I knew they had a few LLU'ed exchanges, and were adding to them. I didn't realise they had added that many, or that they had GEA-enabled an the ones that are LLU. Good news!

As you say, that might be how they can now offer unlimited, at what looks like a competitive price. Might be a better spec for the OP than IDNet.

INCORRECT.

Zen has not installed 200+ MSAN's which implies SMPF or MPF LLU

It has deployed a MPLS network with the advantage that by utilising a GEA fibre link (£2000 one off cost) it can move FTTC/P customers data off onto its own network.

The MPLS network by grabbing from the exchange makes offering low contention business grade services easier, and reduced costs allows for the unlimited GEA products for its SME/prosumer customers.

That's interesting Andrew. I had to go and google MPLS , including Zen MPLS.

I can see the FTTC/P getting onto that at the exchange, via GEA (isn't a GEA link £20,000, not £2,000?), and I assume it's far cheaper than true unbundling.

Neat! Any other ISPs doing it, such as Entanet? They only seem to have it running from the BTW nodes, so able to pick up all traffic not just FTTx.

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricin...

You can see some in the Falmouth Exchange http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/wp-content/uploads/20... the yellow fibres on left hand side. The busy cluster is the incoming from the cabinets and FTTP in Falmouth and surrounding areas. Well strictly speaking the incoming are on this side http://blog.thinkbroadband.com/wp-content/uploads/20...

As for other providers, not had reason to mention any in the news and its the sort of thing I'd cover so we can refer back to it in 5 years time.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

INCORRECT.

Zen has not installed 200+ MSAN's which implies SMPF or MPF LLU

Zen have described their deployment as MSANs, though I should have qualified that description by saying that the multiple services offered are FTTx, EFM and leased lines, all backed by an MPLS network. Zen are not using this system to offer ADSL2+ using SMPF or MPF.

Apologies for misleading anyone by not qualifying the term MSAN in my earlier post.


Zen did LLU something like four exchanges, but never developed that network further. It seems unlikely that they will make any further investment in LLU ADSL2+.

Yeah it is a game of definitions

MSAN is a nice short acronym compared to rack mounted hardware that cannot accept a wide range of input and output technologies but is not LLU hardware in the sense people understand.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

MSAN is a nice short acronym compared to rack mounted hardware that cannot accept a wide range of input and output technologies but is not LLU hardware in the sense people understand.

I suspect the hardware could do LLU, but Zen aren't paying BTOR to connect their equipment to the POTS cabling; only to act as a router, perhaps with RAS services built in to terminate all those PPPoE sessions.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I suspect the hardware could do LLU, but Zen aren't paying BTOR to connect their equipment to the POTS cabling; only to act as a router, perhaps with RAS services built in to terminate all those PPPoE sessions.

We don't know which MSANs Zen have bought, but I, too, expect that they can be fitted with ADSL2+ line cards and possibly POTS line cards. However, I suspect the economics of Zen buying (or leasing) and fitting the relevant hardware doesn't make sense.

This 200 exchange deployment is focused on high speed (FTTx) and high margin (EFM and leased line) services. All the exchanges have FTTx available. The additional cost of Zen paying BT Openreach to provide an FTTx connection over Zen providing an ADSL2+ port on their MSAN and paying BT Openreach for SMPF is unlikely to be much, and will be more than cancelled out by the higher retail price for the FTTx service sold to the end user.

Zen would also incur additional support and training costs if they launched SMPF and/or MPF services. It is debatable whether they could recover the costs of setting up the support infrastructure considering the relatively small proportion of exchanges with a Zen MSAN.

In reply to a post by David_W:

This 200 exchange deployment is focused on high speed (FTTx) and high margin (EFM and leased line) services. All the exchanges have FTTx available. The additional cost of Zen paying BT Openreach to provide an FTTx connection over Zen providing an ADSL2+ port on their MSAN and paying BT Openreach for SMPF is unlikely to be much, and will be more than cancelled out by the higher retail price for the FTTx service sold to the end user.

I think there are charges for each connection for SMPF, whereas for FTTC there is only the GEA links (multiples of) that need to be fitted. Potentially a one-off charge (maybe if using 10 GigE).

Zen would also incur additional support and training costs if they launched SMPF and/or MPF services. It is debatable whether they could recover the costs of setting up the support infrastructure considering the relatively small proportion of exchanges with a Zen MSAN.

I was assuming all 200 Zen PoPs had an MSAN, unlike the 4 LLU exchanges which had old style DSLAM kit?

Why are you both calling the Zen exchange kit MSANs when Andrew has categorically said it isn't? I find that very confusing, even if in the absence of any other term you find it convenient .

Edit - looks like the kit is Label Edge Routers (LERs), linked to from the Wiki description of MPLS. The GEA link going straight to the LER.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 23-Sep-13 20:13:16)