2021.03.19 – Open Broadband News

All aboard for the Broadband Forum’s annual Q1 Meeting!

This Q1 Meeting is sponsored by:

When: Monday, March 22 – Friday, March 26, 2021, (CST). Exact times can be viewed here.

We are looking forward to continuing our valuable work that drives, educates, and enables the broadband community and world. As we move through 2021, we will continue to see increased dependencies on home and business broadband, which validates that our work is more important than ever!  Stay tuned as Broadband Forum explores options to make your quarterly meeting as effective, interactive, sociable, and collaborative as possible.

Who Can Participate?

• All Principal, Regional Operator, and Associate Members are welcome to contribute and attend the virtual meeting. Broadband Forum Observers are welcome to attend all sessions and Auditing Members are welcome to attend the plenary sessions.
• Pre-registration is now closed. To register for the meeting please, click  Also note that you have to be signed up to the wiki in order to access the link.
• The detailed meeting agenda is available at: https://wiki.broadband-forum.org/display/BBF/2021+Q1+Virtual+Meeting+Detailed+Agenda

The Q1 annual and Quarterly meeting will be held virtually, given the continued COVID pandemic and resulting restricted business travel. Building on the success of our previous virtual quarterly meetings, the Q1 meeting provides an opportunity for our Members, Observers and invited guests to safely join us anywhere in the world.

Learn more about the meeting and how to access it here

“Testing, testing!” – Allion Labs approved as a new testing lab by BBF

Growing international demand for the broadband industry’s first performance testing specification for indoor Wi-Fi, Broadband Forum’s BBF.398, has led to Allion Labs (Taiwan) being approved as a new testing lab.

Allion Labs joins Broadband Forum’s existing test lab, University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL), to help service providers around the world to select optimal Wi-Fi solutions and deliver guidance to vendors bringing products to market. Network operators and equipment vendors use BBF.398 to evaluate home Wi-Fi device performance across receiver sensitivity, throughput, coverage, multiuser support, anti-interference, and stability Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

“Broadband Forum welcomes the expertise of Allion Labs in testing Wi-Fi network equipment and delivering on the requirements of service providers. Allion’s contribution to delivering a standardized Wi-Fi system, and its feedback and recommendations on behalf of its customers on BBF.398, will benefit the wider broadband connectivity ecosystem,” said Broadband Forum’s Managing Director Ken Ko.

To read more about the latest work on BBF.398, visit: https://www.broadband-forum.org/technical/download/TR-398_Issue-2.pdf.

Fiber-To-The-Home competition heats up in the Netherlands

Intense competition in the Dutch Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) market has pushed the number of new connections to an estimated 533,000 in 2020.

Telecompaper’s annual report on broadband coverage in the Netherlands shows that following a year of record additions, 3.68 million households had an FTTH connection, accounting for approximately 46% of all homes in the country. It’s anticipated that competition between KPN NetwerkNL and its rivals Delta Fiber Network, E-Fiber and Primevest/T-Mobile will continue to benefit the consumer.

Already in 2021, the major players purchased a total of over 50,000 FTTH lines from smaller parties. KPN NetwerkNL is the largest fiber company in Denmark by far with a market share of more than 75%. The company has managed to expand its total by 319,000 homes passed in 2020 and is looking to add half a million more over the next few years.

Upstream channel purchases soar in Q4 2020, according to Dell’Oro

Reflecting data demands seen during the pandemic, cable operator spending on upstream channel purchases climbed 96% in Q4 2020 versus 2019, according to fresh data from Jeff Heynen, VP, broadband access, and home networking at Dell’Oro Group. By comparison, global spending on cable network downstream channel purchases climbed just 3% during the period.

For all of 2020, upstream channel purchases by cable operators rose 43%, while downstream channel purchases actually dipped 8%. Heynen said those purchasing trends are a “clear sign” that operators are starting to push ahead with “mid-split” and “high-split” network upgrades that expand the amount of spectrum being dedicated to the upstream.

Total global revenue for the overall broadband access equipment market climbed 3%, to $3.5 billion, in Q4 2020, thanks to a rise in sales of DOCSIS 3.1 consumer premises equipment (CPE) and sustained spending on 10-Gig PON Optical line termination (OLT) ports, according to Dell’Oro.

Plans for major educational network in Costa Rica

After a long development process between the Undersecretary of Telecommunications (Sutel) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications that ended in February, the bidding process for the Bicentennial Educational Network project began which seeks to provide internet access to 2,375 schools.

The goal is to connect 516 educational centers. The minimum broadband speed should be 15 Mbps and the maximum 1037 Mbps. Currently, many institutions do not exceed six megabits per second, according to information from La República.

In its entirety, the project seeks to connect 4,514 schools and public colleges with a budget of 350 million dollars, which will come from the National Telecommunications Fund (Fonatel). The project is not only an opportunity to bridge the digital gap that exists between students, but also a good business opportunity for operators in the area.

Cable TV reaches record high with 70% share as news takes forefront

In the latest edition of the Television Viewership Report (TVR) from Effectv, the advertising sales division of Comcast Cable, suggests that Cable TV saw its highest share of time spent, with 71% of that attributed to consumption of cable versus broadcast and premium networks in Q3.

The data in this edition of the TVR looks at how and where TV audiences are spending their time by aggregating data from more than 17 million Comcast households across 65 markets. Additionally, the report’s findings are based on 16.3 billion hours of viewing.

“TV viewing in the second half of the year was impacted dramatically by the unique circumstances of 2020, and it was particularly interesting to see how live viewing surged as a result of some of those factors,” said James Rothwell, VP, global agency, brand and industry relations at Comcast Advertising, Effectv’s parent company. “Time spent with cable news, in particular, as everyone wanted to stay informed about the latest political, social and health issues, was the most dramatic driver of that increase in live viewing and illustrates the continued importance of TV for advertisers, as well as audience-based tactics to adapt to media consumption trends.”