The Hyperfibre ONT, it’s a router too!

With the release of Chorus’ Hyperfibre service, a new ONT (Optical Network Terminal) with a 10G port and a ton of throughput was required. An ONT is a device that terminates the Ultra-Fast Broadband (UFB) connection at your premises and presents an Ethernet port for you to connect a router to. Chorus has decided to run with the Nokia XS-250WX-A ONT for Hyperfibre services, and this can act as a basic router as well.

This Hyperfibre ONT will be configured in bridge mode, just like all existing UFB ONTs, for the HyperFibre Business BS3 4000/4000 service, but for the SME 2000/2000 and 4000/4000 options, it can also be configured as a residential gateway.

What does that mean?

Well, it can handle basic routing requirements and WiFi. If you need to run a VPN, set up multiple VLANs or manage cloud integration – this is not the device for you.

But, it is a great option if you just need the basic features you would expect at home, those being NAT, WIFI, IPv4, and IPv6.

WiFi

This device runs in a couple of WiFi modes, those being:

• 11n 3×3 MIMO in 2.4GHz
• 11ac 4×4 MIMO in 5GHz

This means that the WiFi is going to limit your max available speeds given that 802.11n will max out at around 600Mbps and 802.11ac will get to around 2Gbps. Of course, 2Gbps is still twice the speed of any UFB option currently available.

One key question is, where will the ONT be located? We have seen ONTs deployed in some odd spaces that would limit the range of any WiFi signal.

ONT Specifications:

A couple of things we are not yet sure of:

• We have not found any publicised documentation on routed throughput, either bits per second or packets per second for varying packet sizes.
• We have not found any publicised documentation on the size of the NAT table, and how many sessions, therefore users, it will scale to.

A couple of things that aren’t so great…

• The API that will allow us to integrate existing Lightwire tools with the ONT for provisioning and support doesn’t yet exist and isn’t due until September 2020
• A web tool is due for release as an interim measure, but likely not before July
• This means that Lightiwre either needs to have an engineer on site to configure the ONT or have the customer do it themselves.

How is Lightwire planning to use this Hyperfibre ONT?

Until better tooling is released by Chorus to allow for us to remotely manage these devices, Lightwire will treat the ONT as a BYOD scenario. We will provide access for customers to configure the ONT and leave configuration and management in their hands.

Next steps

We are utilising the Chorus lab to put the ONT through its paces and fully get to grips with what it can do.

As we learn more and Chorus releases tools to make remote management possible, further updates will be provided.

The speeds that hyperfibre offer are amazing. However, have you also considered the costs involved in getting the most out of these hyperfibre speeds?

Read about the hidden costs of hyperfibre here.