2020.02.14 – Open Broadband News

Boris Johnson can’t buy you love, but he can invest in 5G

The UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is set to announce a fresh round of new capital investment in major infrastructure projects, which is expected to include a pot of £40 million to support pilots of superfast 5G based wireless (mobile) broadband in rural areas.

The funding will be targeted exclusively at the final 20% of hardest to reach premises (i.e. mostly rural areas and possibly some disadvantaged urban locations).

The adoption of “gigabit” terminology has also enabled the Government to water down their original focus on “full-fiber” by including other “gigabit-capable” technologies (here), such as Virgin Media’s predominantly hybrid fiber coax network and ultrafast 5G mobile services have also been mentioned as examples.

London street embroiled in a love triangle like no other 

Premises along a street in St James’s (Central London) have just become one of the first UK locations to enjoy a choice of three “full fiber” (FTTP) ultrafast broadband networks, including via Hyperoptic, Openreach (BT) and G.Network, with many more expected to soon crop up.

In dense commercially competitive urban areas it is quite normal for broadband operators to end up overbuilding each other with rival infrastructure, which is something that has occurred in the past between Openreach (BT) and UK cable operator Virgin Media using different infrastructure.

“We expect suppliers to focus on areas where they can get the best return and where they can also get a cooperative planning environment, with Westminster Council as one of the leading exponents of facilitating wayleaves and helping their residents and businesses (see their broadband voucher success) get more bandwidth,” said Point Topic.

How should we prevent IoT being hit by a smooth criminal?

The ease with which Internet of Things (IoT) devices can be compromised, coupled with the potentially extreme consequences of breaches, has prompted action from legislatures and regulators, but what group is best to decide?

Both the makers of IoT devices and governments are aware of the security issues, but so far they haven’t come up with standardized ways to address them.

“The challenge of this market is that it’s moving so fast that no regulation is going to be able to keep pace with the devices that are being connected,” said Forrester vice president and research director Merritt Maxim. “Regulations that are definitive are easy to enforce and helpful, but they’ll quickly become outdated.”

Love is not in the air – urban/rural divide widens in US

A new “State of the Industry 2020” report from ‘US Telecom – The Broadband Association’ forecasts that by the end of December this year 84 percent of American households will be subscribers to fixed broadband connections. That equates to about 109 million homes. The report adds that by the same date, 79 percent of voice connections will be over wireless as the number of US homes subscribing to ‘traditional’ wireline telecoms continues its precipitous decline.

Telecoms connectivity provided by Internet-based OTT players is proving increasingly popular with 29 percent of American householders now subscribing, primarily through cable operators. Meanwhile old-fashioned switched telephone subscriptions are in freefall having collapsed from 186 million in 2000 to an estimated 24 million by the end of 2020.

The research shows that back in mid-2018, 98.6 percent of Americans had access to fixed Internet service (at any speed) while 99.8 percent had access to a mobile network. Simultaneously, satellite-based connectivity was all-but ubiquitous. Furthermore, 91.4 percent of households had the choice of accessing services via access to two or more fixed ISPs and 92 percent of homes could access four or more LTE networks.

Can’t help falling in love – with video streaming

InterDigital, a mobile and video technology research and development company, has released a study revealing new use cases, and network challenges, in the next-generation video streaming ecosystem. The report from ABI Research and commissioned by InterDigital, outlines how the advent of streaming media use cases like Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and cloud gaming is increasingly pushing data boundaries, while edge computing, multicasting, and more efficient codecs present vital solutions to this video-driven future.

According to the report, media will represent over 70 percent of all internet traffic within the next few years.

“Today the demand for video is insatiable. We are seeing new smartphones come to market, with larger screens and even foldable screens to enhance the mobile viewing experience; we are seeing VR gain more traction and become mainstream; and eSports is a phenomenon that continues to grow by the minute,” said Laurent Depersin, R&I Senior Lab Director at InterDigital. “Combine that with the ever-increasing number of OTT and streaming services that are hitting the market, and it is clear that the appetite for video content shows no signs of slowing down.”

