2019.08.30 – Open Broadband News

Follow the migration brick road! SDN is critical to the digital transformation

The August issue of Digitalisation World includes a major focus on Software-Defined Networks (SDN). How has the technology developed to date? Are all SDN solutions the same? What kind of uptake is there amongst end users? And, how important is SDN as part of an overall digital transformation strategy?

According to Broadband Forum Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Burke, SDN is increasingly being used in networks to disaggregate various hardware as operators grapple with growing bandwidth demands and changing broadband service requirements.

The industry has become well-versed in the benefits of this, with the technology boosting network agility, decreasing operating expenses and speeding up time-to-market of new revenue-generating services. These advantages have led to significant take-up of SDN within the broadband sphere and numerous deployments announced.

Sprint putting its best 5G foot forward with rollout

Sprint has turned on its mobile 5G networks in a number of major US cities, including Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington DC, giving users what the company claims is the “largest initial 5G coverage in the US” to date.

These launches follow Atlanta, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Kansas City and Chicago, meaning Sprint 5G is now available in nine US cities. According to Sprint, its network now covers around 2,100 square miles, providing an estimated 11 million people with the option of switching to 5G.

“With our initial nine market launches complete, it is just the start of what we can achieve with T-Mobile, together building a better, faster, nationwide mobile 5G network that benefits all US businesses and consumers,” said Sprint CEO Michel Combes.

Broadband A-listers revealed on World Communication Awards shortlist

Total Telecom has revealed the shortlist for the 21^st edition of the World Communication Awards, which will take place in London at the end of October.

The awards celebrate innovation, ambition and achievement across the global telecommunications industry. Included in the shortlist for the Woman in Telecoms Award is Broadband Forum’s Barbara Stark, who played an integral role in the development on TR-069 and continues to be a contributor to Broadband Forum’s Connected Home standard User Services Platform (USP).

“Judging these awards is a serious undertaking because of the sheer number and quality of the entries we received this year. As the global telecoms industry takes the first tentative steps on its 5G journey, operators and vendors alike are pumping money into their research and development initiatives. This year there was a real focus on innovation, both in the mobile and fixed line side of the industry,” a spokesman for the judges told Total Telecom.

The Wolf of Haul Street: Study shows consumers overpay for broadband

The Wall Street Journal has issued results from a study indicating that many consumers are overpaying for broadband with the speeds they are receiving.

The study, involving 53 WSJ journalists and researchers at Princeton University and the University of Chicago, shows that typical US homes get only “marginal gains” by upgrading to faster speed tiers.

In the studied cases, the report found that most use a fraction of their available bandwidth to watch OTT services from the likes of Netflix and YouTube, and even in cases when they are viewing multiple OTT services at the same time. It also found that improvements in picture quality and streaming start up times were negligible at higher speeds.

“For many people they are not going to see huge differences between 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps and a gigabit per second,” said Nick Feamster, a University of Chicago network-performance expert and member of the study’s research team.

Old gen meets next-gen at high-tech senior living community

Technology will play a key role in a new community on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The $300 million, luxury-focused Maplewood Senior Living’s Inspir Carnegie Hill community will bring with it a comprehensive technology suite designed to enhance the resident experience and make operations more efficient. The suite — which is called Alli — will include smart-home tech such as Amazon’s Alexa, virtual reality and fall-detection capabilities.

To enable these applications, the development has also made a significant investment in the broadband infrastructure, which it calls the ‘technology backbone.’

Made in China! Telco giants on course for 5G network sharing

China Telecom and China Unicorn are set to jointly build and share 5G network infrastructure, with chairmen of both telcos confirming they are actively seeking a partnership.

China Telecom chairman Ke Ruiwen told analysts that the companies had reached a “high consensus” on joint construction and sharing, and that the team need to consider moving forward.

He also noted that such collaboration would help to significantly reduce capital expenditure and operating expenses, as well as revitalize share prices.

Fast and Fiberous: Europe speeding ahead with fiber deployment

xDSL is the leading fixed broadband technology in Europe, accounting for 49.9% of all fixed broadband lines. According to new analysis from GlobalData Technology,  fiber is forecast to overtake it by 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.4% by 2024.

At present, Russia has the highest share of fiber lines in Europe, amounting to 75% of total broadband lines, but Spain expected to take the lead in 2023, with an 86.5% share.

“To meet ever-growing consumer data demands and offer new digital products and services, European telcos are strongly investing in high-speed fiber broadband,” GlobalData Technology said.

A Series of Fortunate Events – by Broadband Forum

On August 29, 2019, Broadband Forum’s Chief Marketing Officer Geoff Burke took part in a Broadband World Forum webinar, entitled Here Today, PON Tomorrow. This webinar pondered the drivers for 10GPON and beyond, exploring what the use case is for consumer broadband, whether consumer data usage is increasing enough to justify operator investment in 10GPON and if operators need to invest to improve Wi-Fi rates and coverage or if GPON can still deliver. Replays will be available up until Broadband World Forum in October.

On Monday, September 2, the Q3 Broadband Forum meeting will take place in Milan, Italy, sponsored by F-Secure. This is a meeting you won’t want to miss with activities ramping up across all work areas, and two special “Birds of a Feather” (BOF) sessions focused on some of the hottest topics in broadband today – Security and 5G. In addition, solutions innovator Outsys will host a first-of-its-kind “Practical Implementation Demonstration” of how measurement and analysis can be carried out across a range of scenarios specific to Broadband Forum’s Broadband QED initiative.

The registration deadline is fast approaching for Broadband Forum USP Plugfest #4 at The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Lab (UNH-IOL) during the week of September 16-20, 2019. The deadline for interested parties to register is September 9^th. Don’t miss out!

Broadband World Forum 2019 will be a key event for Broadband Forum, with the return of its Interop Pavilion at the event which will take place at the Amsterdam RAI from 15-17 October. As part of the Interop Pavilion, Broadband Forum will showcase demonstrations of the Connected Home and CloudCO including Open Broadband – Broadband Access Abstraction (OB-BAA).

There will be two Connected Home demonstrations from a team led by Vodafone and Domos as well as a demo of OB-USP-agent demonstrating the testing of USP managed devices from CommScope and QA Cafe.  The Vodafone/Domos demo will also include Kaon Media and Axiros and will implement USP to exploit new data collection and transport capabilities. If you would like to participate, and gain the marketing value of being a thought leader in this space, please reach out to BUS Work Area leader John Blackford at john.blackford@commscope.com.

The CloudCO/OB-BAA Demo 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. More information can be found on the Wiki here.

Broadband Forum is a forum partner of SDN NFV World Congress 2019, taking place at World Forum, The Hague, Netherlands from 14-17 October. Broadband Forum will discuss key projects at the Multi-player Association Workshop, where there will also be extended informal Q&A sessions to allow the audience to engage with project leaders to better understand how initiatives and standards can help their specific business. Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh will also speak as part of the conference, exploring how operators can achieve seamless co-existence and cost-effective migration when implementing automated access networks.

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 and go here to see more detail on the Day 1 agenda! 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 opportunity to catch up on the latest technology updates and best practices across 5G, Connected Home, Security, and Next Generation Access. Keep an eye out for more details soon at BASe home on the Broadband Forum website.