2019.11.08 – Open Broadband News

Wi-Five! Number of homes with managed Wi-Fi to reach 294 million by 2025

According to a new report – ‘Managed Home Wi-Fi Networks for the Smart Home 2020-2025 – published by Maravedis LLC, the number of homes with managed Wi-Fi will reach 40 million by 2020 and 294 million by 2025.

Broadband Forum provided expert input into this survey and many of its members were invited to participate in the research, with managing the quality of the broadband experience in the home a priority for most service providers. Quality of experience now goes beyond speeds to include lower latency required to support 4/8K, gaming, and VR applications.

“Most operators are motivated by the reduction in OpEx and improvements of their NPS score, while a minority attempts to monetize managed Wi-Fi. As a result, managed Wi-Fi is a fast-growing market and will reach a 29% penetration of the total broadband lines in service by 2025,” said Adlane Fellah, author of the report and founder of Maravedis LLC.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Telia says it’s CapMan to the rescue!

Telia Company is working with Capman Infra to accelerate Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) rollout across the Nordics.

It will work with CapMan Infra to accelerate the pace of investments in passive fiber and will provide the fiber access network. Under the agreement, Telia will hold a 40% stake in a new company which will take over Telia Finland’s existing single dwelling unit fiber roll-out business, Avoin Kuitu.

Stein-Erik Vellan, Senior Vice President and Head of Telia Finland, said: “I’m really happy that we have come to this agreement with CapMan Infra which fits very well with Telia Company’s strategy of having superior network connectivity while adding to our commercial success through convergence and great customer experience.

“The network roll-out will play an important role for Finland to maintain its position at the very forefront of digitalization. This new type of structure with a partnership ties well with our ambition of disciplined allocation where we, case by case and market by market, seek a good balance between the risk and reward and potential future technology shifts as well as short versus long-term thinking.”

Europe gets giggy with it!

A new report by economist firm Oxera has revealed how widespread access to Internet speeds of at least 1 Gigabit per second will lead to transformative changes in the way people across Europe interact, socialize, work and stay healthy.

The report, commissioned by converged video, broadband and communications company, Liberty Global, details four key areas in which the mass market rollout of Gigabit broadband has the potential to dramatically improve lives: healthcare, commuting, social interaction and the environment.

It predicts that many social and economic benefits will result from the widespread rollout of Gigabit broadband, as increased connectivity changes the way people interact with each other by reducing frictions, which economists refer to as “transaction costs.”

“The expansion of Gigabit speeds at scale across Europe is essential to the growth of the economy and improvement of our daily lives, and the possibilities that lie ahead with the next generation of broadband are truly exciting,” said Manuel Kohnstamm, Senior Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer for Liberty Global.

Encore! Encore! VMware ‘Project Maestro’ to speed network virtualization

VMware has unveiled ‘Project Maestro,’ a telco cloud orchestration and automation engine designed to help providers launch services faster in multicloud environments by simplifying deployment of Virtual Network Functions (VNF).

Project Maestro is designed to help communications service providers make the infrastructure virtualization changes necessary to make the leap to 5G and edge computing by adopting a cloud-first strategy supporting multiple clouds. By virtualizing networks, operators get increased scalability, reduced cost, faster time to market and improved customer experience compared with current technologies.

“This will accelerate multi-cloud operational agility, help carriers launch new services faster, and fundamentally simplify deployments of virtual network functions and network services,” said Gabriele di Piazza, VMware VP Products and Services.

O2 speeds ahead with 5G connected vehicles across the UK

UK mobile network operator O2 has signed an agreement to help unlock the potential of driverless cars in London. O2 will utilize 5G spectrum in the 3.4GHz band to power practical testing of driverless vehicles in a real-world environment.

According to research conducted by O2, a 5G road network could save the UK economy £880 million per year, in addition to reducing carbon emissions by as much as 370,000 metric tons per year.

“At O2 we’re determined to help businesses of all sizes access the potential of 5G mobile technology. We know that by powering the transport sector we can make a real difference to consumers by reducing traffic congestion, making journeys safer and faster,” said Brendan O’Reilly, O2’s chief technology officer.

NG-PON2 progress on the Verizon

At an industry event hosted by Calix, Verizon has revealed how it continues to construct the Intelligent Edge Network by testing NG-PON2’s capabilities in the lab and field, and slowly increasing the company’s reliance on software instead of purpose-built, legacy networks.

The global investment is designed to dramatically reduce CapEx and OpEx, open new markets and increase flexibility and customer experience, said Kevin Smith, Vice President of Network Planning at Verizon, at the Calix ConneXions 2019 event.

Verizon has begun to deploy Calix e92 Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) in the field, said Greg Sherrill, distinguished member of technical staff at Verizon, during Broadband Forum’s Broadband Acceleration Seminar (BASe), held October 26 in conjunction with ConneXions.

“We do not have a lot of service turned up on them yet. We’re still in a beta phase right now,” said Greg Sherrill. “What’s in the field is only a single wavelength. What’s in the field is working. We are living the pay-as-you-grow sort of deployment model. The traffic seems to be just fine. We are able to do the maintenance and what we need to do, and customers are happy with the service.”

Roll-up, roll-out! Altice USA fiber upgrade reaches 500,000 homes

Altice USA’s Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) network rollout is switching into high gear as the operator ended the third quarter of 2019 with 500,000 homes now ready for service with FTTH.

That rollout, now covering some 10% of Altice USA’s Optimum footprint in parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is up from the 300,000 FTTP-ready homes the company had at the end of the previous quarter.

Altice USA will use its FTTH network to deliver multi-gigabit speeds and will vastly reduce operational costs and improve customer experience metrics compared to capabilities and the maintenance and upkeep requirements of its DOCSIS-based hybrid fiber/coax (HFC) networks.

“We view Fiber-To-The-Home as an end-state of the network which is superior to other future cable DOCSIS network upgrades,” said Dexter Goei, Altice CEO. “This is especially the case as the fiber technology is already commercially available today and we’re leveraging expertise from our sister companies [such as Altice Europe] in how to deploy the fiber at a relatively low cost.”

A Series of Fortunate Events – by Broadband Forum

Magnus Olden, Broadband Forum Ambassador will present the latest Broadband Forum Connected Home and Wi-Fi activities at the annual TIP Summit 2019, which takes place in Amsterdam from November 13-14. Magnus will participate in the “Project Group Meeting: Wi-Fi” session at 13.30 on Wednesday, 13 November. Please click here to view more information on the conference and to access the full agenda.

BASe North America Summit in Las Vegas was a big success, with a packed room and insights shared by many of the world’s most innovative service providers (Verizon, City Fibre, Telus, SK Broadband, Google Fiber) and ecosystem partners. Don’t miss an opportunity to catch up on the latest technology updates and best practices across 5G, Connected Home, Security, and Next Generation Access. BASe North America presentation slides are now available to view here and videos of the presentations will be posted on the same site by next Monday.

Following Broadband World Forum 2019, presentations and videos are also now available on the 5G and Connected Home BASe workshops.

Last week we proudly announced that longtime Broadband Forum contributor Barbara Stark of AT&T was names as the winner of the 2019 Woman in Telecoms Award for her vast contributions to a variety of Connected Home innovations like TR-069, TR-369 (USP), TR-181, and a host of others. We can watch an interview with Barbara capture after her win here.

Registration for Broadband Forum’s fourth quarterly meeting, Q4 2019, which will take place from Monday December 2 until Thursday December 5 in Panama City, Panama, is now open. For more information about the powerful event, bringing together the world’s largest and most influential service providers and broadband ecosystem participants, please visit here.