Australian NBN out of DOCSIS NTDs: restock guessing game - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Whales
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 11:10:56 am
content: Context: the NBN (an Australian internet infrastructure project with lots of drama)has run out of DOCSIS Network Termination Devices (NTDs). Ie the black coax modems that get used in HFC areas, commonly referred to as "an 'arris":Indicative photo stolen fromhttps://10mates.com.au/troubleshooting/I only found out this week after chatting to a couple of our MSPs. Looks like some of my work sites are going to stay on ADSL for a while longerThere are lots of jokes going around (picture: NBN guy looks inside the cupboard out back near the dunny and goes "hmm, we seem to be out Bruce").Lots of discussion on the Whirlpool forums.You're not allowed to use your own DOCSIS modem, they have to be the NBN supplied ones. They're address locked so you can't use a spare from someone else. Pretty much you have to wait until things restock OR for them to change policy (hah! I wouldn't put it past them to have secret modem monopoly contracts).Restock guessing gameIgnoring final assembly/manufacture: I wonder what parts will be the hardest to source at the moment. Main chipset? Coax lightning protection passives? 100nF 0805 capacitors?Sadly I can't find any photos of the inside of an Arris CM8200 and I'm not about to crack open any of the few that remain (plus they're technically NBN property). If anyone can find photos then please share.My wild guess: 6 months before any new orders can start being serviced. We're currently in Chinese New Year, everything seems to be in shortages and the initial small trickle of units coming in will get slated for replacing existing dead NTD units rather than new installs.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 12:46:30 pm
content: So what then about my old mum who has one of these and some other box and a landline phone connected to it. It's her only phone. So if the box conks out she has no phone. Aren't phones considered to be an essential service?

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 09:34:11 pm
content: Quote from: Circlotron on February 19, 2021, 12:46:30 pmThey were an essential service with a high availability mandated by regulations. But, there was always the option to sell customers "looks like a landline phone, smells like a landline phone, works like a landline phone, but sign this piece of paper to agree its not reliable like a landline phone".That made sense for a VOIP line running over the generic IP network, but they have taken the same position with the NBN phone lines. Several problems with that:a) there is segregated routing on the NBN for phone services. The supplier has control of the network right up to the phone.b) NBN connections all (residential) come with a phone number, you can't get "naked" services.c) NBN retailers are selling locked hardware (like the OP) where the user can't configure their own system or obtain the configuration/credentials to use their own hardware.d) exchanges/central offices used to provide battery (and diesel generator) backup for operation through power outages. The NBN network pulled that out for cost savings.Everything there is to the convenience of the retailer/supplier, and worse for the customer. NBN, pay more for less!

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 09:46:00 pm
content: Does anyone else besides NBN still use that shit for new installations? Even my friend in Ukraine (country which is falling apart) got fiber-optic directly to their dilapidated home located in village. There is even no driveway on their street, since it turned into trench due to negligence.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 09:53:15 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on February 19, 2021, 09:46:00 pmGlobally only a small percentage of consumers have fibre right into their premises. I had a $25 a month gigabit fibre connection in my lounge 12 years ago, which genuinely ran at a full gigabit up and down most of the time.... then I moved to the UK and stepped back in time.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 19, 2021, 10:07:23 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 19, 2021, 09:53:15 pmWell, I said for new installations. NBN is building new infrastructure full of old crap.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 01:03:54 am
content: Quote from: wraper on February 19, 2021, 10:07:23 pmNBN isn't really that new. It has been rolling on slowly for years, although people found their approach rather outdated the day they started.Although a lot of people have fibre to within a kilometre or so of their premises, most fresh installations around the world still don't bring the fibre right into the customer premises.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 01:30:09 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 01:03:54 amActually usually they do, or if they don't, they at least bring fiber-optic to the building and then use Ethernet to apartments/offices, not this hodgepodge of coax, DSL or whatever. If you google FTTN, all results are about NBN.

