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Hack GPON – how to access, change and edit fibre ONTs

(hack-gpon.org)
250 points pabs3 | 1 comments | 25 Sep 24 00:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.211s | source
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pabs3 ◴[25 Sep 24 03:48 UTC] No.41643508[source]▶
BTW: in the EU there is movement towards mandating ISPs allow BYOD, including fibre ONTs.

https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/

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the_mitsuhiko ◴[25 Sep 24 07:32 UTC] No.41644682[source]▶
I think it's vital that you can run your own modem but I'm not convinced that it's a good idea to force a custom ONT. An ONT is about as dumb as it gets and it's entirely transparent on the stack.

The benefit with an ONT (or even DOCSIS dumb modem) managed by the ISP is that they can do fleet upgrades much quicker as they don't have to keep all old protocols running. For instance the GPON -> XGSPON upgrade that some ISPs are running right now (or DOCSIS 3 upgrade) really only works well if you can turn off the old protocol which requires swapping out all ONTs/DOCSIS modems.

If customers bring their own stuff then you're stuck with these things for much longer.

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pbasista ◴[25 Sep 24 08:52 UTC] No.41645271[source]▶
> If customers bring their own stuff then you're stuck

Why? There is nothing preventing an ISP from saying that from date X, only protocols A, B and C are supported. If you want to use your own device, make sure it supports these protocols.

In other words, the requirement to allow customers to use their own devices does not mean that they can choose all available protocols. The allowed protocols can still be controlled by the ISPs.

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appendix-rock ◴[25 Sep 24 09:52 UTC] No.41645558[source]▶
Hahahaha! Have you ever done any customer support!? This is not how it works.
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tuetuopay ◴[25 Sep 24 10:06 UTC] No.41645639[source]▶
Well this is about allowing customer supplied ONT, not supporting them. As in, you have to follow upgrade procedures announced X days in advance, etc.
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1. the_mitsuhiko ◴[25 Sep 24 10:50 UTC] No.41645910[source]▶
In theory yes. In practice that might work that way if ~5% of your users are in that situation. If ~50% of your user base is running on a legacy protocol and you're running into Churn risks, the company is going to re-evaluate if they want to retire the old protocol.

There _is_ a reason even legacy cable TV and ancient DOCSIS channels are still being available in many countries because actually retiring a lot of old modems has shown to be risky to the business.