Some general questions about a fiber infrastructure because my ISP refuse to answer

[TehuTehu]

So.. the internet providers in my country are kinda silly. max upload speed here is like 5mbit while download is like 500mbit on broadband and i hate it. i would very much rather have something like 30mbit up and 100mbit down instead because IMO 5mbit is just not functional nowdays..

 

anyways, recently alot of providers in my country started sending workers to put down fiber infrastructure all over the country and many people have that now with minimum speeds of 1gb down 100mbit up which is insane to me, i want that really bad.

the tricky part here is that apparently, all of these companies have a policy that they are NOT connecting private houses, only buildings.. and i live in a private house.

whenever i ask these ISPs why they dont connect private houses they just dont say anything but its not that hard to understand that its just more profitable for them to do that i guess.

 

here is my question

one of the providers (that is also my current ISP) has put fiber infrastructure in my street but ONLY for the buildings, there is a row for private houses which i am in and a row for the buildings which is like 5 meters across from me, you walk 3 steps from my house and youre in one of those buildings. its the same exact street..

i called them and asked them why can i not connect to fiber if my street is already connected and they refused to explain

so i wanted to ask people with knowledge on network infrastructure and stuff because i dont know much about it, why is it so hard for them to connect my house if the street is already connected? like how does that work? it just doesnt make any sense to me that there is a building 3 steps across from me that has access to these cables and there is absolutely no way for me to also have that. im just really curious about that.

 

 

[mariushm]

Probably because the fiber cable they bring to the building has 12+ fiber strands so they hope to assign one fiber to each apartment or person in that building, and gain multiple subscribers.

 

It would cost them money to dig and have cable to your single house and you probably wouldn't accept a minimum 1-2 years contract and probably most single users would complain about paying for media converters and other things.

 

If you say it's so close to your house, you could make a deal with one apartment in that building, someone who doesn't need internet or doesn't want that faster internet... have him subscribe and pay in advance for 6-12 months and maybe give him a small fee for the electricity the router/modem/media converter would consume and then have an ethernet cable from that building to your house.. ethernet cable is good for 100 meters.

 

 

[TehuTehu]

13 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Probably because the fiber cable they bring to the building has 12+ fiber strands so they hope to assign one fiber to each apartment or person in that building, and gain multiple subscribers.

 

It would cost them money to dig and have cable to your single house and you probably wouldn't accept a minimum 1-2 years contract and probably most single users would complain about paying for media converters and other things.

 

If you say it's so close to your house, you could make a deal with one apartment in that building, someone who doesn't need internet or doesn't want that faster internet... have him subscribe and pay in advance for 6-12 months and maybe give him a small fee for the electricity the router/modem/media converter would consume and then have an ethernet cable from that building to your house.. ethernet cable is good for 100 meters.

 

 

i would probably accept even a 3 year contract for that matter but thats just me, i can see other people not agreeing

i would honestly do just that with the ethernet cable to my house i just dont know how to approach something like that. even though its very close and its the same street there is a sidewalk in between so i cant just stretch a cable between the 2 buildings..

 

also, may i ask why would they need to dig? im already connected to their infrastructure just not their fiber infrastructure, cant they use the same tunnels just with new cables?

[brwainer]

4 hours ago, TehuTehu said:

i would probably accept even a 3 year contract for that matter but thats just me, i can see other people not agreeing

i would honestly do just that with the ethernet cable to my house i just dont know how to approach something like that. even though its very close and its the same street there is a sidewalk in between so i cant just stretch a cable between the 2 buildings..

 

also, may i ask why would they need to dig? im already connected to their infrastructure just not their fiber infrastructure, cant they use the same tunnels just with new cables?

Not sure how things are in your country but in the USA each cable is just individually buried without a tunnel/conduit, except in the middle of urban areas.

 

A more general answer to your question:

Fiber networks are really split into two categories, direct fiber connections and PON. Direct fiber connections require more expensive electronics but can achieve higher speeds, and are used for businesses, or for an apartment building you might have one fiber connection split up by a router that feeds the apartments. PON (Passive Optical Network) is more similar to a DOCSIS (Coax/“Cable”) system, each source fiber can be split using optical splitters to service multiple customers, and the electronics on the customer side a much cheaper/simpler (ONT - Optical Network Terminator). I suspect that either the fiber near you is for direct fiber connections, or that they are only running source fiber down the street and don’t want to install an outdoor enclosure for an optical splitter in order to service an individual customer (the optical power levels before being split are too high for the cheap ONTs).

 

the other possibility is that they have a government grant to be running fiber, and the grant requires they target multi-family buildings, to maximize the number of people that can be reached using the grant money.

