[147294] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: GPON Vendors
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeff Saxe)
Tue Dec 6 17:19:26 2011
From: Jeff Saxe <jsaxe@briworks.com>
To: "Josh V. Hoppes" <jhoppes@cfunet.net>
Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2011 22:18:07 +0000
In-Reply-To: <A5731D651F134C44BE4B7C54E9C49071A3BA87@cfu-exc-02.cfu.local>
Cc: "nanog@nanog.org" <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
Here at Blue Ridge InternetWorks we evaluated a few vendors (a couple of ye=
ars ago) and are extremely happy with our choice of Calix E7. The engineeri=
ng is top-notch, optical components are good quality, boot time is very fas=
t, decent GUI (not perfect, but improves with each software release), softw=
are upgrades have been (knock wood) seamless every time, etc. And the E7 li=
ne is easy to use -- I hear tell that the C7 line had a horrible CLI and cr=
yptic GUI and was powerful-but-demanding, but the E7 just acts like a big E=
thernet switch with VLANs, customer-side rate-limiting, and a little bit of=
DHCP snooping, security, and multicast processing. And their tech support,=
both pre-sales and on-demand, have been responsive and very helpful every =
time I've called on them. I don't think they are cheap, and we wish they ma=
de an ONT model with many Ethernet ports but no POTS and RF video, but that=
's just a product mix suggestion. Overall we are really happy, and it's eas=
y to deploy and making us actual money.=0A=
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We have a rather small network, with a 2-slot (thin) E7 chassis. They also =
have a 20-slot large chassis. Only reservations I would have about it: =0A=
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- Currently runs only RSTP, but not MST. So difficult to load-balance redun=
dant links into our switching core. I don't remember if MST is on the plann=
ed feature list.=0A=
=0A=
- Currently no true IPv6 support. You can hand off IPv6 over a "straight tr=
ansparent LAN" connection, but you can't use the DHCP snooping / IP source =
verify features, which they have in v4, to ensure that a customer must use =
DHCPv6 to get their address and then cannot impersonate another customer wi=
th a manual IPv6 address. Calix says full IPv6 support is planned.=0A=
=0A=
- We had a few 711GX ONTs that developed optical transceiver failures in th=
e field. It could be something that we did, but it seemed to me that it was=
just a bad batch of components in that specific product, since the 710GX a=
nd 711GE and 716GE's were all fine. All were replaced under warranty just f=
ine, so no complaints other than customer downtime and our time to repair.=
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Feel free to ping me off-list for any other questions.=0A=
=0A=
=0A=
Jeff Saxe=0A=
blue ridge internetworks=0A=
=0A=
321 east main st =95 suite 200=0A=
charlottesville va 22902=0A=
434.817.0707 x 2024=0A=
www.briworks.com=0A=
=0A=
Central Virginia=92s technology authority since 2000.=0A=
=0A=
________________________________________=0A=
From: Josh V. Hoppes [jhoppes@cfunet.net]=0A=
Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 2:52 PM=0A=
To: nanog@nanog.org=0A=
Subject: GPON Vendors=0A=
=0A=
Hello NANOG,=0A=
=0A=
Due to unforeseen circumstances we need to consider alternative vendors for=
our GPON system, moving away from Motorola. We wanted to throw out a line=
and find out what other networks have deployed and what experiences they h=
ave had positive or negative with them. Thanks in advance for any replies.=
=0A=
=0A=
Josh Hoppes=0A=
Network Engineer=0A=
Cedar Falls Utilities=0A=
=0A=
=0A=
=0A=
