First of all, happy holidays! Watch the accompanying video first: https://youtu.be/sRLWcddMxIk

Read our latest newsletter and learn more about:

- cAP LTE12 ax
- GPeRx4
- CSS318-16G-2S+IN
- FTC21
- IoT updates
- Return of the RB912: D.I.Y. Bestseller
- New YouTube videos, and so much more!

http://mt.lv/news122

No new 5G devices...

Best wishes, @normis and MikroTik team!

I talked to Santa --> Normis's cat has been very very good and will be getting lots of presents, Normis, however, has been naughty and might get a lump of coal, unless Santa said, he provides cloudflare zero trust tunnel as an options package.

All the best to the Latvian crew over the holidays.

I watched the video and thought it was a CRS (without WiFi). Then I looked at the newsletter and saw it was a CSS.

So maybe 2025 like the forecast suggests.

Happy holidays.

Bravi!

Happy holidays everyone!

Happy Christmas

🎄 🎁

Return of the 912 device and who is it for? for a couple of individuals? And where do we have SXT SQ AX ,DISC AX, LHG AX ???? What should we do to people? bastlit boards with pigtails? in the 21st century really? one big disaster that you have been publishing lately. 95% of people can't set Mikrotik router os LTE, so I don't know who you're talking about. You have stopped producing a lot of antennas in AC and there is no replacement for them, I would like to see the person who does your marketing

Another newsletter... still nothing for LTE/5G that works outside EU, no Audience AX, no mixed voltage PoE switches, no devices with LCD & nothing more in the RB5009/L009 form factor. Disappointing year in hardware offerings IMO.

CSS318-16G-2S+IN... SwOS and no 48VDC input :(

Theres not point trying to compete with bottom-of-the-barrel stuff from AliExpress.

Its almost 2025 and Mikrotik still put 1GBPS port on their AP... What a shame. Nothing interesting here to make me to purchase.

Another newsletter... still nothing for LTE/5G that works outside EU, no Audience AX, no mixed voltage PoE switches, no devices with LCD & nothing more in the RB5009/L009 form factor. Disappointing year in hardware offerings IMO.

Not disapointing from all vendors.. UBNT makes really good products for very fair prices..

still curious about the in September 2024 announced Ampere co-operation. Looking forward to very high performance and full table (4M routes) capable hardware

UBNT makes really good products for very fair prices..

The Unifi range doesn't even fully support SNMP 🙃
No overlay network support for most devices. Slow VPN.......

No clue about UISP hardware.

Happy Christmas and I am looking forward for hAP be^2 next year with 2.5 GigEth interface and switch. :-)

Happy Christmas and I am looking forward for hAP be^2 next year with 2.5 GigEth interface and switch. :-)

It needs at least one 5NBASE-T and 3450 Mbps FastTrack because of WiFi 7 320 MHz 2x2.

A second 5NBASE-T would be better but then you really want 5 Gbps FastTrack. This would avoid having to buy a second router with at least two 5NBASE-T and 5 Gbps FastTrack for the next DOCSIS 3.1 WAN upgrade (for PCs). The second router would need three 5NBASE-T if you have a PC but want to avoid having to add a 5G/10G switch.

Still waiting for a CRS310-8P+2S+IN to replace our CRS112's. CRS106 and CRS112 are the only switches still using an ancient Atheros switch chip without support for bridge VLAN filtering, hardware QoS or L3 HW offloading. The 802.11ax outdoor offerings are also lagging behind significantly, Ubiquiti is launching WiFi 7-based Wave MLO in 5 and 6GHz Q1'25, while MikroTik still doesn't have any 802.11ax outdoor CPEs (let alone anything using 6GHz). I thought development would be "much easier" with the new wifiwave2 drivers and products would be launched "much faster"? That's a quote from January 9th, 2024, almost exactly one year ago.

et alone anything using 6GHz

to be fair ubiquiti doesnt have any *outdoor* 6ghz devices atm either.