A Series of Fortunate Events – by Broadband Forum

Save your seat for our February Wi-Fi webinar!

It’s well-known that managed Wi-Fi is the future, and end-users looking to utilize the latest smart home technology have created a real opportunity for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to provide value-added services that can both save support costs and provide new revenue streams.

A standardized way of modeling these services, and providing the necessary diagnostic tools and telemetry, is required to realize this opportunity.  The Broadband Forum’s TR-181 data model, known as “Device:2” has been used by the popular TR-069 management protocol for more than a decade as a standardized way to manage subscriber networks, perform diagnostics, and receive telemetry. The need for highly scalable, high frequency data collection and low-latency cloud-device control loops made BBF develop TR-069s successor, the User Services Platform (USP/TR-369). USP leverages the TR-181 data model which allows for coexistence with legacy devices as well as state-of-the-art Wi-Fi management.

On February 19 at 10am ET, join the project leaders in TR-069, USP, and TR-181, plus experts from CommScope, Domos Labs, Incognito Software, NISC, and QA Cafe as they hold a special panel discussion on Device:2.13.

Register here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_zrr_Iz8tR7S901C5bBU3sQ

Participate in the next USP Plugfest

If you are building a USP/TR-369 solution, there is no better way to accelerate development than by testing your implementation with other solutions created by your peers and other member companies.

To help bring member solutions first to market, Broadband Forum is holding its next TR-369/USP Plugfest from May 11-15, 2020, at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory in Durham, NH, USA.

In addition to interoperability testing, there will be an opportunity to test against the Conformance Test Plan for USP Agents, TR-469, to help give feedback to the plan and drive the certification program into its next phases.

You can register for the event here:  https://www.iol.unh.edu/event/2020/05/broadband-forum-usp-may-plugfest

Ready for a PON Reality Check? Attend BASe OFC 

Broadband Forum will host Broadband Acceleration Seminar (BASe) OFC at one of the optical industry’s major thought leadership events, OFC 2020 in San Diego on March 11.

World leading service providers like Verizon, Orange, Altice, and Google are already slotted to share their perspectives and insights, as well as a variety of top tier analysts and leading vendors/suppliers.

Focused on capturing the challenges, opportunities, and innovations emerging in 2020, topics covered will range from insights into the market and an array of existing and emerging PON architectures (EPON, GPON, XGS, NG-PON2, WDM PON, 25/5-G PON, Super PON..) to perspectives on the state of standards (Broadband Forum, ITU, IEEE…). Ecosystem readiness for emerging use cases and applications, Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) and 5G, and best practices across the full spectrum of potential implementations – from SDN/NFV and network slicing to fiber extension technologies and whole home networking will also be covered.

This year’s event will focus on the theme “PON Reality Check 2020” and you can find the full agenda here.

BrASe yourself for what’s next on the Broadband Forum calendar

In 2019, Broadband Forum’s BASe initiative leaped forward with five major events reaching over 1,000 industry leaders, 16 sponsors, and high acclaim from all participants. In 2020, Broadband Forum will take these BASe events to a whole new level, with more events reaching larger audiences in conjunction with an expanded slate of conferences reaching all parts of the world.

Has this caught your attention? Good, because we are looking for dynamic and forward-thinking vendors to take part in our 2020 BASe initiative and are actively recruiting sponsorships. Below is a list of our 2019 sponsors – Imagine your companies name among them!

Remember, priority for BASe speakers is given to sponsors so don’t miss out! For more information, click on the links provided for details on the 2020 Global sponsorship and UFBB BASe sponsorship packages, or reach out to info@broadband-forum.org.

Budapest and Broadband await for the annual Q1 meeting

The hotel reservations and meeting registration is now open for the Q1 Annual meeting taking place in Budapest, Hungary from March 2-5, 2020. However, the hotel block CLOSES FRIDAY February 14 so book IMMEDIATELY if you haven’t yet!

For more information please see the wiki page or view our website.