2021.07.23 – Open Broadband News

Broadband Forum and prpl team up to unveil secure cross-platform service delivery framework

Service providers will benefit from greater agility, faster time-to-market, delivery of improved operational support and ultimately the ability to significantly enhance end-user experience thanks to the latest collaboration between Broadband Forum and prpl Foundation. This will help create a truly interoperable ecosystem of 3rd-party applications and services and allow Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) to be seamlessly upgraded with new innovative services.

The joint effort will see the two industry organizations enhance existing home gateway architecture to enable service providers to more easily deploy, activate and manage portable 3rd-party applications and services, such as Wi-Fi analytics, security and more onto Wi-Fi routers and Home Gateways. Leveraging Broadband Forum’s User Services Platform (USP), it will open up new opportunities for service providers to deliver value to their subscribers.

“This collaboration between Broadband Forum and prpl Foundation is uniting the industry by converging various CPE software platforms around a cross-platform service delivery framework,” said Leonard Dauphinee, President at prpl Foundation. “Without such convergence, it had become increasingly difficult to upgrade CPE with new innovative services such as parental controls, security solutions, and streaming services.”

Find out just why Fixed Wireless matters so much in LatAm

Although not new, Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) networks are becoming key for many mobile operators in the wake of 5G. FWA enables low-latency, high-speed broadband in areas where fiber is too expensive to roll out and maintain.

According to the GSM Association (GSMA), 55 of 157 commercial 5G networks globally operate fixed wireless broadband services. In its latest mobile technology report, Ericsson said 70% of global operators are offering FWA services, either via 5G or 4G networks. In Latin America, 52% of service providers offered FWA by April.

“FWA can be used everywhere, but basically we can divide the business drive into three groups: first, to provide connection to unconnected, that is, addressing potential customers that don’t have an option today for fixed broadband services. This could be in rural or any remote areas without service today,” Marcos Scheffer, Ericsson’s networks VP for the Southern Cone, told BNamericas. “Also, to replace legacy infrastructure based on copper with currently low connection speeds and high vandalism rates. And thirdly, it is an alternative to fiber in areas where households or business density is not high enough to justify fiber investments by operators.”

Tell me more, tell me more! Survey reveals that UK homes prioritize reliability over speed!

While 66 per cent of households believe network operators have coped well during the COVID-19 pandemic, the second chapter of EY study, Decoding the digital home, reveals a disconnect between what connectivity providers offer and what customers need. 58 per cent of UK households believe broadband reliability is more important than speed – the latter typically cited by providers as a service differentiator – and nearly half (47 per cent) don’t think upgrading to higher-speed packages is worth the cost. Meanwhile, 29 per cent say they don’t understand what broadband speed means in practice.

The survey of 2,500 UK consumers conducted in January 2021 shows that the appetite for a consistent connection aligns with perceptions that broadband reliability declined during the pandemic – 29 per cent across all households, rising to 46 per cent in households with children aged up to 11 years.

“Since the start of the pandemic, networks have coped well with the surge in home internet needs, but too many UK households have experienced performance issues,” notes Praveen Shankar, EY UK & Ireland Head of Technology, Media and Telecommunications (TMT). “People want a better reliability guarantee and operators must improve how they communicate that and maximize the role they can play in the post-pandemic household in order to thrive in the future.”

India ranked 70^th in fixed broadband speed averages, as Monaco tops global rankings

India ranked in the 70th position worldwide in terms of fixed broadband speeds in June 2021, according to data released by Ookla’s Speedtest Global Index. The Index compares internet speed data from around the world each month and recently released updates for the month of June.

The internet speeds in India witnessed an upward trend, taking the country to 70th position in terms of broadband speed, up by three ranks.

Globally, Monaco, Singapore and Hong Kong ranked first, second and third in terms of fixed broadband speed with 260.74 Mbps, 252.68 and 248.94 Mbps speeds respectively. The global mobile download average was 55.34 Mbps and upload speed was 12.69 upload speed and 37-millisecond latency while the fixed broadband speed was 106.61 Mbps and 57.67 Mbps upload speed with 20 ms latency.

Catch up on Jason Walls’ recording on The New Connected and Managed Home

Catch-up on Jason Walls’ presentation on the New Connected and Managed Home. Recorded for the BCN 2021 LATAM Summit hosted by Telesemana, Jason covers various topics on evolving broadband home technologies and the work of the Broadband Forum. The presentation covered:

• How the managed connected home has evolved for operators and how new challenges and opportunities have created the demand for new solutions.
• How the move from TR-069 to the User Services Platform (TR-369) is meeting those challenges and delivering new ways to monetize the connected home.
• Information on what operators are facing and doing with these challenges.

To access Jason’s full recording, join Telesemana for free here.