[c-nsp] Huawei instead of Cisco

[Tim Franklin]

> What about the CPE side?  We have been offered Huawei devices to be
> used as G.SHDSL.bis termination devices (on the CPE side), and they
> look quite interesting - a Cisco 1841 with a SHDSL-WIC would also
> work, of course, but the WIC is just too expensive for a CPE...

It's been a few years, but I did take on some of the CPE as a Cisco alternative for both DSL and E1 termination for enterprise customers.

It's definitely cheaper, and if you're doing fairly basic stuff it works well, but there are some rough edges on some of the more advanced features like BGP and SNMP.  The CLI and the documentation hurt from being almost IOS but not quite, in that things that you expect to be in one place are in another, and command syntax is similar but not the same.  (Also some absolute howlers, like "rip work" / "rip no work", and the unforgettable "reset-recycle-bin").  In fairness, the command reference was comprehensive, and largely a true reflection of what the software did.

I had some issues with the development process - the quality testing was sometimes limited to "it ran for 24 hours without crashing".  I do not have fond memories of filing a bug report of BGP being available but totally non-functional on a particular platform, being assured that it would be fixed in the next release, and weeks later receiving a release that had all trace of BGP completely removed.

I've had a more recent look at some of their consumer-grade output by virtue of friends and family getting one bundled with their broadband service.  The web GUI on these is quite well layed-out and straightforward with minimal clutter, and the functionality (again, at least for basic connectivity) seems quite solid, although that's firmly anecdotal rather than lab-tested.

Out of curiosity, what are you doing that necessitates that 1841+WIC instead of the much cheaper 878 / 888, or even 1803?

Regards,
Tim.