in cabinet and in home router/cabinet. >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> If GPon,ￜ what vendor would you choose that is cost >>> >>>> >> effective/reliable >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> I understand the full limitations of GPon.. But I feel it is >>> >>>> >> an attractive proposition compared to active... And the few >>> >>>> >> systems I have seen have a road map to faster olt access. >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Cheers, >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> ______________________________ >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Andreas Wiatowski | CEO >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Silo Wireless Inc. >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Emailￜ andr...@silowireless.com >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> 19 Sage Court >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Brantford, Ontario N3R 7T4 (CANADA) >>> >>>> >> >>> >>>> >> Tel +1.519.449.5656 Extension-600|Fax +1.519.449.5536 |Toll >>> >>>> >> Free >>> >>>> >> +1.866.727.4138 >>> >>>> > >>> >>>> > >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> > --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus
