2019.07.12 – Open Broadband News

It Takes Tele2 to Tango! Competition Comes to Estonia with New Wholesale Fiber Network Build

Tele2 has revealed that it will enter the fixed line market by offering fiber broadband services using the wholesale network currently being rolled out by electricity company Elektrilevi.

The Estonian market is set for an influx of competition. Tele2 said it will be one of two mobile operators to provide Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) services in the entire area covered by Elektrilevi’s network, while the electricity company itself names a dozen service providers which customers can choose from, depending on where they live.

“Many people probably do not know that we have 12 different communications operators in Estonia. In fact, there are even more,” said Elektrilevi Chairman, Jaanus Tiisvend. “We have mapped 36 different communications service operators in Estonia. In principle, they would all be able to start offering their services on the high-speed internet network of Elektrilevi very easily, as well as possible new ones.”

B4RN Having a Hoot After Raising £3m for UK Rural Gigabit FTTH Rollout

Rural focused UK Internet Service Provider, B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) has successfully hit its £3 million crowdfunding target, which will help to support the on-going rollout of a community built and funded 1Gbps Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) broadband network across remote parts of several counties.

As a community benefit society, they have so far deployed more than 3,000km of fiber optic cables across rural parts of Lancashire, Cheshire, Cumbria, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Yorkshire. Overall, B4RN has connected around 6,000 homes (live customers) and the new funding may enable it to reach 20,000 over the next few years.

The challenge in all of this is that building “full fiber” networks remains an inherently slow process, particularly when dealing with community efforts and organizing volunteers.

“We are in a different world to the one we used to inhabit, it’s no longer a question of money but instead it’s about delivery,” said Barry Forde, CEO of B4RN.

Amazon Invasion! Global Giant Seeks FCC Approval to Launch Thousands of Satellites for Low-Earth Orbit Broadband

Amazon delivers just about everything and on the day of the US’ independence, tech titan, Jeff Bezos, launched Amazon’s official salvo into the global satellite service-delivery business.

Subsidiary Kuiper Systems asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for approval to launch 3,236 satellites designed to connect most of the world. Kuiper Systems said it will use 3,236 low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites to deliver these connections.

“The Kuiper System will deliver satellite broadband communications services to tens of millions of unserved and underserved consumers and businesses in the United States and around the globe,” the company said in its document.

User Services Platform Takes Centre Stage at Axiros and Around the World

Read the article from Axiros CEO, Michael Shaw discussing how its User Services Platform (USP) is progressing in an increasingly connected world.

Recent weeks have seen the release of two new additions to the Axiros AXACT range of embedded solutions – the AXACT USP and AXACT DUAL. Together with the Axiros AXACT TR-069 client, the two new solutions joining the ranks are transformative, impacting how devices can be managed, and how they can enable a multitude of operations which supercharge administrative functions and build new applications.

In a time of already impressive technological advances in the connected world, USP brings equal benefit to service providers and manufacturers.  Our approach to the incorporation of an advanced endpoint service architecture to create a seamless bridge between the present and the future, and embedded agents and standards-based controllers, will enable the safest environment for investment in advanced technology in the modern era.

On Top of the World: US Climbing the 5G Ranks in Eight Countries with 1.8 Gbps Peak

The United States topped the initial ranking of 5G download measured by OpenSignal in eight of the countries that have already launched 5G services.

As expected, crowdsourced data from Australia, Switzerland, South Korea, Spain, Italy, the UAE, the UK and US showed that 5G speeds overall were “dramatically higher” than currently available peak download speeds on 4G networks.

The US posted peak 5G download speeds of 1.82 Gbps, nearly 3 times the 4G peak of 678 Mbps, followed by Switzerland with 5G peak speeds of 1.15 Gbps compared to 443 Mbps on LTE.

OpenSignal attributed US speeds to the use of millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum for 5G. “This is extremely high capacity and extremely fast spectrum but has very limited coverage compared with the 3.4-3.8 GHz 5G ‘mid band’ spectrum typically used in most of the other countries,” OpenSignal said, adding that it expected maximum speeds to continue to increase across the globe as 5G is rolled out on new spectrum and wider channels.

A Series of Fortunate Events – by Broadband Forum

Broadband Forum is hosting the 4th XGS-PON Interoperability Test Event with Full Service Access Network (FSAN), until today at the LAN labs in Tauxigny, France. It gives the opportunity to all equipment vendors, members of FSAN or Broadband Forum to improve the interoperability of their products by testing them against other solutions presented for the event.

Broadband World Forum 2019 will be another key event for Broadband Forum. It will host its Interop Pavilion at the event which will take place at the Amsterdam RAI from 15-17 October. Broadband World Forum annually welcomes in excess of 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.

As part of the Interop Pavilion, the SDN/NFV Work Area is looking for vendor and operator participation in developing and executing the CloudCO Demo. This follows the success of the OB-BAA demo last year which gained very high industry visibility. This year, Broadband Forum will take a major leap forward by leveraging Application Note 446 (APPN-446) which has been enhanced for multi-vendor capabilities that will be provided by the OB-BAA reference implementation. If you would like to be involved in pulling together this highly visible project, see the description on the Wiki here.

Finally, Broadband Forum has confirmed the dates of two more of its highly popular BASe events. Two concurrent workshops on the Connected Home and 5G will kick-off Broadband World Forum 2019 on the morning of October 15. If you are planning to attend BBWF 2019, mark your calendars now! Additionally, Broadband Forum will host its annual BASe North America event prior to the stat of ConneXions 2019 in Las Vegas on October 26. Don’t miss this golden opportunity to catch up on the latest technology updates and best practices across 5G, Connected Home, Security, and Next Generation Access. Keep and eye out for more details soon at BASe home on the Broadband Forum website.