The ONTs are good and there will be no issues.

Also ISP kit is getting better and better, we are starting to see very stable devices e.g. the BT SmartHub, Sky Q Hub and TalkTalk D-Link 3782 all very solid performers with lengthy uptimes reported. It is very common to see users on the Sky Forums posting stats with uptimes of 200 days and higher. Some of the smaller players e.g. Vodafone have not got it right just yet (constant complaints).

RE the Asus, good shout - stick to what works well for you

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sun 11-Feb-18 01:28:11)

Looked at the ONTs mentioned. While looking, I stumbled across GPON routers by D Link and TP Link. I wouldn't consider either of them to be much of an upgrade, but does seem to show things may be moving in that direction. What I hear everybody here saying is, don't bother or, at least, don't bother just yet but possibly in the future.

Wrt my earth wiring, I have three cables coming out of my junction box. One of them looks more like speaker wire to me. Not the modern sort we use for hifi, just the skinny, old stuff. One goes to my master socket, but is stretched out from the wall between cable clips. The second one goes on a long run round the houses, with connecting blocks. This is because it has been moved to come via next doors apex window, ever since new height restrictions. The third wire, which has two cores, disappeares into the render of the house. When you look at the front of the house, there are actually various wires. In one place, two appear to join together. Some parts are buried deeper than others. Some parts are just covered in paint or pebble dash. I've been told not to worry about them. I've considered snipping the two core that makes it all the way to my junction box. Even with fibre, I could do without these wires bringing in any extra interference. We've got really bad REIN interference on our street but the owner of the pv panels refused to address the problem. One of my neighbours has a field full of them. I think this two core is either power, or for an external bell. Anyway, they've identified one of the wires as an earth. They won't touch any of it. I've been told, don't touch it because it's all their side of the master socket.

In theory, interference can be reported to OFCOM, as noted in the RSGB guidance FAQ
(as the Radio Amateur community is often impacted by the PV inverter noise)

In reply to a post by SJHambly:

The ONT is provided by Openreach, not your ISP. Openreach provision the ONT to work on their network and it cannot be substituted (The openreach network has to be configured to expect a particular ONT on a particular port at the aggregation node, and the ONT to take your particular stream from the 32 available on that port, etc etc...)

Makes you wonder if, using alternative equipment, you could ever read the streams going to your neighbours!

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Makes you wonder if, using alternative equipment, you could ever read the streams going to your neighbours!

I reckon you "might" be able, but "might" depends on how they are splicing the fibres, but from what I have seen you have one large signal going in and where it is passive (i.e. no electrical circuits i.e. an amplifier) there are several reduced level signals coming out.

I have also been told that the packets are encoded and only the box that has been linked to the connection can decode it, hence the serial of the ONT.

I also think the data might use a form of TDM (Time-division multiplexing) where each packet at a binary level is split up into segments and these signals go to all ONT's.

So going into the splitter you have loads of data and this same data comes out on all 32 fibres, however the ONT will only be able to decode what is for itself.

But don't quote me on it.

The last time I really played with Optical Fibres on a data level was about +20 years ago and I know has changed since then especially the diameter of the fibre strands and the tools used install them.

Paul

Edited by PaulKirby (Sun 11-Feb-18 14:08:50)

In reply to a post by Michael_Chare:

Makes you wonder if, using alternative equipment, you could ever read the streams going to your neighbours!

You can certainly receive them as they go to every device on the PON segment. They should, however, be encrypted, so all you would receive with a modified ONT is basically garbage.

In reply to a post by andy88:

In theory, interference can be reported to OFCOM, as noted in the RSGB guidance FAQ
(as the Radio Amateur community is often impacted by the PV inverter noise)

I tried that but got nowhere. Ofcom, Openreach and AASIP all say that the neighbour is has no legal obligation. Hoping to FTTP will resolve the issue. I pick up a lot at the windows. The ONT will be by the window. So long as the ONT itself is not susceptible, I should be OK.

FTTP works in a wholly different way, so REIN will not be an issue.

In reply to a post by tdw42:

It isn't impossible that in a few years time there could be an equivalent to 'wires-only' for fibre, as has happened for ADSL and FTTC previously, but for now the demarcation point is the ethernet socket on the HG8240/HG8110 NTE.

There are ONTs around such as the Mikrotik SFP ONU and Ubiquiti UF-Nano which support the relevant standards (GPON OMCI, ITU G.984), but it would need new provisioning processes developed to supply the device serial number to Openreach in order to be provisioned - this may be enough to stop it happening.

No it would not. It would just require someone to release an ONT which could be configured to report a specific serial number; specifically the one from the Openreach provided ONT. Then provided it was otherwise G.984 /G.988 compliant it would likely just work. It is highly unlikely Openreach are using some special standard for their FTPP network.

So I was aware last year people where looking into this, including desoldering the flash chip from inside an SFP based ONT and reprogramming it. However some random checking today shows there is now an easier solution because there is an SFP based ONT on the market that can be easily configured to "impersonate" other ONT's.

Here is a link to a web page the details the process (it's in Spanish but Google Translate does a very acceptable job on it), of changing the parameters on a ZISA SFP ONT including it's serial number to match that of a the vendor supplied one so that it works on an Orange GPON setup in Spain.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170826002450/https://w...

I don't have access to an GPON connection to test this out for BT, but I imagine it would work. Anyone wanting to try it out, here is a link to buy that ONT on Aliexpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/ZISA-GPON-stick-GPON...

Hopefully in the future Openreach will just start offering SFP based ONT's to people wanting them. In fact it would be better if they provided SFP based ONT's and use a cheap SFP to ethernet cage where required.

OR ont is a optical to Ethernet solution. And as others have said gpon ont use encrypted streams and also part of the reason you need or equipment.

Theres is no current reason to have something different. As others have said think of it being a optical master socket ..