Wanna know why?
Cause (according to Wikipedia) for Europe it seems there's no outdoor channels available.

For the USA, i saw that there's only 3 320MHz channels for outdoor with a max of 36 dBm transmit power and with AFC (to be fair i have no idea how that differs from DFS)

Edit: I checked the EU Ubiquit website

The FRITZ!Box 5690 Pro is the only AVM product with 320 MHz. But it does not have a 10G port matching 4x4.

It could even use a 25G port if it had a powerful enough CPU.

I have seen at least one ISP offering consumer 25G since 3 years ago,

One can get a 2x 25G card for 135 euro.

A Mikrotik 1m SFP28 cable costs $29 (compatibility?).

I have seen at least one ISP offering consumer 25G since 3 years ago,

A friend from Poland showed me that he can easily get 8G symmetric.
While here in Germany, the minimum Internet requirement has now been increased to a whopping 15Mbit/s

One can get a 2x 25G card for 135 euro.

Add processing power, necessary to route at 25+ Gbps and price tag is easily around 1000€ ... and you've got a mere 2-port router. And I'm pretty sure that such price tag is outside of MT users' comfort zone.

So my guess is that we won't be seeing full 10Gbps (or more) in MT's SoHo line any time soon.

One can get a 2x 25G card for 135 euro.

Add processing power, necessary to route at 25+ Gbps and price tag is easily around 1000€ ... and you've got a mere 2-port router. And I'm pretty sure that such price tag is outside of MT users' comfort zone.

So my guess is that we won't be seeing full 10Gbps (or more) in MT's SoHo line any time soon.

In this case i was more thinking in switching 25G for a local file server.

10G WAN is very common but I doubt internet services.

This is your best bet for 25/40Gbit ports on a budget: https://mikrotik.com/product/crs326_24s_2q_rm

i was actually thinking yesterday that a CRS307-2G-3XG-2XS-IN (fanless) would be a better match for me than a CRS304.

I saw nothing with 10G PoE++ for laptops, but I found no matching USB-C adapters either.

An additional 2P would be great.

The 40G cards did not look expensive years ago but they do now. It seems their pricing has not improved as 40G really looks on the way out.

What you showed looks like a really old product for legacy customers. 40G and very slow at routing.

What you showed looks like a really old product for legacy customers. 40G and very slow at routing.

CRS devices are switches (remember this fact by heart!) ... and many can route at wirespeed if properly configured for L3HW offload (with certain limitations which are device class dependent). If anything in routing/firewall config points outside constraints, then it drops down to CPU routing (which, as you mentioned, sucks).
Whether that would fit your particular use case or not is up to your consideration.

Really happy with the 10" form factor of the CSS318-16G-2S+IN. Would be even more happy with a CSS318-16P-2S+IN or even CSS318-8G-8P-2S+IN version while maintaining those 10", but I guess, that's just a matter of time now :)

The FRITZ!Box 5690 Pro is the only AVM product with 320 MHz. But it does not have a 10G port matching 4x4.

Yes but software-wise they are basicly junk.

What you showed looks like a really old product for legacy customers. 40G and very slow at routing.

CRS devices are switches (remember this fact by heart!) ... and many can route at wirespeed if properly configured for L3HW offload (with certain limitations which are device class dependent). If anything in routing/firewall config points outside constraints, then it drops down to CPU routing (which, as you mentioned, sucks).
Whether that would fit your particular use case or not is up to your consideration.

But it seems the CRS304 can FastTrack at 1700 which would be acceptable for a 2.5G WAN.

But it seems the CRS304 can FastTrack at 1700 which would be acceptable for a 2.5G WAN.

Not in my book. I'm paying monthly fee to ISP and I certainly want to have hardware which can use all of what I'm paying for. Otherwise I can save a few euros (every month) and live with slightly slower WAN link. I don't think that difference between 1Gbps and 1.7Gbps (or 2.5Gbps for that matter) would be noticeable more than a few times (with duration of minutes at most) a month. But if it was, then I'f want to invest into gear which would allow to use full bandwidth (and would have some capacity to spare).

