2019.05.17 – Open Broadband News

BASe-ically the premier broadband event in the biz! 

Broadband Forum is continuing to expand its world-class agenda for the Ultra-fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar (UFBB BASe) taking place June 25-27, 2019 in Den Haag, Netherlands. A conference uniquely constructed by technology innovators for technology leaders, UFBB BASe has emerged as THE must-attend event for broadband professionals seeking a conference with the technical depth and real-world insights to bring actionable innovations back to their respective companies.

Architected to provide a holistic view of the broadband ecosystem and the cutting-edge technologies which are driving it, UFBB BASe’s newly announced keynote speakers include Light Reading Editor-in-Chief Ray LeMaistre and access network legend and ASSIA CEO John Cioffi. The former will host a fireside chat on ‘What Happens to Traditional Telecom in a 5G World?’, while the latter will delve into ‘Ergodic Spectrum Management (ESM)‘ in delivering an optimized Wi-Fi experience. They will be joined by Openreach Head of Access Research Trevor Linney, who will speak on ‘How We Are Preparing for the Future of Broadband‘ and Orange VP of Wireline Networks and Infrastructure Christian Gacon who will present on ‘Leveraging BBF Certification Process for Operational Excellence’.

“The latest speaker, topic, and sponsor additions will further broaden the scope of what promises to be an incredibly insightful Ultra-fast Broadband Acceleration Seminar, providing extra opportunities to learn how companies and organizations are preparing for the future of broadband,” said Bernd Hesse, BASe Chair at Broadband Forum. “Attendees will hear from executives about various topics and challenges within today’s broadband landscape and how innovators are utilizing next-generation technologies to shape the future of broadband and develop advanced networks.”

5G opportunity knocks for cable operators

Cable operators must remain wary of the threat posed by 5G-powered home broadband services, but the 5G era also represents significant business opportunities for MSOs because they can provide key backhaul and fronthaul capabilities for these new networks.

That was the general consensus at the Big 5G Event during a panel that explored how 5G stacks up as both a friend and foe to the cable industry during these still early days of 5G network deployments and service launches.

A major challenge faced by 5G network operators and service providers will be ensuring that the underlying fiber and wireline networks allow the radios to be close enough to the customer for those wireless signals to be effective,” explained Chris Bastian, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at SCTE-ISBE. “That’s the opportunity for cable,” he said.

That opportunity, Bastian said, is still greater than the threat that 5G represents as a potential in-home broadband alternative. He also pointed out that millimeter wave spectrum, which is being used early on for 5G-based in-home broadband service, has restricted range, still requires clear line-of-sight, and is, therefore, still limited as an effective, wide-scale competitive option, at least at these early stages.

Broadband news Euro-nly gonna need to hear once! 

Liberty Global is investing more heavily in faster data speeds and next-generation broadband products and services by introducing a slate of new broadband, video and mobile products, services and features.

Among other moves, Europe’s largest MSO is upgrading to 500 Mbit/s speeds and a cloud-based Wi-Fi service in the UK, launching 1 Gig and multi-gig speed trials across several markets, adding Amazon Prime Video to its video lineup in the UK, deploying next-generation digital set-top boxes throughout its markets, bringing next-generation wireless gateways to more broadband homes and rolling out new fixed-mobile convergence bundles in the UK and Belgium.

More than anything, Liberty Global, like many of its cable counterparts on both sides of the Atlantic, is betting big on beefier broadband. With the introduction of 500 Mbit/s maximum broadband speeds throughout the UK and the launch of 1 Gig speeds in pilot markets in both Germany and the UK, the MSO is seeking to foster that growth by hiking its speed edge over all other network architectures except for Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH).

“There’s no substitute for being first or being best in all of these particular products and services,” stated Liberty Global Vice Chair and CEO Mike Fries, claiming that the company is especially “pushing the envelope” on “the innovation front” in its UK home market, where Liberty’s Virgin Media unit is also extending its Hybrid Fiber-Coaxial (HFC) network to 400,000 to 500,000 new homes each year under its ongoing Project Lightning upgrade program.

Norway can a-fjord to celebrate after recent fiber stats 

Norway counted 720,000 homes on broadband at a minimum speed of 100 Mbps at the end of 2018, up by 224,000 from 2017, according to communications regulator Nkom. This made up 35 percent of all home broadband subscriptions, up from below 25 percent in 2017. Residential fiber connections exceeded 1 million for the first time in 2018 at 1.01 million homes, up by 125,000 from 2017.

