Over the past few months of having dealt with The Telco in various ways, I have become interested in the equipment provided by the various providers, and what's available from different equipment companies. This was sparked when The Telco sent me a new modem/gateway device to do testing. When I first signed up for their service, I was in an area served by a remote terminal equipped with VDSL2 service, and when I moved, I was served by an RT that just has ADSL service. I was able to use my modem, and I later used a modem that Julie loaned me, but they wanted to be really sure and sent me the device they give to new customers in that area.
The device I received was horrible, and it started a search to see if any ADSL/2/2+ providers around the country have branded equipment that is supported or provided on their DSL service which features niceties such as gigabit Ethernet on the LAN ports. While it wouldn't be strictly necessary for ADSL2+ service to work, even if you managed to get a quad bonding modem, you're unlikely to saturate a 100-megabit port, but it's nice to have a fast LAN. As soon as the service was working properly, I went back to the VDSL2 device I received at my previous address. Very fortunately for me, The Telco allows you to own your devices and by and large, will let you use any device on their network, so long as it's compatible and either you don't need help with it.
This got me thinking about the different telcos. Somewhere between 97 and 99% of the phone system installed in the United States these days is a result of the divested Bell system in the early 1980s, so you'd think most of them would be run similarly. In my search, I actually found some pretty interesting equipment.
The first is one of the earlier VDSL/VDSL2 modems, used by one of the other large Telcos. It's interesting because it is one of the earliest devices referred to as a "home gateway" by both its manufacturer and the telco that used it. The 2Wire 3000 series of "Home Gateways" is referred to by the manufacturer as a HomePortal [PDF] and is interesting because they've got a DSL input port and feature what is probably one of the earliest instances of a DSL modem including an Ethernet WAN port, as well as an analog telephony adapter, a Coax LAN port, a USB service/expansion port, and a USB PC port, just in case it was 2006 and you still only had one computer you wanted to connect to the Internet via a USB port. The series of devices was sold from 2006 or so out through 2010, possibly a little later. The terminating member of the 3000 family is still in active service on many accounts, and a quick googling would indicate that both the 3800 and 3801 are still considered viable. (In addition, the older and younger sibling of these devices, the 2701 is a favorite among many users of old ADSL networks, I.)
The 3600/01, 3700/01, and 3800 are notable for being just comically gargantuan. When I got the VDSL2 device I use today, I had the thought that it was somewhat large, but the 2Wire HomePortal 3800 is large enough that I'm actually confused as to why they didn't take the opportunity to install an entire Intel-based computer or small server into it. It has a lot of ports on it, but they're spaced out so far that it's reasonably apparent they could happily install a bunch more.
Given that the 3600 is so old and is one of the oldest VDSL devices, there may be a very good reason that it's so huge, but I'm more tempted to suggest that the Telco that deployed them wanted to emphasize how much more important Internet was now that VDSL had come out and allowed faster speeds over short loop distances.
The other way to emphasize just how important Your Local Telco is to your life is to offer TV, phone, and Internet via a new device that gets attached to the side of your customer's house, then wire the whole thing up with Ethernet and install little wireless access points and LAN jacks all over. 2Wire has that covered too, and it's called the iNID [PDF], and is typically paired with smaller gateways devices referred to as the i38HG. In addition, there was a customer-serviceable battery backup unit, typically installed inside the home near the iNID. Although it's nearly as old as the 3600HGV, it's actually a really cool idea. Briefly, the concept is that you eliminate home wiring problems by putting the actual VDSL/VDSL2 modem at the edge of the house, and at the same time, you can connect your existing phone jacks to it.
One of the interesting things about this setup is that the in-home portion of the portal/gateway, the i38HG. You can connect up to eight i38HGs via 2-wire copper to the i3812 iNID gateway, and they are essentially switches with a wireless access point built in. In this way, you can wire up a large home and have a single unified wireless network running around the whole premises. In larger homes, it's a way to get a lot of coverage. In smaller homes, it means you can completely blast the 802.11B/G 2.4GHz spectrum with your many identical WAPs. There are a lot of different configuration possibilities, including putting one in each room in order to "drop" Ethernet jacks everywhere, and doing things like putting one in a back room of a house.
Unfortunately, for the one telco that deployed it, it seems as though the iNID was not a success, and said telco is actively replacing them with a more conventional gateway, but the concept of the iNID is still very interesting. I suspect these days a telco doing it would use localized 30a VDSL2 to connect the "remote" gateways to the main piece of CPE. Both unfortunately and fortunately, I suspect that this isn't going to be something that happens again. When it comes around again, it'll be that a fiber provider has put an ONT on your house and you've wired it up on your own, and you're manually configuring AirPorts or other switches and WAPs. It's slightly more entertaining to think of all of the components of a LAN as an integrated system as with the iNID and i38HG, but it's also not very practical, especially given that the whole kit uses 802.11G wireless networking and a 10/100 ethernet LAN. It was on the edge in 2006 for such an advanced piece of equipment, and integrated or not, 10/100 networking and 802.11G networking would be unacceptable for an ISP provided whole-home networking system today.