Thanks! "OLT" was also new to me. In case others find it helpful:
> OLT = Optical Line Terminal.
> In ISP fiber (typically GPON/EPON) infrastructure, it’s the provider-side device at the central office/headend that terminates and controls the passive optical network: it connects upstream into the ISP’s aggregation/core network and downstream via fiber (through splitters) to many customers’ ONTs/ONUs, handling PON line control, provisioning, QoS, and traffic aggregation.
I have been worked for a regional ISP 10 years ago and having an architecture like that one, would be a godsend.
With centralized BNGs we were not able to apply upstream QoS policies for subscribers on the backhaulings and we had to apply policies on DSLAM access ports.
We ended using a couple of cheap Mikrotik as PPPoE concentrators for every access room, in a similar way as you did. But the reliability of Mikrotik routers was not the best
I'm curious as to what actually is the CPU <-> NPU bandwidth in these whitebox OLTs? Traditionally that has been sized for small amounts of punted control plane packets, then programming a fast path into the NPU for revenue traffic.
The [ONT → OLT(+BNG)] → Internet] sections of the paths will continue to be owned by commercial entities that can still be the subject of court orders and/or government pressure.
Even if you were to roll your own cable in the ground to your own ONT/OLT/BNG at some point you will need to acquire IP transit or peering from other commercial entities.
The latter usually isn't that difficult, just expensive. You can usually rent a leased line from anywhere to anywhere. The government will still come knocking if they think you're evading their censorship.
Broadband Network Gateway (BNG)[1]
[1]: https://github.com/codelaboratoryltd/bng#bng-broadband-netwo...
> OLT = Optical Line Terminal.
> In ISP fiber (typically GPON/EPON) infrastructure, it’s the provider-side device at the central office/headend that terminates and controls the passive optical network: it connects upstream into the ISP’s aggregation/core network and downstream via fiber (through splitters) to many customers’ ONTs/ONUs, handling PON line control, provisioning, QoS, and traffic aggregation.
We ended using a couple of cheap Mikrotik as PPPoE concentrators for every access room, in a similar way as you did. But the reliability of Mikrotik routers was not the best
Even if you were to roll your own cable in the ground to your own ONT/OLT/BNG at some point you will need to acquire IP transit or peering from other commercial entities.