ひとは☆もえ Anime4000

xPON Freedom

An open last mile

Passive optical networks are the last mile for hundreds of millions of subscribers, yet the equipment at the end of that fibre is closed, locked and disposable. This is the work I lead to change that.

Why it matters

An operator can mandate its own ONT, lock the firmware, keep a management channel open into your house and refuse equipment you supply yourself. In most of the world there is no rule that says it cannot. The EU gives end users the right to use terminal equipment of their choice; Germany has had it in law since 2016 and Italy has its modem libero rules. Malaysia has no equivalent, and neither do most of the countries where this community lives.

Where the rules already protect the subscriber, open firmware is a convenience. Where they do not, it is the only leverage a subscriber has.

The ask is modest: that the demarcation be honest. The operator's responsibility ends at the fibre, what runs on the subscriber's side is the subscriber's choice, and equipment somebody paid for belongs to them.

The last mile, hop by hop

  1. Operator OLT The ISP's end of the fibre, in the exchange.
  2. Shared Splitter One fibre, split passively between you and your neighbours.
  3. Yours ONT The box on your wall. Closed, locked, rented — this is the part we open.
  4. Yours Router Everything from here to your LAN, on hardware you chose.
GitHub stars on RTL960x
1,068
countries with working deployments
19
contributors credited by name
14
open firmware projects
7

Figures as of November 2026, from GitHub, openpon.org and the firmware list below.

RTL960x

Where it started: hacking RTL960x

RTL960x documents and demystifies Realtek's GPON platform for the global xPON community: how to set up a stick, clone the identity of a stock ONU, pick the right LAN mode for 2.5GbE, read OMCI, recover from a bad flash, and which ISPs need which tweak.

The research began in 2020, the year the pandemic kept developers and hackers at home, and went public in 2021. It is the work of many hands. People in Malaysia, Italy, Ukraine, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and a dozen other places test against their own operators and send back what they find. I keep it together.

Open the repository

Open firmware

  • NIJIKA Firmware / NijikaWrt GPON RTL960x my project

    NIJIKA for Realtek sticks: broad OLT compatibility, VEIP, 1GbE to 2.5GbE, Prometheus and Grafana metrics. NijikaWrt takes it further with an OpenWrt userland for RTL9607DQ gateways, starting with the D-Link DPN-FX3060V (A1). Experimental.

  • RemixWrt IIDX GPON EcoNet Pururin Collective

    OpenWrt and LuCI for EcoNet PON SoCs, starting with the Skyworth SK-G7220 gateway. Beta.

  • CatOS GPON RTL9601CI · RTL9601D

    An alternative to NIJIKA for RTL9601CI and RTL9601D sticks.

  • Peter-Pon GPON Lantiq

    Firmware for sticks built on Lantiq SoCs.

  • ZRV OS GPON RTL9602

    An independent operating system born out of clean-room reverse engineering.

  • 8311 XGS-PON PRX126

    The reference open firmware for 10G subscriber deployments.

  • CA8271x XGS-PON CA8271x

    XGS-PON firmware with a focus on Japanese operator interoperability.

This list is ahead of openpon.org, which still shows the first four.

Open PON Foundation

Five principles

The foundation is vendor-neutral and run by volunteers. Its vision lines up with the Electronic Frontier Foundation on user rights, the Open Networking Foundation on open access networks, and the Linux Foundation on neutral governance.

  1. Openness

    Firmware and protocol knowledge developed in the open, so behaviour can be audited rather than taken on trust.

  2. Cross-vendor compatibility

    One stick that speaks to many OLTs. Interoperability is what makes choice real.

  3. Ease of access

    Clear guides and tooling that does not demand a lab bench. Knowledge locked inside private forums helps no one.

  4. User-owned equipment

    Your ONT is part of your network, not an unremovable extension of the operator's.

  5. Privacy

    No vendor cloud and no silent telemetry. Where an operator mandates TR-069, the firmware emulates it and nothing personal leaves.

Timeline

From one repository to a foundation

  1. 2020

    Research begins

    The year of the pandemic. With developers and hackers staying at home, the research into GPON sticks starts.

  2. February 2021

    RTL960x goes public

    The repository opens on GitHub to document Realtek GPON SFP sticks such as the V2801F, TWCGPON657 and DFP-34X-2C2.

  3. 2022

    2.5GbE over a stick

    Contributors report stock ONTs replaced and 2.5GbE links running on real operators, from Italy to TM Unifi in Malaysia.

  4. March 2025

    Programmers for everyone

    SFP-Master and IMSProg are ported to Windows, so a cheap CH341a is enough to read and write a stick's EEPROM and flash.

  5. March 2026

    A NOC on your desk

    A guide to building an ISP-style NOC dashboard at home with Grafana and Prometheus, fed by metrics from NIJIKA.

  6. May 2026

    Pururin Collective opens

    A forum for the informal side — ISP-specific tweaks, experiments and troubleshooting — so GitHub can stay vendor-neutral.

  7. September 2026

    Open PON Foundation

    The scattered work gets a shared front door at openpon.org, and a name that can put the subscriber's case to a regulator.

  8. Late 2026

    Beyond the stick

    NijikaWrt and RemixWrt IIDX bring an OpenWrt userland to whole gateways, on Realtek RTL9607DQ and EcoNet SoCs. CatOS and Peter-Pon widen the choice of firmware for sticks.

Safety notice

Open networking requires responsibility

PON is a shared medium. One misbehaving ONU can disrupt upstream synchronisation for every subscriber on the same fibre split, and operators watch for exactly that — disconnection, blacklisting and penalties are real outcomes.

This work promotes open knowledge and interoperability, not reckless deployment. A live network is not a place to experiment. Do not endanger shared infrastructure, do not disrupt others, and proceed with discipline.

Get involved

Where the work happens