author: srb1954
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 02:19:22 am
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 01:03:54 amIn my part of the world the fibre goes right up to your house or your business premises in most towns and cities. The government subsidises the fibre install so, in areas where there is ducting down the street, the install to the house is free. People in rural areas still miss out though. My brother, who lives in a rural area only 2km away from me, has been quoted $100,000 to install fibre to his house because there is no ducting down his road.When I got it installed at my house I watched the guy blow the fibre back to the termination point. I was amazed at how much fibre he blew into the duct - it must have been several kms.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 04:17:19 am
content: Quote from: wraper on February 19, 2021, 09:46:00 pmFibre to the premises was the original plan. But it would "cost too much". Whilst initially that was true, they have exceeded budget estimates because they are trying to maintain old, faulty infrastructure like copper coax and twisted pair lines. Experts said over 10 years ago that fibre was the answer, but the government ignored it. Very few areas actually have coax cable. It wasn't overly popular in Australia in the "pay TV" days. Most pay TV was received over satellite.Recently, the government have been back-peddling and have realised that is costs a lot more to maintain copper, than it would be to replace it with fibre. So they are retrofitting fibre in many areas. Now, not everyone in Australia can have fixed wire, it's near impossible. Australia is a huge country and not everyone lives in city or regional centres. Wireless and satellite will still remain a viable technology for those users.Now that being said, internet in Australia is actually pretty good. Our cellular wireless is first class and speed/coverage is beyond anything you find in other developed countries. Internet is also priced fairly competitively. I pay just over $100/month for a 100/40 Mbit connection (the fastest I can get on my technology) with unlimited data and a static public IPv4 address.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 04:49:23 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on February 20, 2021, 04:17:19 amI pay $25/mo for 500 Mbit (530/530 in practice) and have it for about 9 years, though at beginning price was somewhat higher for 500 Mbit tier. Also I could pay less if switched provider. In some countries people get the same speed for less than half of that. Starlink soon will offer better internet in rural areas than your fixed connection.QuoteI've seen that. And it makes even more obvious how NBN is fucked up. It's a world famous failure FFS.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 06:06:12 am
content: Quote from: wraper on February 20, 2021, 01:30:09 amSadly, even here in SoCal the one company with fiber to the home stopped building out the network and sold it to a company that isn't expanding it. All of the other providers in my area run fiber to a neighborhood 'node' and then it is MOCA (coax) to the house along with the TV channels (including the crap SDV system). Fortunately I already have it so it is fiber to a terminal on the side of the house and Gigabit LAN from there.Much of rural US is many times worse off than even developing countries. Starlink will be a huge improvement for those folks and for many there is no serious competition. Hughesnet anyone? How about some data caps?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 01:47:34 pm
content: Quote from: Halcyon on February 20, 2021, 04:17:19 amI assume you mean Australian dollars, which I think is about US$80. For 100Mbps that's a price you can only get in 2021 when there is no competition at all.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 01:54:04 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on February 20, 2021, 01:30:09 amTry Googling FTTC and you'll get a lot more results, but its basically the same thing as FTTN. You aren't picking how much of this stuff is still being installed because there are so many different terms used for it. The UK is rather third world, but its not that unusual in its internet practices. Only a tiny number of "experimental" installs of fibre to the home lines exist here. Most new installs are FTTC, with 80Mbps or 300Mbps copper to the home from the fibre cabinet.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 01:56:09 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 01:54:04 pmhttps://labs.thinkbroadband.com/local/broadband-map#5/51.836/-5.713/techall/geafttp/It's just slow rolling out. I think you'll find the G.9701 rollout is rather less significant.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 02:24:15 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on February 20, 2021, 01:56:09 pmI live near York, which has been one of the trial sites for fibre, with BT, TalkTalk and Virgin all touting their fibre rollout, with each laying fibre in different parts of the city. There are lots of vans around here touting how amazingly advanced York's fibre rollout is. I even know a couple of estates where they really did trench in new fibre a couple of years ago. If I go to the TalkTalk web site, who have installed an estate a couple of km from here, it immediately tries to sign me up for FTTH when I enter my post code. However, it is NOT available in my post code. Because of this, I couldn't sign up on line up for the 70Mbps VDSL service which was finally installed here about 2 years ago, after several years of delay. I had to call and talk to someone. This is not unusual. Most of York still has only FTTC, and some of the villages close to the city are still on 1.5Mbps ADSL, waiting for an 80Mbps FTTC cabinet to be installed. There is a lot of smoke and mirrors, and they love to describe the faster copper services as being "fibre optic" just because a fibre comes into the neighbourhood. Few people can actually get FTTH, but people try to make it look like is in mass rollout. In reality new lines are mostly VDSL at up to 80Mbps, or down to 25Mbps if you are unlucky. Some people can get a 300Mbps copper service, but I'm not clear how many. On the positive side, if you have an 80Mbps service that solidly achieves 50Mbps or 60Mbps down and 20Mbps up, most people in 2021 are pretty happy. I guess they have a few years before 50Mbps becomes unreasonably slow.I just found something that claims 4M premises in the UK could now order a FTTH line in Jan 2021, but our home is presumably in that count, so take it with a pinch of salt.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 03:47:15 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 02:24:15 pmWell, the map I linked shows you actual fibre availability. You can also see G.9701 (G.fast, to use the stupid name BT pushed), which is the '300Mbps' copper service, which barely exists because they've completely stopped deployment in favour of fibre. It's no longer a trial.About 80% of my town can have fibre installed now. I'm in the 20% which cannot - but they just completed some new ductwork last week at one end of my estate, so it should be arriving soon..