[Alex Atkin UK]

As mentioned above, it depends how they are doing it.

 

In the early days here in the UK the providers that did buildings would run fibre to the telecoms cabinet and then run ethernet to the individual units.  Obviously this doesn't work for houses as the cost of laying the fibre is much greater than they can ever get back from the customer, unless the customer paid to lay the fibre.

This has changed now to where they are running actual PONs so are starting to do individual houses too, particularly as they are allowed to lease the conduits the telecoms use so it dramatically decreases the price of laying the fibre.

[TehuTehu]

3 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

unless the customer paid to lay the fibre.

how much does something like that cost?

[Lurick]

4 minutes ago, TehuTehu said:

how much does something like that cost?

Depends on the ISP but I would say around 10k to 20k per mile

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 minute ago, TehuTehu said:

how much does something like that cost?

I have no idea what country you are in or how their network is laid out so I can't even begin to guess.

 

All I know is in the UK the cheapest anyone was quoted for installing FTTP (which includes savings for how many other customers they get to cover during the installation) was £8000.  If its one fibre to one customer, it would be so much more.

You have to bear in mind if they are doing the same work for one customer as they would normally do for a whole building, they're going to want the same monthly income from that one customer as they would for the whole building.

Perhaps if you could convince your neighbours to get it too it would be practical, but I'm not optimistic.

[Donut417]

14 hours ago, TehuTehu said:

all of these companies have a policy that they are NOT connecting private houses, only buildings.. and i live in a private house.

whenever i ask these ISPs why they dont connect private houses they just dont say anything but its not that hard to understand that its just more profitable for them to do that i guess.

One of the Fiber providers in the US, AT&T cherry picks where it runs Fiber. Here in the US Apartment complexes might have exclusive rights agreements with an ISP. So that ISP would be the only one servicing the complex. 

 

The other thing is its just a pain for them to have to upgrade each houses connection. I know many cable providers and telecoms here in the US might only run Fiber for new subdivisions. Where the old subdivisions are left with what ever was there before. 

[TehuTehu]

5 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I have no idea what country you are in or how their network is laid out so I can't even begin to guess.

 

All I know is in the UK the cheapest anyone was quoted for installing FTTP (which includes savings for how many other customers they get to cover during the installation) was £8000.  If its one fibre to one customer, it would be so much more.

You have to bear in mind if they are doing the same work for one customer as they would normally do for a whole building, they're going to want the same monthly income from that one customer as they would for the whole building.

Perhaps if you could convince your neighbours to get it too it would be practical, but I'm not optimistic.

 

4 hours ago, Donut417 said:

One of the Fiber providers in the US, AT&T cherry picks where it runs Fiber. Here in the US Apartment complexes might have exclusive rights agreements with an ISP. So that ISP would be the only one servicing the complex. 

 

The other thing is its just a pain for them to have to upgrade each houses connection. I know many cable providers and telecoms here in the US might only run Fiber for new subdivisions. Where the old subdivisions are left with what ever was there before. 

 

5 hours ago, Lurick said:

Depends on the ISP but I would say around 10k to 20k per mile

thanks for the detailed replies, i understand the situation a bit more now

 

do you guys have any creative solutions in mind for connecting one of the apartments to my house? (obviously with the agreement of the person who owns that apartment lol)

im willing to go that far if there is a legit solution to something like that. the main problem is that there is a sidewalk inbetween my house and the buildings so straight up crossing over a cable wouldnt be practical lmao

im asking that because im guessing there are some tricks i dont know about with connecting these stuff, just recently i saw a linus video connecting a house to the internet over a 5km lake or something lol

also paying an electrician isnt a problem, i just want to know if i have any options here

[brwainer]

20 minutes ago, TehuTehu said:

 

 

thanks for the detailed replies, i understand the situation a bit more now

 

do you guys have any creative solutions in mind for connecting one of the apartments to my house? (obviously with the agreement of the person who owns that apartment lol)

im willing to go that far if there is a legit solution to something like that. the main problem is that there is a sidewalk inbetween my house and the buildings so straight up crossing over a cable wouldnt be practical lmao

im asking that because im guessing there are some tricks i dont know about with connecting these stuff, just recently i saw a linus video connecting a house to the internet over a 5km lake or something lol

also paying an electrician isnt a problem, i just want to know if i have any options here

I recommend these devices as options for your situation (in order from best choice to ok-ish choice):

2x Ubiquiti GBE-Plus aka "airMAX GigaBeam Plus 60 GHz Radio" ($179 USD each, $358 USD total)

2x Ubiquiti GBE aka "airMAX GigaBeam 60 GHz Radio" ($129 USD Each, $258 USD total)

1x Mikrotik CubeG-5ac60adpair aka "Wireless Wire Cube" ($248 USD for a pair)

1x Ubiquiti UBB aka "Unifi Building-to-Building Bridge" ($499 USD for a pair)

 

These are all 60GHz point-to-point short-range options that would give you around 1Gbps in both directions (2Gbps half-duplex), however 60GHz is more sensitive to anything blocking - definitely install them above the normal height of people on the sidewalk. That being said, they all also have a 5GHz backup link which would give you a few hundred Mb/s when the 60GHz link is obstructed.

