[AusNOG] Low cost OLT or OLT emulator? Why not?

[Fernando Cassia]

Dear list,

I have just discovered this mailing list thanks to another list member who
saw my message on Link and suggested that here I'd find the right audience
for my ramblings.

First question: Can anyone recommend any low-cost GPON OLT for a lab?

I have a handful of ONTs, fibre tools, connectors, adapters, splitters, but
when I talk about OLTs all I can say is "there's some blade-looking box at
the ISP that speaks to the ONTs"

Not being myself an ISP I found the cost of OLTs above a thousand
greenbacks. Which is a price I cannot justify - specially now, in this
economic context.

So that got me thinking why isn't there a super low cost micro-OLT that can
serve just a handful of ONTs?.

One ca buy a ONT nowadays for less than a hundred bucks.
And optical transceivers can be had for less than $50 a pair...with some
cheap Gigabit Ethernet to fibre media converters for around $35

My end goal is to either buy a MICRO-OLT capable of provisioning a couple
ONTs on my desk, or set up two ONTs talking to each other through an
intermediary device THAT fakes being a real OLT and lets me learn about
provisioning in the process.

I'm surprised nobody seems to have done a "DIY OLT simulator"... "hackaday
style"...

I understand GPON is much more complex than GEPON but still... It'd be
worth it for the GPON vendors to have this kind of low cost device
available to set up gpon deployment training and networking test labs.

Maybe my Google-fu is failing?

I can't seem to find any cheap used 2-port OLTs either.

Thoughts? Comments? TIA...
FC
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