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 04:42:57 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on February 20, 2021, 03:47:15 pmAs I said, our home has shown "actual fibre availability" for about two and a half years. When that started all we could get was about 1Mbps ADSL. A few months later they installed a VDSL cabinet, and we upgraded. Nobody is even suggesting a possible date when we might have a faster service. Having only installed VDSL after some estates in York were getting FTTH we are not expecting FTTH for several years.The stated figures for York seem to be at about the 80% level of your town, which is strangely low for a pilot scheme town. The number who can actually sign up for it is much lower. When we had 1Mbps ADSL we were told we could get VDSL, until we actually got to the completion of signing up. Now we cannot sign up for anything on line, as it tries to offer us a fibre service that doesn't exist. I'm not in some unusual black spot. Most of what is stated is just bogus.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 04:52:11 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 04:42:57 pmYork is not presently on the fibre build program with Openreach. There are a few spots which are presumably from the trials. The map I linked (note the edit) shows active Openreach FTTP postcodes. I have nothing to say about Talktalk deployment as I wouldn't give them the time of day.QuoteWell, you should get them to fix that. You seem to be projecting your experience to the entire country. I'm not hugely pleased that the country-wide monopoly has been promising they're going to deploy fibre here for over a year while their copper slowly but surely degrades, but they are actually working on it.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 04:58:56 pm
content: Quote from: Whales on February 19, 2021, 11:10:56 amIn broadband cable networks the modems are identified by their MAC, which is also used for pseudo authentication. Unless some regulation requires the cable provider to allow customer owned CPEs many providers use this "feature" for whatever reason. Some ask you for an additional modem fee (for a cheap and shitty box), while others claim it's for unified management and less support calls. If you may use your own box you have to call the provider and give them the modem's MAC, so they can "unlock" it, i.e. they'll enter the MAC into their database to connect it with your account and the CMTS will accept your modem.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 05:06:02 pm
content: Quote from: Monkeh on February 20, 2021, 04:52:11 pmWith fibre you get multiple monopolies. You are either in the BT zone, or the Virgin zone, or the TalkTalk zone, and have only one option.I think TalkTalk get a bad rap. When we had 1Mbps ADSL we had considerable trouble with flaky performance, but it was all OpenReach's fault. TalkTalk did their part as promptly as they could.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 05:09:46 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 05:06:02 pmIt took us months to get TalkTalk to let us use the Openreach line in this house when we moved in, during which they disclosed confidential billing information of the previous owners. I do not deal with them.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 05:11:43 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 01:47:34 pmOver here VDSL 100/50 is EUR 45 (dynamic IPv4 and IPv6).

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 06:38:01 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on February 20, 2021, 04:42:57 pmNobody will ever suggest a possible date until it's actually available - officially. The timetable here (a rural area with VDSL, but only at very low speeds, <5Mb/s) was:March 2020 - I spotted a man in a van (not Openreach) wandering around looking at poles. Asked him if he was lost and he said, no he was surveying poles for fibre, but told me not to hold my breathOctober 2020 - hordes of Openreach vans appeared and spent a couple of weeks stringing up overhead fibre cable and putting up oddly-shaped black boxes on the poles. One of the the installers told me they had a problem with a blocked duct, and were waiting for an underground team. A few days later, another chap told me there was in fact no duct at allJanuary 2021 - a team with a ditching machine turned up and started putting duct into the road, in an oddly-arranged patchwork. Clearly there wassomeducting, in weird places...Early February 2021 - another team turned up in the pouring rain and started digging holes in the roadside verges, and installing new boxes in the brown soup of liquid mud that instantly filled them. Water was pouring out of the ends of the ductsMid February 2021 - the rain stopped, cable was pulled into the duct, and the next week I spotted a chap sat in a hole in the ground with a fusion splicer. He said the fibre would be lit up in a couple of daysLate February 2021 - I had one of those nuisance phone calls, "Hello mr nfmax, this is BT calling about your Internet..." As is my wont, I put the phone down on the lady, then reflected that it might, conceivably actually have been BT calling about my Internet. Went to the BT website broadband availability checker, and yes, FTTP was available! Up to 990Mb/s! I immediately ordered an install (from Andrews & Arnold, not BT) and I have a provisional install date of March 16th, the earliest I can manage. I've passed the good news on to those among the neighbours in the 16 or so houses & farms that appear to be served by this installation. None of them had been informed about the availability: at least two have already placed ordersI have noticed over the past couple of years that phone poles in the villages round here are starting to sprout fibre hardware: odd shaped black boxes, with the giveaway of little square yellow signs on the poles saying "Caution overhead fibre". There doesn't seem any particular rhyme or reason to the deployment locations, though. And of course where the cabling is underground you wont see the hardware. Your best bet may be to start chatting with Openreach technicians if/when you see them