 

Notes:

Gigabeam vs Gigabeam Plus - I believe the only difference is the Gigabeam Plus has better a mounting mechanism.

Gigabeam/Plus vs UBB - These are the same hardware inside, the Unifi version works with a Unifi controller and has no local interface. If you already have Unifi equipment, the convenience of the UBB may be better for you. Having used both myself professionally, I find the Gigabeam version to actually be easier to set up.

Ubiquiti vs Mikrotik - The Mikrotik device is what I would use personally, but I am an experienced network engineer and specifically am comfortable with Mikrotik equipment. If you have never used Mikrotik before and do not have experience with routing, switching, and wireless, I would not recommend choosing Mikrotik.

[TehuTehu]

1 hour ago, brwainer said:

I recommend these devices as options for your situation (in order from best choice to ok-ish choice):

2x Ubiquiti GBE-Plus aka "airMAX GigaBeam Plus 60 GHz Radio" ($179 USD each, $358 USD total)

2x Ubiquiti GBE aka "airMAX GigaBeam 60 GHz Radio" ($129 USD Each, $258 USD total)

1x Mikrotik CubeG-5ac60adpair aka "Wireless Wire Cube" ($248 USD for a pair)

1x Ubiquiti UBB aka "Unifi Building-to-Building Bridge" ($499 USD for a pair)

 

These are all 60GHz point-to-point short-range options that would give you around 1Gbps in both directions (2Gbps half-duplex), however 60GHz is more sensitive to anything blocking - definitely install them above the normal height of people on the sidewalk. That being said, they all also have a 5GHz backup link which would give you a few hundred Mb/s when the 60GHz link is obstructed.

 

Notes:

Gigabeam vs Gigabeam Plus - I believe the only difference is the Gigabeam Plus has better a mounting mechanism.

Gigabeam/Plus vs UBB - These are the same hardware inside, the Unifi version works with a Unifi controller and has no local interface. If you already have Unifi equipment, the convenience of the UBB may be better for you. Having used both myself professionally, I find the Gigabeam version to actually be easier to set up.

Ubiquiti vs Mikrotik - The Mikrotik device is what I would use personally, but I am an experienced network engineer and specifically am comfortable with Mikrotik equipment. If you have never used Mikrotik before and do not have experience with routing, switching, and wireless, I would not recommend choosing Mikrotik.

thanks!! that is very informative and helpful and im legit thinking about doing this now.

may i ask how does something like that handle latency? like games for example? and in general, how stable is the line?

also , what about rain? would rain interfere with the line? i dont mind it reducing the bandwidth a bit, but will it affect latency and stability?

and, (sorry for so many questions, im really looking into this) will putting both of the devices behind windows impact performance?

[brwainer]

8 hours ago, TehuTehu said:

thanks!! that is very informative and helpful and im legit thinking about doing this now.

may i ask how does something like that handle latency? like games for example? and in general, how stable is the line?

also , what about rain? would rain interfere with the line? i dont mind it reducing the bandwidth a bit, but will it affect latency and stability?

and, (sorry for so many questions, im really looking into this) will putting both of the devices behind windows impact performance?

In nearly all cases, a short range PtP link this will have about the same added latency as if you added a few switches between your computer and router - meaning just one or two milliseconds. You shouldn’t notice it being there at all. Most of the latency in regular wireless is from devices having to take turns talking to/from the router and with other devices using the same channel with other networks. On the 60GHz radio there will be no congestion, and the 5GHz should see almost no congestion because it is a highly directional signal with just two devices.

 

Rain may cause the 60GHz link to fail or drop down to a lower modulation, but at this range the 5GHz backup will not be affected.

 

Mikrotik specifically stated that their units should work through most windows with about 1/2 the possible range, however some high efficiency windows have coatings to block out non-visible frequencies. You’d have to try it and see. The Ubiquiti devices are using a radio from a different provider, and don’t make any claims about windows, but the physics should be the same.