What's The DSLAM/MSAN In Cabinets?

I'm just curious as to what hardware is in the cabinets.

From what I can gather it's as follows:

96 port = Huawei MA5616 and 4 x 24 port VDSL2 line cards
128 port = ECI M41 and 4 x 32 port VDSL2 line cards
256 port = ECI M82 + 8 x 32 port VDSL2 line cards
288 port = Huawei MA5300 + 12 x 24 port VDSL2 line cards

This seem about right?

Obviously denser line cards than these do exist but to use them would cause BT some cable management headaches when they move to profile 30a as the current 30a line cards are only as dense as the ones mentioned here, they need twice as many DSPs as profile 17a, so to use the denser line cards would mean rearranging subscribers later on or having to wait for 30a cards to match that port density.

I dont know.

Sadly it seems on ECI for vectoring this is needed?

http://www.ecitele.com/OurOffering/Products/Pages/V4...

Can you ever see BT swapping out cards in cabinets? I cant. I hope the M41 is either software upgradeable or maybe an addon type card can be used.

Looks like the MA5616 can do vectoring so I am now wondering if BT's vectoring trials are HG only and we are going to see a split service with only HG users getting vectoring support.

Here V41 is mentioned.

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=646661...

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 23-Apr-13 19:57:15)

According to Huawei, writing in its in-house magazine, the company's DSLAMs just need compliant CPE and a firmware upgrade (to V800R311, the first firmware revision to support g.vector.)

cheers, a

Is that enough to get vectoring beyond the simplest board-level? No need for backplane changes to get system-level or node-level vectoring?

when I was looking in one a couple of years back it had space for 6 * 48 line cards and six 1G fibre connections. Huawei.

Huawei MA5303 is a 6 line card chassis but any 48 port cards from a couple of years ago were I suspect profile 8a only so not found in the current chassis.

My Huawei 288 cabinet went live at the beginning of 2011 on 8a. Nothing was replaced on the move to 17a.

Pretty much what I thought in my original post, a 12 slot MR5300 loaded with 12 x 24 port VDSL2 cards.

There is only the briefest mention in the Huawei docs to hand, but from what I see, the backplane remains unchanged. It's a dumb component anyway in the MA56xx.

From the MA5616 Hardware Description - document reference V800R310C00 [1]:

"An MA5616 supports common and enhanced subracks. If an enhanced subrack is used, the
control board, service boards, and software versions of the MA5616 V800R311 can be used to
support the vectoring function."

I take it to mean that the "subrack" is the cabinet or rack enclosure that holds the MA5616 chassis. Huawei sells such a beast - "an enhanced subrack" although why a different rack should be needed for vectoring?!

Could well be wrong though.

It looks like it employs a system level vectoring architecture. Though back in 2009, Huawei was prototyping node level vectoring with two or more cascaded MA5616 chassis. [2]

cheers, a

[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/126007087/Huawei-SmartAX-M...
[2] http://downloads.lightreading.com/wplib/huawei/Resea...

Edited by deleted (Wed 24-Apr-13 12:36:40)

The MA5616 is one of several MSANs (DSLAMs) that BT Openreach is installing in new fibre street cabinets across Britain, in perhaps the biggest telecoms revolution for a generation.

according to http://insidehuaweima5616msan.wordpress.com

There is a 48 port 17a board in the MA5616 range -
� 48-channel VDSL2 board (17a, over POTS, external SPL, supporting MELT)

also used in the pizza box variant perhaps http://www.huawei.com/us/products/fixed-access/dslam...