In reply to a post by jpm:

I am in favour of the separate ONT and router thing continuing, all I would change would be to have the ONT powered by PoE as an option, and router WAN ports deliver PoE.

and +1 to that from me

In reply to a post by jpm:

This is why I am sceptical that they ever really intend to take being a wholesale network seriously - along with the zero progress that Nexfibre have actually made getting wholesale partners on board.

Do they *really* want to have to handle ONT registration for every retail provider? If they're going to put an ONT in place if you buy a non-VM service then why does the Hub 5X exist?

+1

Im personally not sure if they are still going ahead (or ever were) with the AltNet / Wholesale network idea. - My area is obviously Nexfibre, but looking up the BT poles to the CBT the yellow tags on the fibre running up the pole says 'Property of Virgin Media'.

Surely if Nexfibre planned on running a wholesale network where other ISP's can sell services then they wouldn't be tagging their fibre as Virgin Media. I'd expect it to say Nexfibre.

And should i also mention, the Nexfibre engineers are contractors as far as im aware, when they came to hook up my connection they came in a personal van,

Some strange stuff going on with them, not too sure whats going on.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Duff Virgin 5X hub innit.

The swap to an ONT stick has worked magically to resolve all the BQM 'tears of death', the paltry 6 Mbps upload when it should've been 2000 Mbps etc.

Nightmare vanquished 🤣

You spoke too soon!

https://prnt.sc/Lc51NpMIWGYn

Connection went off today for some reason, and noticed some weird latency spike pattern on the BQM, not sure if they are doing testing or looking into the fault i raised prior, but it went down bang on 06:30, and the weird latency anomaly's started at 21:00.

WAS-110 SFP was giving me an error relating to 'Mac Address State' and when trying to pull a public IP directly in my PC, it looked like DHCP was just timing out and resetting (Which is exactly what the router used to do. Blink blue when its trying to get an IP).

The weird latency spikes look to be continuing, ill have to keep an eye on them.

I have seen these spikes before on the VM Community Forums and it was some sort of testing or monitoring VM enable, but i hope they disable it as its already setting my OCD off!

Upgraded the 8311 firmware on the PON stick, and then reseated all the fibre and cleaned the ends, and it came back up. But i dont actually think that resolved the issue, i think it generally was just 'down' while they looked into my previous complaint.

Strange.

Sounds like testing. You got a steady light level reading from the stick?

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

OP given their background, ought to have access to a proper optical power meter…

we have a fluke tester under my company, but I was trying to be fairly considerate with how much VM kit I'm touching just in case the engineer some how knows I have been fiddling around with things and that being another issue.

To be honest, without being rude, a lot of the VM engineers that come out just follow the book, and majority don't even have a clue about fibre networks and the bigger picture. I started talking about some networking kit in some of our inhouse DC's and he openly said "Mate i dont have a clue about any of that, i just come out and do what im meant to do"

Fair play i guess

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Sounds like testing. You got a steady light level reading from the stick?

Steady levels yes, sitting around -26dBm which is fairly low. But when we test fibre we throw-out anything thats -30dBm and below, as that can cause issues. (It normally doesn't).

Not uncommon to see residential PON service in excess of -30dBm though, i've seen a few posts.

I could go and rummage through my warehouse and see if i can find a power meter, with the amount of fibre we deal with im sure we have one laying around.

Edited by suttonscloud (Fri 17-Jan-25 09:57:19)

Get a meter on it. That’s very low. You’re practically on the sensitivity limit of the stick there not even 2dB of headroom.

Fairly sure your issue at the root of it is optical. Specifically very poor light levels.

You can easily lose several dB if not more through poor mating faces on the SC connectors at the CSP, dirty ferule faces or ….just [censored] splicing. The best way to eliminate excess loss is to remove mated connections and splice (properly).

The brown box on the wall outside your house is connectorised, check the light levels there. If they are low then disconnect your SFP and call in a loss of service and get VM back out.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Fairly sure your issue at the root of it is optical. Specifically very poor light levels.

You can easily lose several dB if not more through poor mating faces on the SC connectors at the CSP, dirty ferule faces or ….just [censored] splicing. The best way to eliminate excess loss is to remove mated connections and splice (properly).

I think its one of the fibre couplers im using, its not the worlds greatest quality. The server is racked upstairs otherwise i would try and plug it in excluding the patch cable.

I will see if i can find a power meter and give it a test, i may actually just go and source a better quality connector and see if thats the problem.

But i agree, its usable, but not great