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 07:24:34 pm
content: Quote from: nfmax on February 20, 2021, 06:38:01 pmThat's not entirely true. Our local MP got Openreach to come to local meetings in various villages, and present a timescale for VDSL installation. They never kept to any of the dates they gave, but they gave some.I think some of the areas around York are still waiting for their VDSL cabinet to be installed.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 07:38:51 pm
content: About 3 years ago BT applied for planning permission to install a fill-in cabinet local to us. It got refused, because they didn't supply the SSSI paperwork needed. They didn't bother to re-apply, it seems they went straight to FTTP. It looks like they are only considering new cabinets where they can use G.FAST

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 07:43:15 pm
content: Quote from: nfmax on February 20, 2021, 07:38:51 pmThey're not deploying G.9700/1 at all presently anyway, because it's a waste of time.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 07:51:29 pm
content: I get the impression Openreach's plans have been changing very rapidly recently - working from home has really highlighted the importance of good internet connection, making the take-up figures much higher

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 20, 2021, 07:55:34 pm
content: Quote from: nfmax on February 20, 2021, 07:51:29 pmExcept they're also not commissioning new installations (to save themselves money) with the excuse of not going into peoples homes.

author: GlennSprigg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2021, 12:12:33 pm
content: Here in Western-Australia, my NBN has been in service for about 3 or 4 years now. Unless there are newresidential/commercial areas being set up, it is all just Fibre-To-The-Node here, and in our case, about 300mof original copper to the house. The service is 'throttled' though, depending on how much you want to pay!We are paying $69 (Aust) per month for 20-mbits! However, that's all we need, even with multiple video streaming!

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2021, 12:21:09 pm
content: Quote from: nfmax on February 20, 2021, 07:51:29 pmThe local estate is being upgraded to FTTP over the next few years. 15Mbit/s upload rate makes WFH painful at times!

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2021, 02:30:05 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on February 21, 2021, 12:21:09 pmA friend recently looked at a house on a new estate in Leeds. They rejected it, because its brand new wiring is only carrying internet at 1-3Mbps. I guess its not a big enough estate to get its own infrastructure, and has to piggy back on the surrounding area. However, 1-3Mbps for a new build in a city in 2021 is just sad. New builds in green field locations are still getting nothing more than a copper pair, and a distance great enough to limit that pair to 1-3Mbps, but its just messed up for this to be happening in a city location.

author: madires
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2021, 05:10:18 pm
content: In those cases the telco has two options. The first is to feed new homes via unused DSL ports in an already installed DSLAM/MSAN/BNG, while the longer cable runs limit the throughput. The other option is to install a new local box with DSLAM/MSAN/BNG plus laying backhaul fiber which is more expensive, but allows maximum throughput. It's not hard to guess which option most telcos prefer.

author: firehopper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2021, 05:04:18 pm
content: I pay $150 a month for 40/4 mbit plus tv.Quote from: wraper on February 20, 2021, 04:49:23 am

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2021, 06:41:28 pm
content: Quote from: wraper on February 20, 2021, 04:49:23 am5G and Starlink are a huge threat to the NBN. I think their fibre rollout is too little too late for many people.The only thing that keeps me on the NBN at the moment is the lack of CG-NAT and a static IP address, which I need.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2021, 08:13:49 pm
content: A friend has just bought a house in York (UK), with a 1G fibre UFO (this was the pilot fibre to the home scheme in York) termination box in the lounge that needs activating. If I go to sites like Compare The Market, and give their address, all the options offered are below 60Mbps, so they appear to be the OpenReach fibre to the kerb type offerings, which the house doesn't have. If I go to TalkTalk's web site and enter the same address the only thing they offer is 1Gbps up ad down service for 27.50 pounds a month. Isn't UK broadband wonderful? Its usually a huge pain trying to find what services you can get at any address before you actually try signing up.Most information sources are utter garbage.