2020.02.21 – Open Broadband News
Bright Lights, Gig City for Altice USA
Like most of its cable peers, Altice USA is joining the gigabit gang in earnest as it accelerates its upgrade to Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) networks in much of its territory and rolls out DOCSIS 3.1 in the New York City metro area.
Speaking on a fourth-quarter earnings call, Altice USA executives updated financial analysts on their two-pronged strategy of switching the majority of their 8.8-million-home footprint to FTTH networks and simultaneously upgrading New York-area subscribers to D3.1 service on their legacy HFC network. The moves will enable the Multiple System Operator (MSO) to offer one-gigabit service to most of its nearly 4.2 million data customers.
Altice USA CEO Dexter Goei said the MSO upgraded about 500,000 homes to FTTH in 2019, wrapping up the year with about 600,000 FTTH homes overall. At the same time, he said, the company has begun a full-scale rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 in the New York area, starting with the Bronx last month.
The power of 5G, a force from two partners above
Iliad Group has selected Nokia for its 5G rollout in both France and Italy.
Nokia and Iliad Group already have a long history, having worked together in France since 2012 and in Italy since 2018.
“We want to offer our customers the best possible 5G experience and that is why we have chosen to strengthen and accelerate our relationship with Nokia as we enter the 5G era,” said Iliad Group CEO Thomas Reynaud.
The Smart Home Story: To 2020… and beyond!
According to Charles Cheevers, CTO Home Network Solutions at CommScope, this year will mark a tipping point for key network, customer premise equipment, and smart home technology that has been in the works for years.
The confluence of technologies such as DOCSIS 4.0, 6GHz spectrum and Wi-Fi 6 are pushing a range of new services in the realm of reality.
Whether it’s 10Gbps access speeds, more pervasive and powerful home networks, or visual assistants – a range of exciting trends are emerging to improve the customer experience and drive new levels of service capability for Internet service providers.
More money, more connectivity? New Zealand hopes so
New Zealand’s National Government has pledged $270million further investment to fast-track the roll-out of ultra-fast broadband.
According to Communications Minister Simon Bridges, this should bring completion of the Ultra-fast Broadband (UFB) project forward by two-years and reach 190 more small towns with this investment. In addition, it will enable an extension of rural broadband to another 74,000 homes and businesses.
“By the end of 2022, our ultra-fast broadband program will provide more than four million New Zealanders with access to world-class internet,” added Bridges.
Of the investment, $130million is earmarked to extend ultra-fast broadband to an additional 60,000 homes and businesses in 190 new towns. The other $140million will extend rural coverage of high-speed broadband under the Rural Broadband Initiative (RBI) to another 74,000 rural households and businesses, and deliver mobile coverage on 1,000 kilometers of rural highways and to more than 100 tourist areas through the Mobile Black Spot Fund (MBSF).
The Great British Rollout – CityFibre cooks up a backhaul backbone
CityFibre, digital infrastructure platform provider, has been selected by mobile network operator Three as a preferred provider of backhaul connectivity outside London. The long-term framework enables Three to leverage CityFibre’s rapidly growing national full fiber network to support its rollout of 5G services.
The first phase of the agreement will see CityFibre provide backhaul connectivity to Three’s cell sites, with hundreds of sites already planned this year across a number of CityFibre’s Gigabit City projects.
Three will also have access to CityFibre’s full product portfolio, including small cell access points throughout its city-wide networks, providing local fiber capacity to support 5G services in busy urban areas.
“A competitive fiber backhaul market is critical for the fast and efficient roll-out of 5G,” said Dave Dyson, CEO at Three UK. “CityFibre are aggressively rolling out fiber across Britain and our strategic partnership with them will use the UK’s largest 5G spectrum portfolio to deliver the fastest 5G network nationwide.”
A Series of Fortunate Events – by Broadband Forum
Opening the door to the connected home – Broadband Forum hosts USP Webinar
On Wednesday, February 19, Broadband Forum hosted its latest webinar: “Monetizing the Connected Home: How TR-181 Device: 2.13 Enables Powerful New Value-added Services and Insights”. During this webinar, Broadband Forum project leaders in TR-069, USP and TR-181 and experts from industry leading vendors like CommScope, Domos, Incognito Software, NISC and QA Cafe explored how Broadband Forum’s TR-181 (Device:2) data model provides a standardized way to manage subscriber networks, receive telemetry and perform diagnostics. The webinar also covered how Broadband Forum’s User Services Platform (USP/TR-369) leverages this data model to meet the increasing demand for low-latency control and scalable data collection, as well as how it facilitates coexistence with legacy devices and provides the Wi-Fi management.
If you missed the webinar or want to share it with your colleagues, use this link to watch it in its entirety. If you would like access to the slide deck from the webinar, click here. To gain more information about our upcoming USP Plugfest, click here. If you would like to track or get involved in the development of USP or other projects within our Broadband User Services work area which are focused on accelerating the journey to the truly Connected Home, you can learn more about the Broadband Forum’s work in the Connected Home here and here.
USP Plugfest-apalooza! Participate in the next event
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
Once a-PON a time…at 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, 25/50G 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.
Mark the occasion in your calendar now and stay tuned for more info to come.
Broadband Forum shines spotlight on 5G at MPLS + SDN + NFV World
On March 31 at MPLS + SDN + NFV World, Broadband Forum is coordinating a half-day deep dive workshop into the current state and future of 5G transport.
Taking place at 10am, areas covered will include an update on the state of 5G transport technology and standards development work being down at Broadband Forum, but also how it ties into concurent work in other organizations like IETF, IEEE, ITU, and others, as well as market drivers, architecture considerations, technologies, sync, use cases and examples, network slicing, and fixed/mobile convergence.
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.
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.
For Press and Analyst inquiries, contact Proactive PR at broadbandforum@proactive-pr.com
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