CSS318-16G-2S+IN mains power input is nice but C14 plug would be even better because it is more common and easier to use with UPS for example...
On the other hand it would be really nice to have POE in port and DC power input, maybe something to consider for CRS318-16G-2S+IN...

I have an 8G plan, and can reach 2G+ with some servers downloading and 7.7G with IPERF3 to a 40G-connected server on the AMSIX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange; I am in the Netherlands). So I agree that 2.5G is about the highest actually usable speed on the current internet. Luckily I invested in a 10G infra in my house (CRS305, CRS309, CCR1036) af few years ago :).

Maybe for some of those fast internet connections a device like the CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe as a standalone router (2xSFP28 + 1xGbe) would be useful... could be used with a suitable switch depending on the user's requirements.
Unfortunately it is not clear if the CCR2004-1G-2XS-PCIe could function in a box that only powers the PCIe.

i was actually thinking yesterday that a CRS307-2G-3XG-2XS-IN (fanless) would be a better match for me than a CRS304.

I saw nothing with 10G PoE++ for laptops, but I found no matching USB-C adapters either.

An additional 2P would be great.

This looks a bit overkill if a S+RJ025 arrives soon and a S+RJ05 later. I also saw no laptop adapters faster than 2.5G that are not 10G TB (not much improvement there).

So maybe my ideal small CRS would be if I could get it now (let's throw in redundant WAN) a CRS310-2G-2P-2XG-2S+2XS-PC that can FastTrack at 5 Gpbs.

But if I get the CRS304 now a CRS308-2G-2P-2S+2XS-PC that can FastTrack at 10 Gpbs looks better in case you need fibre. It seems OK to buy now.

Better if there's a WiFi 7 320MHz version (otherwise I think I would go for a "dead end" hAP be 320 MHz "5 Gbps" with two 5NBASE-T ports). I would not wait for 5 Gbps DOCSIS to replace the ISP's WiFi.

please increase ram and flash for all crs3/5xx switches to at least 128mb/32 as what happened to crs354g revision3

This is your best bet for 25/40Gbit ports on a budget: https://mikrotik.com/product/crs326_24s_2q_rm

Mod message:
Cleanup done of this thread to keep it a bit more on topic.
(apologies to other users who also saw posts being removed during this action)

I like the FTC11, have liked it since the first iteration of it. But I do not understand why you keep doing it with SFP interface instead of LC.
What I see mostly here in Albania, is that all ISP-s use a converter with LC interface and use a LC Patch cord. The fiber at premises ends with an LC cage. That means one needs to use a SFP Connector which adds a lot to the cost making it unusable.
But maybe it is different elsewhere.

I like the FTC11, have liked it since the first iteration of it. But I do not understand why you keep doing it with SFP interface instead of LC.

Because there are are many different flavours of fiber-optic connection. SFP is a generic form factor that can accomodate all of them by getting the correct SFP module. What kind of optics would you have behind your LC connector?

I like the FTC11, have liked it since the first iteration of it. But I do not understand why you keep doing it with SFP interface instead of LC.
What I see mostly here in Albania, is that all ISP-s use a converter with LC interface and use a LC Patch cord. The fiber at premises ends with an LC cage. That means one needs to use a SFP Connector which adds a lot to the cost making it unusable.
But maybe it is different elsewhere.

Because you will need different SFPs (strength, wavelength, etc.) depending on the specific network?

I like the FTC11, have liked it since the first iteration of it. But I do not understand why you keep doing it with SFP interface instead of LC.

Because there are are many different flavours of fiber-optic connection. SFP is a generic form factor that can accomodate all of them by getting the correct SFP module. What kind of optics would you have behind your LC connector?

As I said, is probably different elsewhere, but here all ISP use gpon and end to the premises with a female LC single fiber and just use an LC patchcord to convert to ethernet. It is way cheaper. When I was working as distributor, we never managed to sell any except when using it for our own projects.

