10GbE network under $1,100?

[10gig]

Hi all – Do you think it's possible to build a 10GbE home or small business network today for $1,100 or less? I'm working on the very early stages of a project to equip a bunch of homes with 10GbE 3 to 6 years hence, and I'm curious what's possible right now.

10GbE routers like the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Infinity cost around $1,700 at the moment. A lot of enterprise routers don't have publicly listed prices, so I assume the news will be worse with them. It seems like MikroTik could release a disruptively inexpensive router any day now, certainly within 3 to 6 years. What equipment would you choose to get under $1,100 today? Is it even possible? The list should include a router, switch, AP, patch panel, and maybe a dozen drops of Cat 6A.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

[Greg72]

The question is not if the network is going to need 10 gig, it is if 10gig Internet Backbones are available in the area for a WAN speed of 10 gig.

 

[coxhaus]

A bunch of homes at 10 gig is a lot of bandwidth. I don't think there is a single home that can max out 1 gig internet right now. So it may be a little early to plan for 10 gig.

But 10 gig inside the home will come first. At that point we may see some internet pipes get saturated.

I also think 10 gig on the switches will be cheaper than 10 gig on the routers. There is no reason to have 10 gig on the router unless you have 10 gig internet speed.

 

[10gig]

The question is not if the network is going to need 10 gig, it is if 10gig Internet Backbones are available in the area for a WAN speed of 10 gig.

Right, there will be 10 gig internet/WAN. CableLabs has some good info on the 10 gig future they envision here: https://www.cablelabs.com/10g

(CableLabs is the technical consortium of US cable companies. My project wouldn't be in the US.)

 

[10gig]

A bunch of homes at 10 gig is a lot of bandwidth. I don't think there is a single home that can max out 1 gig internet right now. So it may be a little early to plan for 10 gig.

But 10 gig inside the home will come first. At that point we may see some internet pipes get saturated.

I also think 10 gig on the switches will be cheaper than 10 gig on the routers. There is no reason to have 10 gig on the router unless you have 10 gig internet speed.

Right, a 10 gig router would be pointless without 10 gig internet/WAN. We plan on 10 gig internet.

 

[coxhaus]

Say you have a neighborhood full of 10 gig homes. What are you going back end all those 10 gig connections with?

I say put fiber in and let it ride.

 

[paraplu]

Hi all – Do you think it's possible to build a 10GbE home or small business network today for $1,100 or less? I'm working on the very early stages of a project to equip a bunch of homes with 10GbE 3 to 6 years hence, and I'm curious what's possible right now.

10GbE routers like the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Infinity cost around $1,700 at the moment. A lot of enterprise routers don't have publicly listed prices, so I assume the news will be worse with them. It seems like MikroTik could release a disruptively inexpensive router any day now, certainly within 3 to 6 years. What equipment would you choose to get under $1,100 today? Is it even possible? The list should include a router, switch, AP, patch panel, and maybe a dozen drops of Cat 6A.

Thanks for your feedback.

The whole within that budget? Difficult, at the moment.
As a router, you could use a DIY small pc box with dual intel 10g nic and a fast cpu. Pfsense on it. Would shave you around 500$ with some old parts.
Problem is switch and AP, and the amount of 10g clients. There are some APs with 2.5G lan connections maybe aggregated 5G but how many 2.5, 5, and 10 Gbps switch ports would you require?
The cheapest 10g switch at the moment is Mikrotik https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in
But only a small number of ports and heat warning sticker. Fried egg free of charge.

Better to stick with 10g backplane and 1g client port connections.
A Mikrotik Rb4011 has 10g sfp input from ISP and 2.5g connection to two separate switch chips, with 5 ports 1gbps out each. Around 250$.

 

[Greg72]

Cablelabs stating what they perceive as the possible push for the future is still ten years down the road for a lot of communities such as where I live, because the infrastructure is not there in the areas within city limits proper.

