FTTH switches

[rebelwireless]

It's overkill, but to add perspective, I will be able to get D-Link 10G smart switches with 12 SFP+ ports for $1069 in a few months. So there is a ceiling on what these proposed switches are worth.

D-Link isn't exactly the cream of the crop.... not bad but people still buy cisco and extreme etc etc.

[ecold]

OK, first D-Link is total crap. I work for an FTTH ISP that uses Alcatel for it's primary gear which is no where in your ballpark. Before I came to work here I worked for a Tier 1 Auto manufacturer and one of our locations had D-link for everything and they had constant problems. We were trying to switch to Cisco or HP at a minimum but the IT manager insisted D-Link was awesome. After finding numerous ports dead, I did my due diligence and called D-Link support. The engineer I talked with very matter-of-fact but reluctantly told me they only guaranteed 30% of the ports to work as described. I had to ask him to repeat that which he did. That took them off any current and future list.

Now that I am at an Network Engineer for an ISP, I can tell you we have had more problems with D-Link routers than any other brand with Netgear not far behind. I am not sure why, I used to be a huge NetGear fan but they went south some time ago and are struggling to get back.

We do however have fiber switches in the field where we connect to with fiber and the price is a little higher than what you need but you owe it to your self to check out Brocade as an option. Our newest Engineer was a full blue blooded Cisco guy with no thoughts of anything else. Now that he has used the Brocade gear that we have both internal and external, he is fully satisfied that it just works and is pretty easy to configure. He did a lot of Cisco ASR9000s before he came to us from one of the very large cable TV ISPs. SO he is not just a Cisco guy, he is a real Cisco guy.

There is a ISP in Clarksville, TN near Nashville, CDE Lightband I think it is that is a FTTH using only Brocade all the way through and they have had lots of success battling AT&T and the incumbent cable provider.

That being said, we would be interested in the $500 12 ports from Netonix. I have used the full size 12 ports at some apartment complexes where we were asked to provide bulk internet service. Normally we use an ONT from Alcatel to do the media conversion for POTS, RF and Data. They also have a pretty decent provisioning system which helps us to automate the process. Those normally only have 2 data ports but newer models have up to 8 for multi-dwelling units.

I would love to see some sort of cloud based controller for all the Netonix gear as a central location to distribute updates and configure ports and such would be awesome. We use Ubiquit's cloud controller for the commercial wireless stuff we do which although still not as fully functional as I would like, it does help keep from rolling a truck for every issue. We prefer to use Ubiquati at apartments for that reason. We used the Netonix at a few where we would be in an external enclosure outside in hopes that it could take the temperature changes where Ubiquiti isn't rated as high. But using Netonix also means more truck rolls if we have issues that can't be resolved via the Alcatel management system or the Alcatel 7750 routers or in Ubiquiti's case it's cloud controller which also alerts us if an AP, switch or router drops off the map.

Anyway, I certainly wish Netonix the best of luck in all its endeavors, being in a niche market like they are I think they have lots of potential but just as growing the hardware options is important, so is remote management for any ISP or WISP. It is on average $60-$90 dollars to roll a truck to resolve an issue which can add up. Remote visibility and management is crucial for staying above water. This is also why a router would be good for many locations such as one router for multiple apartments to keep the IPV4 addresses to a minimum at least until we roll out IPv6, hopefully this coming year.

[Dave]

ok, thanks for your comments, always good to get feedback from people.

yup, the FTTH is on my mind now for sure....

[rebelwireless]

some sort of remote management would be nice. Please no 'cloud' management, just something we can run in the cloud and just put a server or url in the switch.

[sirhc]

some sort of remote management would be nice. Please no 'cloud' management, just something we can run in the cloud and just put a server or url in the switch.

Right now Eric is working on the CAP firmware (yes we did not forget about it) and finishing off v1.3.0 to support the NEW DC switches.

After that I am going to ask for a management software package to monitor the switches (and more).

[ecold]

That would be awesome. Just to clarify when I mentioned cloud management, we would be the cloud for our stuff. I have no intention of putting it on Amazon or anywhere else, we would run it from our NOC on a virtual server.

[rebelwireless]

That would be awesome. Just to clarify when I mentioned cloud management, we would be the cloud for our stuff. I have no intention of putting it on Amazon or anywhere else, we would run it from our NOC on a virtual server.

self-hosted is literally the opposite of 'cloud hosted'.

[jsweere]

I can speak for the Planet MGSD switches, and also their din rail mounted industrial ones as well. I have about a dozen deployed and haven't had a problem or failure with any of them yet (knock on wood). Some of them are even mounted in outdoor enclosures in the desert where temps reach 120 degrees outside the box.

[sakita]

For the Planet switches (and any others) what is their software like? I've found many switches that look good on paper, look good in the manual, and even look solid in person... but the software is yuck - slow, clumsy (illogical), badly translated into English, incomplete (e.g. stuff missing from GUI - so some features must be configured command-line only or a combination of configure command-line and see some settings in web GUI).

Simply put, a lot of what I've actually played with is over-priced junk compared to the Netonix which makes sense and is easy to configure.

Definitely have a need for something like a 12-port SFP with 2 SFP+ . In our case, having the SFP 100/Gb (like the WS-12-250-AC) is very important as we need to support a bunch of 100Mb legacy yet move forward to Gigabit. It would also be preferred that they be rated to 60° with no fans (e.g. use a heat-pipe / heatsink like the MikroTik CCR1009-8G-1S-1S+PC).

At < $800 that'd be amazing. At $500ish that'd be amazingly amazing. Our network has homes for at least 50 such beasties and word would definitely get around about something that useful!

[Dave]

interesting.