2019.03.22 – Open Broadband News

The importance of standardization within future broadband networks has been highlighted by Deutsche Telekom at Broadband Forum’s Q1 Meeting as it demonstrated a NETCONF/YANG proof-of-concept for network management built on standardized APIs and data models.

Enabling faster time-to-market for new services, increased efficiency and lower operating costs, this network configuration and management with service delivery aims to address existing and emerging networking challenges. These sometimes include complex and slow interfacing between different management systems and vendors’ protocols, inflexibility as a result of proprietary management systems and M2M management which often lags behind features.

“We are fully supportive of standardized APIs and models like NETCONF/YANG as they will allow operators to configure and manage many different things,” said, Mikael Abrahamsson, Demonstration Leader at Deutsche Telekom. “As we continue this work, we are working towards having standardized modules as much as possible and with open source development and cooperation between vendors and operators becoming more crucial, we believe Broadband Forum has an important role to play.”

The latest breakthroughs in next-generation access technologies, the current state and future of the broadband market and best practices in advanced services deployment and monetization are the hot topics that will be explored in depth at the upcoming 2019 Ultra-fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar (UFBB BASe), on 25-27 June in Den Haag, The Netherlands.

Hosted by Broadband Forum, which has recently taken the reins of this highly regarded event, the 2019 UFBB BASe will build on the former TNO-led Ultra-Fast Broadband Seminar which developed, over the course of a decade, a stellar reputation for thought leadership, high quality speakers, technical acumen and a collaborative and energetic vibe.

“Over the last decade, the Ultra-fast Broadband Seminar has become a world-class event and I’m delighted that Broadband Forum and TNO can continue to work together and build on the event’s success going forward,” said Kevin Foster, of Broadband Forum. “The venue is locked in, and the agenda is shaping up to be extremely compelling and timely, with a number of leading industry luminaries already confirmed. We look forward to having you join us for this ‘can’t miss’ event of the summer.”

In today’s central office architectures, access and edge network segments are reliant upon application-specific, purpose-built devices. This architecture has been the foundation upon which more than 1 billion broadband installations have been deployed globally. Over time, ecosystems formed around this architecture, cultivated by formal interoperability programmes have stimulated a diverse equipment market whose parts could work together to operate at scale. However, with the emergence of 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the connected home, this architecture is already being sorely tested, both in terms of its ability to efficiently continue to scale and also in its lack of agility in rapidly introducing new services.

At the FTTH Conference 2019, Huawei released its new flagship GPON ONT, the Huawei EchoLife K5 Pro, which complies with the latest TR-398 Wi-Fi performance test standard released by Broadband Forum. This flagship device delivers a carrier-class Wi-Fi service to users, providing a smooth, high-speed Wi-Fi experience, full coverage in homes and the ultimate ultra-HD video experience.

In large apartments and houses, although the access bandwidth can be as high as 100 Mbps, common Wi-Fi devices are unable to provide whole-home coverage. This results in poor performance and service experience, especially as new services such as 4K/8K video, online games, and IoT become more popular. Existing home networks struggle to realize the high-speed experience required in many home network service scenarios.

The EchoLife K5 Pro is designed to resolve many of the issues found in Wi-Fi networks for smooth playback of 4K videos, such as signal conflicts, severe interference, poor coverage, and low throughput, which negatively affect home user experience. Therefore, operators are able to build home Wi-Fi networks that deliver premium Wi-Fi and ultimate 4K/8K video experience.

The Q1 meeting in Warsaw, Poland drew to a close and it was great to see some many in attendance! But don’t worry we have a lot more Broadband Forum events t  o bring you this Spring.

First up is Maravedis’ upcoming webinar on March 28 on ‘Secret Sauce and Open Source: The Battle for the Home Wi-Fi Middleware.’ Broadband Forum CEO, Robin Mersh will be a speaker at the event and the webinar will discuss the latest trends in the connected home, respective initiatives from the various associations to address in-home Wi-Fi and what innovations to expect in the next 12-18 months.

Additionally, there is a USP Plugfest that will take place at UNH-IOL from Monday, April 1 to Friday, April 5.

Registration is now open for the UFBB BASe. To sign up or find out more information about that June BASe event, see https://www.ultrafastbroadband.nl/

For those needing a quick catch-up on happening from the Q4 meeting, Lincoln Lavoie, Senior Engineer at UNH-IOL and Technical Chair has provided a round-up of the technical projects progressed at the Q4 meeting here.