nanog mailing list archives

Re: Last Mile Design


From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman () meetinghouse net>
Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2019 15:23:29 -0500

On 2/9/19 2:51 PM, Grant Taylor via NANOG wrote:

On 2/9/19 12:12 PM, Miles Fidelman wrote:
With early PON designs, upstream bandwidth was horrible. Not particularly useful if you're doing things like remote backup, or video chatting, or running a server (business grade service). GPON does better on upstream bandwidth, but it's still asymmetric.

Intriguing.

I would have not considered my municipal GPON to be asymmetric. Well, not as such.  Routinely, when I do speed tests I get better upstream speeds than I do downstream speeds.  (More below.)

If you're marketing to business customers, or home office professionals, of families with multiple users that consume upstream bandwidth, AE gives you a lot of room for upside growth (assuming you provision the right kinds of fiber).

Are you referring to the dedicated bandwidth between the CPU and the AE equipment?  Or the fact that bandwidth feeding the GPON and all subscribers is aggregate?


I'm thinking about the backside.  Generally there's a lot more downstream bandwidth to distribute, and not a lot of upstream bandwidth.  Makes a lot of sense if you're a content provider & expect your customers to be passive consumers (also, considering that a lot of that bandwidth might be used for things other than IP packets).


I have attributed the asymmetry in my speed tests to be that most people on my GPON are predominantly downloading, thus consuming aggregate download bandwidth.  Conversely, few are uploading more than requests, thus using relatively little of the aggregate upload bandwidth.

Probably the case.  But if you're in an area with a lot of home office users, or gamers, or business grade customers running servers, your experience might be different.


Do I see asymmetry?  Yes.  Is it truly asymmetric?  I don't think so.  I think is just based on consumption of aggregate bandwidth.

I have no idea if this is normal for GPON or not.  Hence one of the reasons that I'm finding this thread enlightening.


The SPECS are asymmetric, as is the technology when you take into account allocation of bandwidth between downstream video & IP services.

Miles




--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra


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