As I said, is probably different elsewhere, but here all ISP use gpon and end to the premises with a female LC single fiber and just use an LC patchcord to convert to ethernet. It is way cheaper. When I was working as distributor, we never managed to sell any except when using it for our own projects.

ISPs aren't the only market. And again, what optics are behind your 'female LC connector'? It isn't GPON or XGS-PON, because that needs more than a simple media converter at the client (and most of those ONTs do the conversion to copper internally and don't need an extra media converter to begin with).

As I said, is probably different elsewhere, but here all ISP use gpon and end to the premises with a female LC single fiber and just use an LC patchcord to convert to ethernet. It is way cheaper. When I was working as distributor, we never managed to sell any except when using it for our own projects.

Imagine:
The device will be built for "GPON" aka LC Connectors with 1310nm Wavelength.

But now there's a Mikrotik Customer who doesn't want to use it for their "GPON" but instead to connect to maybe a switch.
But that switch uses SFP Modules with 850nm Multimode Fiber.
Or you're running GPON with SC Connectors at the end. (Here in German there's a mix between all possibilities of Fiber. SC/LC GPON/PON/AON)
Now Mikrotik would have to sell 2 different Devices just to satisfy the small margin of customers who want to have the Optics built-in.

TL;DR With built-in Fiber Optics its wayyyy less flexible to use.

I never sell any of my customers devices with built-in Fiber. Always with SFP Ports

It isn't GPON or XGS-PON,

Funny enough, just because it's GPON compatible doesnt mean its XGS-PON (or PON without Gigabit) compatible.
For example here in Germany AVM sells their Fiber Routers with XGS-PON, GPON and AON SFP Modules. (3 separate ones)

So that means that device might just be usable for those 5 People who need a Mikrotik Fiber Converter for GPON ^^

Funny enough, just because it's GPON compatible doesnt mean its XGS-PON (or PON without Gigabit) compatible.

I've got the Info that for example UISP OLT are only compatible with their own ONTs.
Haven't had the misfortune of UISP OLTs yet, so cant speak on that myself

EDIT: Big ISPs here use Cisco or Huawei OLTs

Are we getting yet another offtopic monologue in the Newsletter topic?

Are we getting yet another offtopic monologue in the Newsletter topic?

Yes. But highlights the need for better communication about their roadmap. i.e. If they giving up on the US market, that be good to know – none of new LTE products have US variants. The new cAPax+LTE is actually a nice offering – but worthless here, just like all the previous new LTE devices for past year+.

This waiting to be surprised by newsletters or FCC filings is getting old.

It would be interesting to allow ros7.x to handle 5G modems better. For example, I have a fibocom FM350GL that is a power monster and I have to use openwrt full of bugs or keep it connected to the computer.

Yes. But highlights the need for better communication about their roadmap. i.e. If they giving up on the US market, that be good to know – none of new LTE products have US variants. The new cAPax+LTE is actually a nice offering – but worthless here, just like all the previous new LTE devices for past year+.

The monologue was not about that, but about the need for a fiber router. For which I agree a SFP solution is better because the requirements are different everywhere.
And the same is true for LTE, yes. And everyone has different needs as well. I would not need a combination cAP/LTE but I am interested in a PoE-powered semi-outdoor LTE device with 2.5Gbit ethernet (e.g. that could be installed under a rain gutter or in a greenhouse), similar to the ZyXEL Nebula FWA710. But then as a MikroTik device.
My understanding is that LTE in the USA is often closed in the sense that only devices sanctioned by the mobile provider can work, e.g. via IMEI whitelists. Probably MikroTik is not interested in operating in such markets.

As I said, is probably different elsewhere, but here all ISP use gpon and end to the premises with a female LC single fiber and just use an LC patchcord to convert to ethernet. It is way cheaper. When I was working as distributor, we never managed to sell any except when using it for our own projects.

All GPONs I have ever seen use female SC single fiber connector and I am sure that is the case in your country...