The total number of fiber lines climbed to 1.07 million from 937,214 the year before. In the business sector, there were nearly as many fiber subscriptions at the end of 2018 as there were copper subscriptions, at 55,700 on fiber versus 62,400 over DSL.

Internet connections via copper fell at the same rate as before but the drop in television cable broadband lines was greater than in 2017. There were a total 489,761 xDSL connections at year-end, down from 559,047 the year before, and 606,783 cable broadband connections, down from 623,543.

Altogether, there were 2.08 million private broadband subscriptions in Norway at the end of 2018, an increase of a little over 43,000.

5G Surfin’ USA

AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson has said that the operator expects to be able to offer a “true, high-speed Internet network throughout the United States” in the next three to five years via a combination of fiber and 5G.

“In three to five years out, there will be a cross-over point. We go through this all the time in industry,” Stephenson said at an investor relations event. “5G will cross over, performance wise, with what you’re seeing in home broadband. We’re seeing it in business now over our millimeter-wave spectrum. And there will be a place – it may be in five years, I think it could be as early as three – where 5G begins to actually have a cross-over point in terms of performance with fiber. 5G can become the deployment mechanism for a lot of the broadband that we’re trying to hit today with fiber.”

Continued Stephenson: “So all things considered, over the next three to five years, [there will be a] continued push on fiber, 5G begins to scale in millimeter-wave, and my expectation is that we have a nationwide, true, high-speed Internet network throughout the United States, 5G or fiber.”

Variety is the spice of a hyper-fast ultra-connected life, says Nokia

While Europe is concentrating on multi 100Mbps rollouts, demand in the US and Asia for 1Gbps, 2Gbps and even 10Gbps services is booming.

As consumers around the world demand hyperfast, ubiquitous connectivity, network operators must be prepared to use the full spectrum of FTTX solutions, according to Nokia.

During an industry webinar, hosted by Total Telecom, Nokia’s MD for Fixed Network Strategy Eric Festraets said that fixed and mobile solutions would play an equally important role in delivering a truly gigabit society.

“To deliver gigabit services, network operators and service providers need to act. We believe that the best way to do that is by implementing the power of and. Combining fixed and wireless technologies. Fiber, copper, Coax cable and fixed wireless all have a role to play,” he said.

Gfast gets giggy with it

Broadcom Inc. has announced the production release of the BCM65550, a Gfast 212 MHz system-level vector processor, enabling gigabit broadband services to be delivered to high-density residential areas. Telecom operators can now deploy fiber to these locations and leverage the existing installed copper lines for the final gigabit speed connection.

Deploying fiber all the way to a customer premise is often costly and challenging to execute, with expensive cable pulls and complex rights of way. Gfast avoids these issues by providing fiber-equivalent speeds over legacy copper wiring. Existing Gfast solutions address lower density installations, but with the BCM65550, operators can now support up to 192 lines of vectored 212MHz Gfast for high density residential sites.

The BCM65550 builds upon Broadcom’s market-proven Gfast modem and embedded vectoring solution, the BCM65400, now supporting production Gfast deployments across the globe. Vectoring, or crosstalk cancellation, requires extensive compute resources, and the BCM65550 delivers this without compromise. Crosstalk is cancelled across all lines with extreme resolution, achieving nearly identical performance to ideal, crosstalk-free environments.

“As demand for gigabit speeds rises, it is crucial that operators address this requirement by moving fiber closer to the customer, but there can be a significant challenge here in regard to costs and logistics especially in high-density MDU markets,” said Robin Mersh, CEO of Broadband Forum. “Broadcom’s latest G.fast system-level vectoring solution is an effective way for operators to deploy and deliver gigabit broadband services for those MDU markets. Broadcom is building on its existing G.fast portfolio, with its chipset used in three different Broadband Forum G.fast Certified DPU devices, highlighting the importance of interoperability in mass-market deployments.”

A Broadband Forum presents a series of fortunate events

Registration is open for Broadband Forum’s Q2 2019 Meeting in Seoul, South Korea. Taking place from June 17-20, and following the successful Q1 meeting in Warsaw, Poland earlier this year, the event promises to provide a platform to discuss the latest developments in Connected Home, 5G and Open Broadband, and more. Deadline for registration is June 10. To register, please visit here.

In addition, at the Amsterdam RAI, 15-17 October, Broadband World Forum, the global communications’ industry’s biggest event is fast approaching and will return after two successful years in Berlin. The event annually welcomes over 4,000 attendees from around the world and is the perfect opportunity to connect with the entire fixed network ecosystem with a large floorspace and three days of curated content.