Evilcorp
----- Reply message -----
From: "Ken Hohhof" <[email protected]>
To: "'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group'" <[email protected]>
Subject: [AFMUG] PON and UPC
Date: Tue, Oct 6, 2026 4:08 PM
MomCorp. From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 3:58 PM
To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] PON and UPC
There's definitely consolidation occurring. I can't wait to find out who my
new evil overlords will be. Maybe Catbert's Fiber.
From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 4:19 PM
To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] PON and UPC
No BEAD projects have actually been funded yet in Illinois, and we haven’t seen
the latest map negotiated with NTIA. The plan from a year ago definitely
involved some really small companies stepping up to wire really big areas. But
what got me thinking about all the money being borrowed was
this:https://www.kirkland.com/news/press-release/2026/06/kirkland-advises-metro-communications-on-completion-of-second-securitization-issuance-at-459-million
Metro Communications aka Conxxus is expanding like crazy in small Illinois
towns (no government cheese), and they seem to be borrowing crazy amounts of
money to do it. In addition to the new builds, they have bought Clearwave and
MTCO this year, and they seem to immediately turn around and use those assets
as collateral for more loans. So as long as FTTH is a can’t lose business
proposition, that makes sense. It does kind of remind me of the period when
leveraged buyouts were common, someone described it to me as they would buy you
with your own cash. I remember Frontier doing the same thing to fund their
fiber buildout, but then they got bought by Verizon, apparently on the basis of
their fiber network. So that worked out for them. I think at one point they
did have to sell off some west coast fiber assets to pay the bills. From: AF
<[email protected]> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 3:00 PM
To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] PON and UPC
What I think you're getting at is if they had 25% of the money to expand their
footprint tenfold, then they could have expanded it by 2.5x with their own
money, and if they could have done that then they would have already been
expanding. They could have investors who provided the cash for the sake of the
BEAD application because a grant makes a return more likely. Or maybe they had
access to the money all along and just sat on it to see if they could get four
times the value by adding government cheese into the mix. I never got
involved in BEAD, so I couldn't speak to other possibilities, but Chuck seems
to say the match could have been other assets besides cash. I wonder how
creative they allowed people get with that.
From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 11:51 AM
To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] PON and UPC Talking about the match. I see BEAD projects
that would expand the awardee's footprint more than 10x. No way they could fund
even the 25% organically.
Or are you saying the 25% match is an illusion because the 75% is actually
200%? On October 6, 2026 10:26:59 AM CDT, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
wrote:BEAD is a grant, not a loan. Match is 25%. And our award is like 2X the
cost of construction. How do you default on a grant?
From: AF <[email protected]> on behalf of Ken Hohhof <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 7:08 AM
To: 'AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group' <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] PON and UPC I’ve noticed a lot of medium to large FTTH
providers are very heavily leveraged, all their fiber assets are pledged as
collateral to get loans to build more. I would guess as BEAD rolls out, the
copays are also borrowed money. My gut tells me if revenue fails to meet
projections there could be a lot of loan defaults. Which gets me to my
question. In the popular fiber architectures, what parts are generic and can
easily be used by a new owner? The glass itself would seem to be useful no
matter what. But what about ONTs, OLTs, and customer prem equipment like
routers? And other headend equipment like routers. What happens if a fiber
equipment manufacturer like Calix goes though a bankruptcy or liquidation
(thinking about the Cambium situation). Is this stuff all proprietary, closed
ecosystem? From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Adam Moffett
Sent: Tuesday, October 6, 2026 7:55 AM
To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AFMUG] PON and UPC
I've made the same switch myself. PON is definitely easier. Everyone
(including me) likes Ethernet when they're new at it because it seems more
simple and familiar, but PON is easier to manage. I'd keep Ethernet around for
enterprise stuff, but bulk tier3 services are better off on PON.
There was also a business case for Ethernet in a rural area where you might
have small clusters of potential customers. You could add a 24 port or 48 port
Ethernet switch a lot more cheaply than adding an OLT, but in the past decade
you could also use Ubiquiti's UFiber in that same scenario. Or use XGS-PON
where you can get long reach by adjusting min and differential range and
minding your link budget. In that case you can look at it as the cost of
adding ports on a central system vs the cost of adding a new point-of-presence.
In other words, I think the tech based argument for Ethernet was at least
partially wrong from the start, and the most compelling business case for it
has evaporated.
I also see Ethernet in open access networks where they put each provider in a
VLAN and each ISP is just providing a router and customer service. I won't go
on that rant today, but that model seems incredibly dumb in my eyes. -Adam On
Mon, Oct 5, 2026 at 5:22 PM Nate Burke <[email protected]> wrote:I don't have
any PON in the field, only Active, but I'm curious why
you're converting your active network to a PON network? Network
Management? Future Scalability with existing fiber? What's driving the
switch. I'm genuinely curious.
On 10/5/2026 3:53 PM, Jason McKemie wrote:
> I have an active optical network that I would like to convert to PON.
> Unfortunately, the connectors at the cabinet are all UPC. Am I asking
> for a headache if I connect those customers via an APC to UPC cable vs
> re-splicing everything at the cabinet? The lengths from the cabinet to
> the customer locations are all less than a mile. I'll be splicing on a
> new APC connector at the customer locations.
>
--
AF mailing list
[email protected]
http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
--
AF mailing list
[email protected]
http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