They are provided by ISP, managed by ISP, are very low cost and mostly custom tuned and paired with ISP equipment at factory and ISPs do not even allow something else on their networks, so it wouldn't make much sense for Mikrotik to make them...

Not all countries and ISPs uses GPON either. Many uses simple BiDi SFPs instead. Cheaper and more readily available.

And several ISPs allow third part routers. Mine does.

Not all countries and ISPs uses GPON either. Many uses simple BiDi SFPs instead. Cheaper and more readily available.

Point to Multi-Point Passive Optical Networks (Like GPON) in the foreseeable future will be the most common access tecnology, is the beggining of an era like copper telephone landline more than a century ago

the existence of some niche or specific markets where other technologies thrive do not change that

is not cheaper nor scalable to lay a single strand of optical fiber for each one subscriber

PON related materials, tools, equipment and knowledge is cheaper and more widely available every day

Yes and no... PON is more a replacement for Cable-TV networks. Phone landline has always been from customer-to-central exchange, and at least in my country all FTTH services is regular Gigabit Ethernet with BiDi SFPs. It justs ends up in a access switch in the central exchange. We also don't do any PPPoE rubbish. The cost of the optical fiber is nothing in comparision to the cost of labor of digging and splicing.

I guess that it depends on the geography, scale of econimics and population density.

PON is used to limit the amount of equipment in street cabinets, which reduces costs. It also allows some overbooking of the local access capacity, e.g. the ISP can offer several multi-GBit user connections over a single XG(S)-PON.
PPPoE is often used in networks where the access network allows subscriptions to several different ISPs (i.e. access network and ISP are different companies).
Of course when you run your own access network as an ISP you would not do that.

PON is used to limit the amount of equipment in street cabinets, which reduces costs.

If FTTx is regulated, then PON makes more sense to infrastructure owner ... because in this case competitor can't lease dark fiber, it can only rent bit stream and infrastructure owner has more control over whatever.

At least in my country it's like that. Some companies (who also provide services, not only infrastructure) started by building FTTH but after regulatory agency kicked in, everybody started to build xPON.
I was told that PON is more energy effective than FTTH (at least in PoPs), it's easier to run one transciever at a bit higher power than say 60 transcievers at slightly lower power ... and it adds up in mid-sized PoP, serving thousands of customers.

Return of the 912 device and who is it for? for a couple of individuals?

Yes there are in fact interesting products here but I had to look at the calendar to be sure MT is not doing April fool...RB912 with an "n" radio, who on this planet needs this in 2025 when you can use RB922 or L11UG???
This must be a prank.

First of all, happy holidays! Watch the accompanying video first: https://youtu.be/sRLWcddMxIk

Read our latest newsletter and learn more about:

- cAP LTE12 ax
- GPeRx4
- CSS318-16G-2S+IN
- FTC21
- IoT updates
- Return of the RB912: D.I.Y. Bestseller
- New YouTube videos, and so much more!

http://mt.lv/news122

Happy new year Normis!
Now over one year since the Disc Lite ac was discontinued without any explanation or indication of its ax successor.
When do we get our "goto" ax CPE?

Sure, where are CPEs like disc and LHG in AX? or at least AC which for unknown reasons is not available but the old N was available :(

Yes and no... PON is more a replacement for Cable-TV networks. Phone landline has always been from customer-to-central exchange, and at least in my country all FTTH services is regular Gigabit Ethernet with BiDi SFPs.

PON is way cheaper than individual links. Especially in rural areas, deploying PON is also extremly fast&easy.
The cost of the last mile is very high, especially if you consider the economy of scale (1user for 1 link). That is the reason, why big cities in Europe still have xDSL over 100 years old Cu.
Even 5G has started to use PON for backhauling, as there is a high number of cells and connecting them requires high bandwidths.

A further fantastic feature of PON are the seamless upgrades: if you go to the next PON standard, you can run your new high speed devices on the same fiber, while still maintaining connectivity to the old devices.

