On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 08:34:58AM -0700, coderman wrote:
s/stupid/expensive/ :)
I'm not a believer in a tree model, so I'm interested in exploring residential-scale meshes with cheap (a GBIC is 100 EUR, or so, and stackable managed 48-port Netgears are 700 EUR, or around).
Is there a special device class for residential fiber Ethernet, and if yes, how much do these things cost?
passive optical networking is used, so you get cost advantages of a point to multi-point last mile distribution architecture. you can still easily achieve OC3 to each endpoint, so bandwidth per customer is of little concern...
I'm interested in 1-10 GBit throughput for each individual customers to any other individual customer, at least on the local loop. Throughput would decline over increased distance, of course.
If you don't want to use routers, one has to use trees of switches. Newer switches can manage redudant links/loops with spanning-tree, and similiar. Is there a way to mesh up a tree of switches not using a real router?
if an ATM switch isn't a real router, then sure! *grin*
I understand ATM mesh is an obsolete technology, with very limited throughput. I heard something recently about Foundry switches with have an advanced kind of STP, with active loops, not meshes, though. Probably there are no commercial devices on the market which would fit the description.