2020.12.11 – Open Broadband News

Broadband Forum cites record year for open standards and global growth

A record year for the development of industry-wide standardized solutions and technical specifications, and Open Source technology projects, 2020 saw the Broadband Forum continue to support phenomenal levels of global growth in the number of fixed broadband subscribers.

In 2020 the Forum published 25 technical reports, 14 application notes, test plans, marketing reports and market updates and had 24 new members and observers in attendance. In an unprecedented year, it held five vBASe events virtually covering all corners of the globe, and in addition over 20 separate virtual sessions in its educational webinar series, which addressed hot topics including PON, USP, 5G and convergence. Through the Cloud CO and Connected Home initiatives, the Forum showcased the strength of the organization and signified the industry-wide support which looks set to continue growing.

“2020 has been a difficult year for many during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the broadband industry has risen to the challenge to address the heightened network usage,” said Broadband Forum Chairman, John Blackford. “As we look to the future, the Forum will continue to combine standards, innovation, and education to unlock the potential that broadband promises.”

Mr Blackford also announced that, after 14 successful years in office, Robin Mersh has stepped down from his role as Chief Executive Officer to pursue a new challenge outside of the industry. Long-term Broadband Forum contributor and previous board member, Ken Ko re-joins the Forum as Managing Director and Craig Thomas moves into a new position of Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Business Development.

SPAC-tacular year ahead as Broadband Forum announces new vice chairs

Two new vice chairs have been appointed to the Broadband Forum’s Service Provider Action Council (SPAC) as was announced at the industry’s leading organization’s Q4 meeting. Mike Talbert from Verizon and Weiqiang Cheng from China Mobile will help the group continue to provide critical direction on standards development and operator engagement.

Broadband Forum’s SPAC was created to ensure that Service Providers’ voice and requirements stay front and center to all broadband work, accelerating time-to-market and maintaining relevancy and value. SPAC chair Mauro Tilocca (TIM) said: “It has been a pleasure to be able to bring in two people with the level of leadership, expertise and experience Weiqiang and Mike have within their fellow Service Provider community”.

“Their input will be fundamental to the continued evolution of the Service Provider Action Council and help ensure that the work of the Broadband Forum is directly related to the real needs of Service Providers across all corners of the globe. Their global vision of our market, regional knowledge, and direction will only encourage even more Service Providers to join SPAC and drive the demands of our industry into our wider broadband industry work,” Mr Tilocca continued.

Next year, while evolving in response to a rapidly changing sector, the Council will continue to focus on providing the use cases and a common Service Provider voice that influences and drives the Broadband Forum’s Open Standards and Open Software work. Key areas of focus in 2021 will include evolution of the Connectivity and Access to the Business/Residential (CABR), the Connected Home, edge / core evolution, wireless and wireline convergence and the Software Defined Cloud (SDC).

5G trial gets the green light for being more energy efficient than 4G

Discussed in an article from Total Telecom, data traffic is expected to skyrocket, in part due to the widespread rollout of 5G, which will facilitate new data-hungry technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT). Typically, with increased data traffic comes increased energy consumption as the networks battle to handle that data.

But this is not necessarily the case for 5G, with new energy efficiency innovations in the RAN making the technology, in fact, much greener than 4G and other legacy services. According to a new study completed by Telefonica and Nokia, it has shown them able to lower their energy usage in their 5G network by 90% compared to 4G.

The study, which was conducted on Telefonica’s network over three months, made use of several energy saving software and hardware solutions, monitoring energy usage both on-site and remotely. A range of data traffic scenarios were explored to provide a full overview of 5G’s energy saving capabilities.

“We are committed to supporting action on climate change and engender a sustainable culture throughout our entire company. We are proud to work collaboratively with Nokia on this project and others to address a range of initiatives including driving energy efficiencies in the 5G era,” said Juan Manuel Caro, Director of Operational Transformation at Telefonica.

Foot down and into 5Gear, new standards accelerate Wireless Wireline Convergence  

Broadband Forum, the communications industry’s leading open standards development organization focused on accelerating broadband innovation, standards, and ecosystem development has announced the publication of three new standards to accelerate global 5G adoption.

Building on the Forum’s mission to drive a future consolidated approach to 5G, the standards will reduce development time, as well as capex and opex, from the traditional disparate fixed broadband and 5G networks. Ultimately, they will deliver a common and managed broadband experience to the end-user whatever the final connectivity technology.

There are three major sets of technical specifications that have been finalized, including 5G Wireless Wireline Convergence Architecture (TR-470), Access Gateway Function (AGF) Functional Requirements (TR-456) and Device Data Model (TR-181). Together, these documents provide functions and interfaces for Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC), the AGF, and customer premises equipment (CPE) such as 5G-enabled routers.

Read more here at The 3G4G Blog, and you can also watch David Allan, Work Area Director for Wireless-Wireline Convergence at Broadband Forum and Christele Bouchat, Innovation Group Director at Broadband Forum discuss what is coming up in the next phase of 5G work and what opportunities this has opened up for the industry.

FTTH Council Europe forecast sunshine with a high chance of fiber adoption

At the Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) Council Europe’s annual conference, the organization has published figures for the continent’s status regarding full-fiber deployment in 2020 and its expected progress by 2026.

It covers FTTH technologies, but not Fiber-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC) or any other part-fiber technology. If the 202 million homes are passed by 2026, as predicted, that will equate to a penetration rate of 73.3 percent, compared with 43.3 percent in 2019.

Read more and find out the latest FTTH figures for Europe here.

I Cannes believe it! Record increase in FTTH adoption across France

French network regulator Arcep’s scoreboard for the fixed broadband and superfast broadband market in France as of the end of September 2020 saw a record increase the rate of adoption for FTTH access, while deployments continued to advance at a very steady pace.

At the same time, Arcep has granted the status of ‘Fiber area’ (zone fibrée) to two territories in the Aisne (51 municipalities) and the Loire (23 municipalities), where the departments are deploying optical fiber Public Initiative Networks (PIN), which is a sign of the tremendous progress that FTTH is making in rural areas.

Finally, Arcep is enhancing its ‘Ma connexion internet’ map-based search engine devoted to fixed Internet access and is once again calling on the sector’s stakeholders to contribute to the work it is doing to increase the accuracy of the information provided by the site.