Here is a nice writeup on PON scaling with some realistic calculations:
https://www.commscope.com/globalassets/ ... 888-en.pdf

So yes I believe xyzPON will be even more popular and MT should at least provide support for PON transceivers.

Yes, PON is the perfect replacement for coax-networks and for rural areas, and Mikrotik should probably have a product segment for it since it's popular in typical Mikrotik-countries.

Regarding 4G/5G i've heard the opposite, that often dark-lit fiber is required because of proper syncronization and security concerns.

PON is way cheaper than individual links. Especially in rural areas, deploying PON is also extremly fast&easy.
The cost of the last mile is very high, especially if you consider the economy of scale (1user for 1 link).

PON saves costs on "the first mile" part of it ... single optical module, single fiber strand ... connecting tens of customers. But when it comes to last mile of PON, it suddenly becomes more expensive than simple point-to-point optics: somewhere near all the customers there's a passive optical power splitter (yes, it's passive, but costs some cents never the less), price of laying the last mile of fiber from splitter to customer is exactly the same as with simple point-to-point optics (they usually lay cable with multiple fibers, price difference between 1-strand cable ... not sure if it even exists ... and 4-strand cable is nothing) and ONTs for xPON are wax more compkex deviced than simple SM SFP module (even if it's a BiDi) and hence price of xPON ONT should be way higher than price of simple SFP module.

Yes, gross price of complete xPON, together with all active elements, is likely lower than gross price of FTTH ... but mainly because of savings on the network Point Of Precence side (less space for passive equipment needed, less pieces of active ports translated to space and energy savings), etc. I already explained some of it in my post #54 above.
But it comes with way less flexibility (which is often even disliked by network owner). In FTTH case, it's easy to upgrade single link from 1Gbps to, say, 100Gbps simply by replacing SFP modules on both ends of fiber strand. Not so easy in xPON case. In FTTH it's pretty easy to extend link via multiple PoPs (up to rage of SFP mofules used, there are standard ones with range of roughly 120km), not in xPON (where one would have to configure active equipment on all hops between link ends).

So take the evangelization about xPON benefits somewhere else, they are not founded on technical superiority.

As to MT supporting (3rd party) ONT modules: they might see a business case in it or they might not. The problem is that details in setup of ONTs are specific to particular xPON and while some countries mandate the "BYOD" concept (and probably many more don't), support for management of those ONT modules might be a nightmare. I wouldn't want to go into it unless I had considerable business directly with several xPON owners/operators which would pay off the development costs.

and 4-strand cable is nothing) and ONTs for xPON are wax more compkex deviced than simple SM SFP module (even if it's a BiDi) and hence price of xPON ONT should be way higher than price of simple SFP module.

Probably price is just a matter of scale for the ONT, but of course they are more complex. Less cabling and less active components however are definitely cheaper.

But it comes with way less flexibility (which is often even disliked by network owner). In FTTH case, it's easy to upgrade single link from 1Gbps to, say, 100Gbps simply by replacing SFP modules on both ends of fiber strand. Not so easy in xPON case. In FTTH it's pretty easy to extend link via multiple PoPs (up to rage of SFP mofules used, there are standard ones with range of roughly 120km), not in xPON (where one would have to configure active equipment on all hops between link ends).

True, but what you are overlooking is: for example GPON, and XGS-PON can run parallel over the same cable. They are using slightly different wavelengths!

So take the evangelization about xPON benefits somewhere else, they are not founded on technical superiority.

Never wrote anything about technical superiorty, whatever that should even mean. It's about costs vs. benefits. Sure P2P will beat P2MP in bandwidth, reliability, security...
I would love to have FTTH everywhere, but the countries I visit, have deployed an awful lot of xPON instead. I already run a network in a location where PON got available since 2 years, but I'm still on LTE.
If PON ONTs would be supported by MT I would not need another box. If that'd be a business case for MT, I have no clue and I don't care.

