Kerala Vision Broadband FTTH - User Experience

Now that I am evaluating Kerala Vision broadband, thought I would create a thread to share my experience. My LCO provides broadband services from BSNL and Kerala Vision, so thought would be good to evaluate Kerala Vision as well.

Getting the account setup was pretty easy, cause there was no need for additional cabling or ONT etc. I shared a photo and ID/address proof doc to the LCO, and the same day evening he setup my account and shared the credentials. The LCO shares the same OLT for all services, so on my end, I just needed to configure my OpenWRT device appropriately.

Initially I didn't get the Kerala Vision VLAN, so I had to reach out to the LCO's tech guy who shared the id. I added the VLAN to the switch (my ONT is a transparent bridge, so I needed no change on the ONT) which created an interface and all I needed to do was add the necessary interface configuration with the PPPoE credentials.

As you can see, they use CG-NAT which is disappointing but other than BSNL and few others nobody else gives public IP addresses. Also I liked the fact that things just worked on first try (the above screenshot is from my first try to connect)

Will add more details as I explore more.

 

[varkey]

Which router do you have? You can if your router supports setting an alias interface.

 

[Morty]

I did some digging and here is what I found.

 

[varkey]

Yep, your input power level is really low and outside the device's optical sensitivity range. Most devices reliably detect optical signal only till -27/-28 dBm and yours is lower than that. You'd need to contact your operator and ask them to bring your power levels higher.



The above is from mine, as you can see the lowest it reliably works with is -27 dBm.

 

[Morty]

Thank you Mr. Varkey for pointing this out. Now let me talk to my LCO and ask him to do some about this.

 

[vu3knb]

hmm.. mine was -23.0dBm few months before , now its -17.0dBm , looks like LCO did some work to increase the power

 

[Morty]

It works for me just fine even at -29 dbm but disconnects intermittently out of the blue during wee hours once in two weeks or so. Issue is neither persistent nor there is a pattern.

 

[varkey]

Yes, as I said at very low levels outside of the range the device is designed to work, you cannot expect it to work reliably. My guess is that during those time frames there could be other issues leading the signal levels to drop further.

I have a script running which logs the signal levels every minute and when the net goes down. So can always keep track of the levels.

 

[Realme]

How much does your signal fluctuate, what is 95th percentile of your signal level?

 

[varkey]

I've seen it vary by approx 1 dBm over several days ie -20 dBm to -21 dBm in my case. When your levels are already at the border like @iAnvin, a 1 dBm change would mean it can go to less than -30 dBm, more than enough to cause intermittent issues like he's experiencing.

 

[Morty]

Yes, as I said at very low levels outside of the range the device is designed to work, you cannot expect it to work reliably. My guess is that during those time frames there could be other issues leading the signal levels to drop further.

I have a script running which logs the signal levels every minute and when the net goes down. So can always keep track of the levels.

Amazing! Anyway I talked to my LCO and it took some serious convincing from my side, for him to acknowlege the problem. Initially he was saying it could be some issue with Kerala Vision due to server overcapacity (the usual blah blah blah) and then I send him the screenshots of the power levels. He was curious as of how I was able to get those values and identify that the input signal power is weak, I told him I was familiar with these things (courtesy to Varkey )

The guy was so dumbstruck probably because he so far has only dealt with noobs in this area and a customer logging into the configuration page of the ONU was too much for him to process. Finally he said he would fix it within a couple of days.