On 2025-08-20, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Tue, 19 Aug 2025 12:41:46 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-07 01:56, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 6 Aug 2025 12:46:30 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't trust my router, provided by the ISP.
I bought my own. I could even run my own routing stack on a Linux box.
The configuration needed by the ISP on the router is not documented ...
Here in NZ it’s all standard protocols. I bought the router from a local >> retailer, not from the ISP. Setup was straightforward -- the router calls
the setup option I am using “Dynamic IP”, but I think it’s just DHCP.
In this case, I think we're talking about a box with router and a bunch
of other stuff, to deal with incoming GPON (can this part still be
called modem, or the workings of fiber disqualify that?) and at least outgoing coax for TV, RJ11 for telephony and 8p8c for Ethernet.
I've seen these called "ONT", but it seems (from another thread here)
that this may not be entirely appropriate either?
Yes, it is GPON. Now the ONT is integrated inside the router. So the
router has an optical input, has two phone connectors, 4 ethernet
connectors, and one WiFi access point.
It is all standard protocols, but they have to be configured. The
optical interface needs some parameters, maybe there is a login and
password or client number somewhere. The channel in the GPON setup.
The television service needs an VLAN, the VoIp phone service needs
another... there are a lot of details in the configuration of those many standard services that have to be configured. There is not, to my
knowledge, an ISP provided document listing all that.
There might be in the market routers in which I simply click "Telefónica Spain setup" and all is done, but I don't know about them. This did
exist with ADSL.
Yes, it is GPON. Now the ONT is integrated inside the router.
On Wed, 20 Aug 2025 13:04:14 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Yes, it is GPON. Now the ONT is integrated inside the router.
Not here in NZ, it isn’t. The demarcation is clear: the ONT is part of the house fittings (like curtains or the oven), while the router is a separate piece of property. The physical fibre network, up to and including the
ONT, is managed by a company (Tuatahi Fibre) that is not an ISP and does
not provide any Internet services.
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a different provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
This sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was privatized,
and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that
this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the “last-mile” copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in place.
On 2025-08-22 03:18, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
One good thing, is that we have access to the VoIP configuration and
install (undocumented) true VoIP phones. We did not have access to
configure the ONT, and thus, the phone.
I believe people have reverse engineered it all. I was told there is
some EU directive saying people have the right to install their own
routers.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a different
provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of
fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
This sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was privatized,
and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that
this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned
elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the “last-mile” >> copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the
competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in place.
I worked in this field years ago, before fibre. I have not seen the
fibre exchanges, how they do things.
On 22/08/2025 11:45, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 03:18, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
One good thing, is that we have access to the VoIP configuration and
install (undocumented) true VoIP phones. We did not have access to
configure the ONT, and thus, the phone.
I believe people have reverse engineered it all. I was told there is
some EU directive saying people have the right to install their own
routers.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a
different
provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different
ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of
fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible to
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one.
This sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was privatized, >>> and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that
this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned
elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the “last-mile”
copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the
competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in
place.
I worked in this field years ago, before fibre. I have not seen the
fibre exchanges, how they do things.
Fundamentally its just like a big ethernet switch bank. Shit loads of
fibres going into a rack mount unit and one or two coming out the back.
Plus some power
On 2025-08-22 20:37, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 22/08/2025 11:45, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2025-08-22 03:18, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 21 Aug 2025 12:15:18 +0200, Carlos E.R. wrote:
One day they came, removed the ONT and the router, and placed a new
router. One box less.
And no more possibility of demarcation. Bad.
One good thing, is that we have access to the VoIP configuration and
install (undocumented) true VoIP phones. We did not have access to
configure the ONT, and thus, the phone.
I believe people have reverse engineered it all. I was told there is
some EU directive saying people have the right to install their own
routers.
Another thing that the ONT allows is, I have my landline from a
different
provider from my Internet connection. They come out of different
ports on
the box in my house, though they get here on the same physical piece of >>>> fibre.