Probably price is just a matter of scale for the ONT, but of course they are more complex. Less cabling and less active components however are definitely cheaper.

Well ... I don't think they can be cheaper to manufacture than plain FTTH SFPs ... no matter the production scale. The price may come close, that's all. If we're talking about modules. If ONTs are complete devices, with cases and power adapters, then they are more expensive.

But from PON owners' perspective, specially if they're simply infrastructure providers not service providers, they need to provide ONT which allows to connect router (most often provided by ISP). And it's easiest to provide full device, with case and power adapter. And they definitely don't care about your desire to get rid of another box ... so you'd better care about MT's business case here if you realistically expect that MT gets into this business. I'm fed up seeing on this forum "product requests" which would serve someones partial desires but don't make any sense to MT (and their community) at large. Why can't people think in a bit wider perspective?

But it comes with way less flexibility (which is often even disliked by network owner).

True, but what you are overlooking is: for example GPON, and XGS-PON can run parallel over the same cable. They are using slightly different wavelengths!

Which adds complexity again. And drives cost slightly up because suddenly ONTs have to become Rx wavelength selective this way or another (either receiving part of ONT or PON owner has to install optical filters after their passive optical splitters ... which I bet they don't do, they won't touch passive infrastructure after it's built due to costs if not other reasons) ... and it has to be done for legacy subscribers as well. I'm not sure if all ONT receivers are already wavelength selective, I know that most CWDM/DWDM modules are not (they rely on CWDM/DWDM MUXes to do their job in Rx direction).


Again, as I already wrote: cost difference between FTTH and xPON is not as big as they want us to believe. The biggest difference is in ability for infrastructure owner to sell bitstream rather than dark fiber which means revenue proportional to service provider's revenue (with dark fiber it's fixed price regardless the service provided by ISP). And this can become also source of frustration for ISPs if PON owner doesn't want (or can't) invest in modernization of active equipment (it already happened in my country with certain smaller, local, infrastructure providers). Quite often infrastructure providers in rural areas have monopoly and ISPs can't go with provider offering better network. If network was FTTH, then infrastructure owner doesn't have any saying in what service is provided, they only fix any problems with passive infrastructure (e.g. broken fiber).

While we're veering off topic a little - There's also the issue that PON is typically asynchronous asymmetric. Here in Ireland typically it's 1Gbit down 100Mbit up or 2Gbit/200Mbit if you're lucky.

The cynic in me considers that this is a deliberate choice to force medium and larger businesses in to having to opt for the more expensive dark fibre options.

Edit - corrected terminology - thanks @pe1chl !

That is not called asynchronous, that is called asymmetric! No idea why so often people make up the term asynchronous for "different down and up speeds", it really has nothing to do with that.

Back to the "MikroTik and PON" topic: there used to be a MikroTik PON SFP, but it is no longer listed.
Probably because so often it did not work because of some mismatch in the requirements of the ISP and the MikroTik SFP.
(back when it was available we could already see requests like "make the MAC address programmable")

It think your best bet is to obtain a matching SFP from your ISP or from a local store who knows that they are dealing with.

I guess that OLT/ONT/ONU is often a semi-proprietary bundled solution, at least they needs to be certified together. Mikrotik should probably then roll their own complete PON-solution with all active components. Or else it wouldn't make sense.

But from PON owners' perspective, specially if they're simply infrastructure providers not service providers, they need to provide ONT which allows to connect router (most often provided by ISP). And it's easiest to provide full device, with case and power adapter. And they definitely don't care about your desire to get rid of another box ... so you'd better care about MT's business case here if you realistically expect that MT gets into this business. I'm fed up seeing on this forum "product requests" which would serve someones partial desires but don't make any sense to MT (and their community) at large. Why can't people think in a bit wider perspective?

IMHO everyone from the community should deliver their own view. That is the purpose of a community. MT will or will not make a business case, while selecting any input as they please.