 

[10gig]

The whole within that budget? Difficult, at the moment.
As a router, you could use a DIY small pc box with dual intel 10g nic and a fast cpu. Pfsense on it. Would shave you around 500$ with some old parts.
Problem is switch and AP, and the amount of 10g clients. There are some APs with 2.5G lan connections maybe aggregated 5G but how many 2.5, 5, and 10 Gbps switch ports would you require?
The cheapest 10g switch at the moment is Mikrotik https://mikrotik.com/product/crs305_1g_4s_in
But only a small number of ports and heat warning sticker. Fried egg free of charge.

Better to stick with 10g backplane and 1g client port connections.
A Mikrotik Rb4011 has 10g sfp input from ISP and 2.5g connection to two separate switch chips, with 5 ports 1gbps out each. Around 250$.

Yes, the whole thing, soup to nuts. I was assuming a bunch of 10GBASE-T ports, but I think I may have underestimated the potential of SFP+ ports in this application. I think four 10GbE ports would be fine, not including any ports feeding APs or other POE devices. Cameras will be fine with 1GbE for the foreseeable future since they tend to encode/compress their streams before transmitting. I also assumed that the baseline port would be 2.5GBASE-T, meaning the bulk of the ports that are not 10GbE.

SFP+ with OM3 is surprisingly affordable. Are there any APs with SFP+ ports or other fiber connectivity? I haven't seen any. They'd need separate power, but that seems like a minor burden. 10GbE backhaul seems nearly appropriate in a few years with mature 802.11ax APs, or maybe just 5GbE backhaul. Active DAC might even work if it's available.

 

[10gig]

Say you have a neighborhood full of 10 gig homes. What are you going back end all those 10 gig connections with?

I say put fiber in and let it ride.

Definitely fiber. It's in a developing country so there's the opportunity to build out a network from scratch and leapfrog over DOCSIS cable networking, DSL, etc. I want six fibers going into every home and small business, three duplex pairs.

 

[System Error Message]

Hi all – Do you think it's possible to build a 10GbE home or small business network today for $1,100 or less? I'm working on the very early stages of a project to equip a bunch of homes with 10GbE 3 to 6 years hence, and I'm curious what's possible right now.

10GbE routers like the Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Infinity cost around $1,700 at the moment. A lot of enterprise routers don't have publicly listed prices, so I assume the news will be worse with them. It seems like MikroTik could release a disruptively inexpensive router any day now, certainly within 3 to 6 years. What equipment would you choose to get under $1,100 today? Is it even possible? The list should include a router, switch, AP, patch panel, and maybe a dozen drops of Cat 6A.

Thanks for your feedback.

wow you looked at ubiquiti but not mikrotik i feel hurt you would miss a great brand and go for a shady brand. The mikrotik CCR1036 with 2SFP+ which is the one i have will handle its port in NAT without using hardware acceleration and still have CPU power to spare. However you will need to get the SFP+ to 10Gbe adapter.

Ubiquiti's numbers for their edgerouters do not hold up whenever you go beyond something that their CPUs are not meant for.

You can also build a PC based router capable of that on that budget as well but you will need to find a 10Gbe NIC at a good price as SFP+ is cheaper especially if you use SFP+ direct.

If you're just looking for a router with a 10Gbe port, there are plenty and you can just get one with SFP+ and get the 10Gbe module.

I built myself a 10Gb network a couple of years ago using mikrotik switches and routers. The router has 2 SFP+ ports, switch has 16 SFP+ ports, and the switch to PCs and boards have 2 SFP+ slots and 24 Gbe slots. the SFP+ direct is a much much cheaper way to build than using 10Gbe, even the 2nd hand NICs as datacenters and enterprises love them as they are modular allowing them to easily exceed ethernet limitations with any medium they want. 2 file servers i attached via SFP+.

the RB4011 has a SFP+ port, and plenty of other routers even consumer ones are starting to have a 10Gb port either ethernet or SFP+ now on some modals.

So it can be cheap to build a 10Gb network, its more of a question of if you've looked at different ways. Also some SFP+ NICs have interesting features you do not find on ethernet NICs.