Networking
High Availability Network
Designing a redundant gateway architecture for school infrastructure.
Overview
- Infrastructure
- Experimental
- 2026
- GPON, OLT, Fiber, ONT
The Problem
Fiber-to-the-home concepts are easy to read about but harder to understand without hands-on practice with real GPON hardware end to end.
Architecture & Approach
An OLT, a passive splitter, and several ONTs were set up on a lab bench to trace the full signal path — from provisioning on the OLT to activation on each ONT — and to document every step along the way.
Implementation
Result
All ONTs were successfully provisioned and activated, with signal loss at each splitter stage measured and recorded for future reference.
End-to-end GPON path provisioned and documented
Lessons Learned
Fiber splice quality has an outsized effect on signal loss — a slightly imperfect splice was the source of most of the troubleshooting time. Documenting each step while working, not after the fact, made the final write-up far more accurate.