Considering the massive deployment of PONs in the last few years, my input is still valid. I wish I had the choice between PON/AON/Cable/WISP/xyz, but I have to live with whatever technology is provided to me. That is lately the choice between LTE/5G or PON. LTE is covered by MT very well, I hope 5G will follow. Finally I hope PON will be part of the MT repertoire as well. PON should be similarily well standardized like the radio networks (at least I hope so).

Quite often infrastructure providers in rural areas have monopoly and ISPs can't go with provider offering better network. If network was FTTH, then infrastructure owner doesn't have any saying in what service is provided, they only fix any problems with passive infrastructure (e.g. broken fiber).

Interesting and valid point. I believe currently here in Central Europe the ISP and the network owner are the same entity in most cases, but it is slowly changing.

I guess that OLT/ONT/ONU is often a semi-proprietary bundled solution, at least they needs to be certified together.

That would be really bad, I hope this is not the case, at least there are IEEE and ITU standards for the different PONs.

Back to the "MikroTik and PON" topic: there used to be a MikroTik PON SFP, but it is no longer listed.
Probably because so often it did not work because of some mismatch in the requirements of the ISP and the MikroTik SFP.
(back when it was available we could already see requests like "make the MAC address programmable")

It think your best bet is to obtain a matching SFP from your ISP or from a local store who knows that they are dealing with.

I believe having an MT OLT SFP would be great, if it would work, as te ISPs don´t always provide ann SFP. Most often you just get a plastic box with some Ethrnet ports and an optical port. Then the non MT OLT SFP would need support in ROS as well.

As I wrote above, it used to be available but apparently it was pulled. And I can understand why.
Fortunately, here the fiber providers mostly provide the PON in a NTU box that converts fiber to RJ45 ethernet.
You can connect your own router where you have to configure PPPoE over VLAN.
The only thing MikroTik could do to help here is to enable hardware acceleration of PPPoE. The plastic boxes the ISP provides do have that, and can achieve 1Gbps without loading the CPU. On a MikroTik router that requires fast hardware.

As I wrote above, it used to be available but apparently it was pulled. And I can understand why.

Got that, thanks!

Fortunately, here the fiber providers mostly provide the PON in a NTU box that converts fiber to RJ45 ethernet.
You can connect your own router where you have to configure PPPoE over VLAN.
The only thing MikroTik could do to help here is to enable hardware acceleration of PPPoE. The plastic boxes the ISP provides do have that, and can achieve 1Gbps without loading the CPU. On a MikroTik router that requires fast hardware.

Agree: PPPOE in HW, along with IPv6 Fasttrack and VTI for IPSEC ! Hopefully topics in the next Newsletter.
:)

Still waiting for small factor 2.5G CRS switch with 16 ports. Hopefully one day will our dreams comes true.

Hope that this year will see some outdoor 5G device. I can't understand why continue launching LTE products while nowdays LTE is terrible slow itself. Mayor of the time, old ADSL connections are better than LTE.

That LTE is supposed to be terribly slow isn’t true.

Hope that this year will see some outdoor 5G device. I can't understand why continue launching LTE products while nowdays LTE is terrible slow itself. Mayor of the time, old ADSL connections are better than LTE.

There's a tear in my eye ... where is my beloved 56kb modem ... think, I prefer LTE.

That LTE is supposed to be terribly slow isn’t true.

It's not supposed to be - but in several countries the mobile network is severely underprovisioned/traffic shaped. Yes, 5G probably won't be better there, but still... I can see ADSL being faster, given the right (or wrong, that's up to You) country.

LTE is not slow by itself, but there are so many mobile users, that each cell tower has to split the available bandwidth to more people than the ISP anticipated. Try the same LTE ar 3AM in the morning, it will be much faster.

It's not slow, with ATL I get 160-250 Mbps DL and 60-100 Mbps UL but when tested with 5G I get 550-720 Mbps DL and 80-165 Mbps UL and 5G is tested with Chateau. So with 5G ATL that could be even better... So I hope we will see 5G ATL

Soon

:O