Re: A few GPON questions...

[Brandon Martin <lists.nanog () monmotha net>]

On 12/6/18 10:18 PM, Nick Bogle wrote:
> -We would like to consider use of 3rd party GPON B+ Optics on the 
> linecards to add redundancy to the splitter (as the cost of 1st party 
> are too high). Does anyone have experience with 3rd party 
> vendors/compatibility/stability issues? We were told they theoretically 
> should work and just throw a log event, but it hasn't been tested. If 
> so, what vendors would you recommend? So far all we've really seen are 
> Ubiquiti and Fiberstore optics.

I mean, it'll probably work, but considering the extra requirements 
placed on PON optics and the relatively low cost of them compared to the 
rest of the system, I'd be inclined to stick with either ones sold by 
your vendor or at least buying something they re-label from an 
authorized distributor of the OEM.

> -As GPON is a standard itself, I'm aware interoperability between OLT 
> and ONT vendors is heavily limited.. Does anyone have any experience 
> using say, Zhone ONT's with a different model OLT, or Zhone ONT's with a 
> different model OLT? I've heard word that Zhone ONT's may be able to 
> work with Nokia OLT's but it's technically not supported.

Yeah, good luck with that.  There's some limited degree of 
interoperability, but you'll often lose management features, at minimum. 
 Some GPON OLT vendors do have a limited list of "qualified" 3rd party 
ONTs that they maintain for when their 1st-party ones don't fit the 
bill.  Stick to 1st-party when you can and drop to "qualified" 3rd party 
ones if you absolutely have to.  Anything else is going to be a support 
and maintenance nightmare.

> -We've already experienced some pretty big stability issues (have 
> replaced 1 line card 5 times..), our contractor is saying it's just 
> because we were a pretty early adopter of this line and that they've 
> fixed it and fixed internal policies to add additional QA and testing 
> before shipping to customers. Does anyone have any experience with 
> working with Zhone and their overall stability of components?

Um, GPON is well established in the field.  If you've got stability 
issues, letting your vendor blame it on being an "early adopter" is 
total BS.  Now if you were deploying NG-PON2 or something, I'd maybe, 
MAYBE let it slide as long as they gave me a good support contact.

> - Any other thoughts/gotchas/advice for deploying a GPON environment in 
> a corporate LAN? (or about deploying a Zhone solution) It's pretty 
> service provider oriented, and is incredible noticeable in the CLI.

No idea why people think it's a good idea for corporate deployments. 
The whole point of a PON is that you don't have to have active elements 
in the field.  That's usually of little consequence in a corporate or 
even academic campus environment.  I'd just stick to active-E.
--
Brandon Martin