Everything belongs to one company, Telefónica. It is possible toThis sounds like NZ about 30 years ago, after NZ Telecom was
contract a different company, but the physical fibre is the same one. >>>>
privatized,
and just as the Internet was taking off. Too late, it was realized that >>>> this left control of the entire NZ phone-number space, as well as
ownership of the copper lines into every household, in private hands.
The latter problem was solved by the local-loop unbundling I mentioned >>>> elsewhere -- some described it as a renationalization of the
“last-mile”
copper network in all but name. That made a big difference to the
competitiveness of the broadband market.
And the mistake was not repeated when the fibre network was put in
place.
I worked in this field years ago, before fibre. I have not seen the
fibre exchanges, how they do things.
Fundamentally its just like a big ethernet switch bank. Shit loads of
fibres going into a rack mount unit and one or two coming out the back.
Plus some power
The electronics to accept that amount of bandwidth must be impressive.
What they did with cable, is that the cable arrived at a... I don't know
the name in English. On one side of a rack, the cables are wrapped on
pins, thousands of them. At the other side, another pair goes to a
similar rack, that belongs to each company. So you can easily rewire the cable coming from a customer to the exchange, and there route physically
to the rack of the actual company that supplies phone service to that customer.
With fibre it is not possible, because each fibre brings 16 customers
time multiplexed. It must be software.
A packet from your ONT gets thrown onto a huge optical backbone via the
OLT and routed off to the ISP.
What they did with cable, is that the cable arrived at a... I don't know
the name in English. On one side of a rack, the cables are wrapped on
pins, thousands of them. At the other side, another pair goes to a
similar rack, that belongs to each company. So you can easily rewire the cable coming from a customer to the exchange, and there route physically
to the rack of the actual company that supplies phone service to that customer.
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 21:56:37 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
A packet from your ONT gets thrown onto a huge optical backbone via the
OLT and routed off to the ISP.
At layer 2 it’s called a “frame”. “Packet” is the term for layer 3 and
above.
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 00:28:45 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2025 21:56:37 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
A packet from your ONT gets thrown onto a huge optical backbone via the
OLT and routed off to the ISP.
At layer 2 it’s called a “frame”. “Packet” is the term for layer 3 and
above.
All these years and I still don't have the OSI model down pat. otoh I'm
not a network engineer and there are many thing in life where It Just
Works is good enough for me. I do know more about TCP tables and ICMP statistics than I ever necessarily wanted to.
The OSI model was just more academic spaff. Most hardware/software
broke that model anyway.
On Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:23:52 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
The OSI model was just more academic spaff. Most hardware/software
broke that model anyway.
Not sure what a better alternative is, which is why still use it, or
at least parts of it. My interpretation:
Layer 0
-- the laws of physics. Our starting point for building everything
Layer 1
-- the physical connection. Might be a wire, might be radio waves,
cans connected by string, whatever.
Layer 2
-- the point-to-point communication protocol
Layer 3
-- routing layer
Layer 4
-- end-node-to-end-node communication
Layer 5
-- process on one node communicating with process on another node
Layer 6
-- not really meaningful
Layer 7
-- the actual applications the user wants to run
Layer 8
-- the human user
If you look for example at IEEE802, then that’s kind of a split across layer 1 and layer 2. IEEE802.2 defines the MAC layer, with those “MAC addresses” we’re all familiar with, which is point-to-point but hardware-independent. Then IEEE802.x for x ≥ 3 defines all the various options for a hardware-dependent layer under that. E.g. 802.3 is (near enough) what we call “Ethernet”, 802.11 is wi-fi, and so on.
So that's why wifi is called 802.11 sometimes, cool!
Layer 6
-- not really meaningful
My interpretation:
Layer 8
-- the human user
Lawrence D´Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
My interpretation:
The problem is that everybody interprets the layers between 4 and 7 differently. Especially when the marketingdroids come into the game, you
can forget clear communication.
You interpretation is just adding another kind of ambiguoity.
Layer 9, politics.
Layer 10, religion.
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