The quote is from a May 2011 post of mine, and is largely junk. It was at a time when the difference between GEA and VULA was not really clear.

It later became clear that VULA is the OfCom specification of an FTTC near-equivalent to LLU. GEA is the Openreach name for the product they have produced to satisfy that specification.

As Andrew says, Sky FTTC is GEA. Whereas on LLU broadband Sky had complete control of the line control parameters, on GEA they pick up an ethernet feed from Openreach at the exchange, in exactly the same way as BT Wholesale do.

That ethernet feed goes to the Sky LLU DSLAM/MSAN or whatever they call their equivalent kit.

The DLM is Openreach. I believe the IP Profile is also Openreach but wouldn't guarantee that. Sky can set standard, stable and super-stable parameters on the line, via an interface to the OR DLM.

The idea of Sky and a few others having their own fibre to a cabinet seems to have bitten the dust, at least in the medium term.

Not yet.

I think we can still help him if he will listen and stop calling us names.

In any case I think we are chasing a red herring, as the question about the ports being disabled arose from the homeplug suggestion. I don't see the poster paying out for a pair or more 200Mbps Homeplugs even if the ports are available.

I think my suggestion of using his old router as a switch and WAP is (messily) feasible, but my recommendation would be for him to lash out £25 on a Buffalo router like mine. As linked to earlier but ignored by him so far.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

... because i tried to add another ethernet cable for my ps3,and it didnt work,so i rung them and they told me fibre optic ONLY uses 1 port !

Stephane!...

... of the modem .

Or even £10 for a switch and cable!

Presumably Anon is using wireless "n", would a change to "g" improve the signal strength and hence a more reliable connection (if that is actually the problem?) Obviously there would be a reduction in throughput speed though.

The advantages of a wireless LAN could still be enjoyed if mobility is required and unless full speed downloads are required ~25Mbps may be adequate.

Would it be worth trying before possibly adding more kit? Not sure if changing the channel was actually tested before because there seemed to be unfathomable issues with ports and the phone at that stage.

DSLAM implies it does just one job e.g. ADSL2+

MSAN is same hardware, but doing multiple services, e.g. telephone and ADSL2+ and maybe fibre input on local loop side.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

DSLAM implies it does just one job e.g. ADSL2+

MSAN is same hardware, but doing multiple services, e.g. telephone and ADSL2+ and maybe fibre input on local loop side.

It could be neither, and just a gigabit switch between the operators backhaul and the user facing equipment.

Yeah and as i have said before,talktalk automaticly shuts the remaining 2 down,because for some reason, fibre optic only uses 1 port,and cant be shared on other ports!!!

Have come to the conclusion, that you really don't have a clue.
You are not taking heed of any of the informed opinions you came here to ask for.

Re purposing one of the LAN ports as an Ethernet WAN port makes sense and using that to connect to the Openreach modem is precisely what Sky do too.

What is odd is the disabling of the other two ports too, and no one else has ever raised this with talktalk hardware.

Yes, port 4 makes the connection via ethernet to the Openreach modem. The other three spare lan ports all work. The OP is either ill informed, or has a faulty router. Sounds clearly like it's just a wireless issue.