ECI FTTC Cabinets

Hi

Just read a news post on isp review http://goo.gl/bBbPmW about Openreach suspending G.INP on ECI cabinets, which lead me to ask the question why a earth did Openreach decide to deploy thousands of ECI cabinets if they're only going to have issues with them in the future, because obviously G.INP is having issues i am assuming vectoring will be a no go with ECI cabinets if vectoring ever happens? Would it be cheaper in the long run to replace the ECI cabs with Huawei cabinets? Because its going to cost a lot to upgrade the DSLAMS inside to the V41 to support vectoring an other future solutions but also a bit of waste of money as the all the M41's will be unused. Potentially what can ECI DSLAMs as they are now, support?

Thoughts?

Most likely because no one possesses a crystal ball.

I am pretty sure this came up a little while ago.

BT use 2 suppliers to allow for supply chain issues - best not to just use a single supplier when you have a large project to deal with.

The problems with ECI didn't exist when they selected as G.INP and vectoring were not in use (I don't think they were even ratified standards that far back but they may have been). Going back and swapping them all now would cost money and take engineering resource away from the ongoing rollout.

Ideally ECI would sort their kit out so that it does support the newer technologies.

ECI don't list the V41 as part of their current product line now.

pretty sure vectoring was ratified when they started deploying ECI cabinets, G.INP was of course, sky use G.INP for years on adsl2+.

So the blame is good ol BT on this one, just not thinking more than 1-2 years ahead. Priority was probably cheapest possible supply.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 21-Apr-16 10:58:50)

In reply to a post by Computerman142:

Would it be cheaper in the long run to replace the ECI cabs with Huawei cabinets? Because its going to cost a lot to upgrade the DSLAMS inside to the V41 to support vectoring an other future solutions but also a bit of waste of money as the all the M41's will be unused. Potentially what can ECI DSLAMs as they are now, support?

The ECI kit isn't going to be upgraded in any volume to support vectoring. It's going to be replaced by G.fast over the next decade.

G.inp wasn't really in the specification sheet at the time the specifications were drawn up. The Huawei equipment is able to run it in both directions with just software upgrades. There are evidently caveats with the ECI hardware causing issues that no-one was aware of at procurement time.

Enjoy that 21Mb you have right now. There's a reasonable chance you're still going to be on that when Big Ben tolls in the next decade.

Edited by deleted (Thu 21-Apr-16 11:16:37)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

pretty sure vectoring was ratified when they started deploying ECI cabinets, G.INP was of course, sky use G.INP for years on adsl2+.

So the blame is good ol BT on this one, just not thinking more than 1-2 years ahead. Priority was probably cheapest possible supply.

Without knowing the discussions that took place between BT and ECI there is no way of knowing whether G.inp was on the cards, and whether they were expecting it to be available via a software upgrade.

Also no way of knowing whether assurances were given regarding vectoring. Crosstalk seems to have had more of an impact than expected and uptake been higher than allegedly anticipated.

It seems clear the issues with G.inp were not foreseen.

I cannot see how BT were surprised by the impact of crosstalk given their name is on a trial that took part some years ago showing high levels of crosstalk on VDSL. Plus if planners were competent at their job's they would have looked at the other trial data carried out by alcatel which also showed average levels of sync speed loss at around 40% from crosstalk. It reminds me of the scenario where they were "surprised" that a load of their own customers had ECI modems on hauwei dslam's last year.

I am just lost for words on G.INP, BT just seem very late to the game on it and really that should have been a consideration from day one. Maybe it was and for some reason there was no vendor support, but that seems odd on broadcom given broadcom already had G.INP on earlier generation products.

Edited by Chrysalis (Thu 21-Apr-16 12:46:20)

No one outside BT and ECI will know exactly what is in the contracts. They may well specify, G.INP, Vectoring, 30MHz profiles and more that will be delivered "on request" or at a defined future date. ECI may have attempted to implement G.INP and found that they cannot get it working reliably in their labs, for any of many reasons. And for all we know, BT may be getting compensation payments from ECI for failure to deliver.