Tenda SG04E — 4GE PoE xPON ONU

Buying it, and when not to

The SG04E is a 4GE PoE xPON ONU. It terminates the customer's fibre, gives four gigabit Ethernet ports, and supplies PoE out - which is the feature that makes it unusual and useful.

Specify it where the fibre drop has to power something at the far end: a ceiling access point in a shop, an IP camera on a pole, a phone on a desk. Instead of fibre to an ONT, then a short Ethernet run to a PoE injector, then the device, the ONU does fibre-to-powered-Ethernet in one unit. On market stalls, estate gatehouses and pole-mounted access points that removes a power adaptor from a place where power adaptors do not survive.

For an ordinary household this is the wrong unit: there is nothing to power and nothing to plug into four ports, and an HG6 or HG10 with WiFi built in serves them better and cheaper. For a customer who simply needs several wired ports, an HG1 plus an SG108 switch is less money. And check your PoE arithmetic before you promise it - a single ONU's power budget is finite, so a site with several hungry access points belongs behind a proper PoE switch such as the TEG1110PF-8-120W.