In reply to a post by garan:

Thanks everyone - I'll keep an eye out for the installers. I'm going to rod the duct over Christmas to double check that it's viable and hopefully I'll have the easiest and neatest install in the street early in 2023.

Pull a drawrope/string in when you've proved the duct for extra brownie points from the installer (and make sure a new one is pulled alongside anything that's pulled in for future use).

Correct you need a switch that is able to assign and manage VLANs on a port basis at both ends of the link

VLANs are perfectly reliable. They are part of the Ethernet standard and have been so for decades. They have are used on a daily basis globally in corporate networks, datacentres and in communications networks. In short everywhere and all the time.

One small example - Openreach GEA which is the underpinning of FTTC and FTTP uses VLAN technology to separate and maintain customer / subscriber traffic through their network.

In reply to a post by mikegg:

I'm aware of a development in London where OR for example installed several CSP's in garages where the original cable was ducted directly into the garage

They’re relatively flexible with CSP as it’s a passive part of the network and as long as it’s safe to work on and there’s somewhere stable to use a fusion splicer. Happy days.

ONTs are another matter entirely. Although I can understand why an AltNet would let you get away with requesting them in basically long term unfeasible position (outdoors) just to sign the customer up and keep them happy.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Correct you need a switch that is able to assign and manage VLANs on a port basis at both ends of the link

VLANs are perfectly reliable. They are part of the Ethernet standard and have been so for decades. They have are used on a daily basis globally in corporate networks, datacentres and in communications networks. In short everywhere and all the time.

One small example - Openreach GEA which is the underpinning of FTTC and FTTP uses VLAN technology to separate and maintain customer / subscriber traffic through their network.

I used vlans on my old TP link router, but i can't remember the reason why, I just remember doing it. What I read is that mixing Wan and lan on the same cable is not reliable and can cause problems, but that is only what I read. Thanks for the info it is interesting, but I doubt I would be doing it, mainly because I would have to buy a couple of managed switches, so more money. Ethernet cables are cheaper, so if need be I would run another cable down the side of the other. but to be honest I may redo the whole network next year, maybe running the cables outside the house, certainly the one coming from this room upstairs to the router downstairs.
It was just an idea if it came to the crunch that i was pushed to fibre,

No problem mixing ‘LAN’ with ‘WAN’ they are just tagged frames in the world of Ethernet. As long as the tags aren’t stripped off, then it’s all just traffic. Ethernet supports up to 4094 simultaneous VLANs in the one broadcast network segment.

One thing you have to remember is that the aggregate (but full duplex) capacity of the “pipe” (copper cable, fibre, whatever) is shared by all the VLANs running upon it - so a 900 Mbps WAN connection (at full tilt - say speed test) running back to a router on the other end of the link - will saturate both the ‘forward’ and ‘reverse’ paths on a full duplex GbE connection - if you’re testing from the same switch the ONT is connected to (via the “router on a stick”).

Not normally a problem though unless you’re running WAN connection at full tilt and other LAN traffic down the same link. Solution would be to increase the size of the pipe of the inter-switch link so go to 2.5, 5 or 10 GbE over the inter-switch link.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

They’re relatively flexible with CSP as it’s a passive part of the network and as long as it’s safe to work on and there’s somewhere stable to use a fusion splicer. Happy days.

Would OR have any problem mounting a CSP about 2.5 metres up on a wall? (above an up-and-over garage door) Would they make the splice at a low level and then coil up the excess external fibre within the CSP? The fibre to the house would be overhead.

Cheers!

Edited by Ancient_Mariner (Tue 29-Nov-22 15:54:42)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

No problem mixing ‘LAN’ with ‘WAN’ they are just tagged frames in the world of Ethernet. As long as the tags aren’t stripped off, then it’s all just traffic.

100% agree and the transit VLAN configuration I have is absolutely solid. I've 'only' signed up for Swish's 400Mb service and the AP on that LAN segment is not heavily used so there's no danger of saturating the 1Gb link. If I did ever get a faster conncetion then I'd probably run the CAT6 at 10Gb instead (it's only about 20m long, so should be fine), but that entails buying more hardware so no need to bother just yet. Anyway, I knocked up a quick diagram to show the relevant part of my setup: https://imgur.com/a/wHCfLND

Edited by gkw (Tue 29-Nov-22 16:14:31)

@Zarjaz is probably going to be able to give you a more definitive answer on that...

I believe they leave around 1.5 metres or so of fibre coiled up in the CSP. The typical position of the CSP is supposed to be around the 500 mm off the deck. That way the engineer can safely just place the box for the splicer on the ground, and work with the splicer on top, a bit like a mobile bench.

That's why you see OH fibre that comes in at height/eves level drops down the wall to the CSP. Then if it needs to go up they run the internal drop back up the wall. Rather than mounting the CSP at any sort off height off the ground.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

No problem mixing ‘LAN’ with ‘WAN’ they are just tagged frames in the world of Ethernet. As long as the tags aren’t stripped off, then it’s all just traffic. Ethernet supports up to 4094 simultaneous VLANs in the one broadcast network segment.

One thing you have to remember is that the aggregate (but full duplex) capacity of the “pipe” (copper cable, fibre, whatever) is shared by all the VLANs running upon it - so a 900 Mbps WAN connection (at full tilt - say speed test) running back to a router on the other end of the link - will saturate both the ‘forward’ and ‘reverse’ paths on a full duplex GbE connection - if you’re testing from the same switch the ONT is connected to (via the “router on a stick”).

Not normally a problem though unless you’re running WAN connection at full tilt and other LAN traffic down the same link. Solution would be to increase the size of the pipe of the inter-switch link so go to 2.5, 5 or 10 GbE over the inter-switch link.

Maybe it is the bandwidth problem they were on about. I only have 1Gb network, did thing about something better at one point, but my nas is only 1Gb, but it is possible to put a faster connection via the usb ports, but then it means updating the switches and the putting a network card in the computer. not really worth it. The NAS is turned off at the moment anyway and only turned on when I need it. Save energy.

i remember why I mucked around with VLANS, it was to separate different devices on the network.


I doubt I will bother as I said it means getting new switches and while the price of managed ones have come down over the years, it is still cheaper to put another cable down. We will wait and see what happens next year. I have around 6 months before I need to start to think about what I am going to do, if I can stay with FTTC I will and then I would not need to bother changing anything.