2021.10.22 – Open Broadband News

Breakthrough! Broadband Forum members unite to deliver USP-based application container

In a global first, home broadband innovators Kaon Broadband, Domos and Incognito have announced the implementation of an open standards based, application container to support a spectrum of bespoke subscriber services on the CPE. Based on the Broadband Forum’s TR-369 User Services Platform (USP) open protocol, this industry-leading implementation simultaneously establishes a platform for the commercialization, delivery and intelligent provisioning of services, and a low-friction, subscriber-friendly way to try, buy and upgrade them.

The implementation, that was on display at this year’s Broadband World Forum Conference, provided a model for the successful implementation of the USP protocol and a timely showcase for the technologies integrated to make it a reality. Leveraging Kaon Broadband’s deep home gateway hardware and software expertise, Incognito’s advanced device and broadband services management solutions and Domos’ powerful machine learning algorithm for guaranteed application-aware outcomes, the combined solution represents a generational leap in the way connected home applications and services are deployed and consumed.

“This achievement marks a milestone in the long-standing industry-wide effort to disaggregate the CPE from its traditional constraints,” said Olav Nedrelid, Domos CEO and Co-Founder. “In a similar way that 5G mobile radio access has been replatformed in the Open-RAN standard to allow for greater flexibility and a broader partner ecosystem to deliver value, this extends that enablement into the home. We’re thrilled to be bringing that opportunity to life for CSPs and their customers alike.”

‘A day out? I’d rather stay on my online game’ says 84% of US consumers according to survey

The Digital Media Trends Fall Pulse Survey from consultancy firm Deloitte revealed 84 percent of consumers are spending more time on online entertainment at home, compared with in-person entertainment outside the home.

84 percent of US consumers say they are spending more time on online entertainment activities and less on in-person entertainment outside of the home recently. About the same percentage (82 percent) say they are concerned about Covid-19 variants, and that’s likely keeping people indoors and online.

“We’re seeing an important shift in what consumers are paying attention to and how they are choosing to engage and be entertained,” advisesd Kevin Westcott, Vice Chairman, Deloitte LLP and US technology, media and telecom leader. “While streaming video will continue to gain momentum, especially with leading services now pursuing global markets, these companies will also need to address churn and retention among diverse segments in different markets, and shift from merely measuring subscribers to understanding how to unlock the lifetime value within their customer bases.”

Westcott added: “It will serve them well in the future to develop growth strategies that include both social video and social gaming, whether through partnerships, acquisitions, or simply establishing a really effective social media department.”

Report reveals the impact of the digital gender gap as barrier costs $1 trillion

Barriers preventing women from accessing the Internet and participating online have cost low- and lower-middle income countries (LLMICs) an estimated $1 trillion in GDP in the last ten years.

That’s according to new research published on Monday by the World Wide Web Foundation and the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) titled: ‘The Costs of Exclusion – Economic Consequences of the Digital Gender Gap’. In these countries there is still a substantial digital gender gap – with just over a third of women connected to the Internet, compared to almost half of men. Men are 21 percent more likely to be online than women globally, and that rises to 52 percent in the least-developed countries.

The report estimates that in 2020, the digital gender gap cost LLMICs a total of $126 billion. This represents a loss of more than $24 billion in tax revenues, funds that could be used to invest in education, health and infrastructure programs.

“Closing the digital gender gap is not just a moral cause, it is also an economic imperative. As the Internet becomes a more potent enabler for education, business, and community mobilization, a failure to deliver access for all means failing to realize everyone’s potential to contribute,” said Catherine Adeya, Web Foundation director of research.

50G hype to reach fever pitch by 2023, according to Strategy Analytics

Strategy Analytics answered the question of what it believes will follow 10G as the next generation of passive optical networking (PON) technology, predicting operators will skip a step up to 25G and make the leap straight to 50G starting in 2023.

With 10G deployments now mainstream and rapidly growing, vendors and operators have been placing their bets on what’s next. Some, including members of the 25GS-PON Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) Group have backed 25G as the next logical transition, with Nokia notably building 25G capabilities into its multi-PON line card and pitching it as a “non-disruptive upgrade” to 10G.

But according to a new Strategy Analytics report, it will be 50G that supplants 10G. The firm’s Senior Analyst and report author Dan Grossman told Fierce there are a variety of reasons why 50G is its pick, but it boils down to the fact that there’s “a broad industry consensus that a two-and-a-half times step isn’t really significant enough.” Though some operators may roll out 25G to address a narrow range of applications, it is not expected to achieve widespread use, Grossman added in the report.

Telecom investments take a tumble in LatAm and Caribbean despite pandemic

Latin America and the Caribbean saw a 7% drop in investments per capita in telecommunications during 2020, according to a report presented by professor Raúl Katz at the CPR Latam conference.

North America, Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States were the only regions to see an increase in investment last year, the report states. In Latin America, operators turned to investing in places with greater purchasing power, such as cities.

In parallel, there was a jump in the adoption of fixed broadband of around 5% globally. Latin America registered a 9.8% expansion in the number of connected homes during 2020. Katz said a study with figures for 2020 confirmed that the economic impact of 10% growth in broadband penetration was maintained globally during the pandemic. In Latin America, 10% growth in fixed broadband penetration has a 1.5% impact on GDP, according to the study.

Katz said the more developed a region is in terms of fixed broadband, the greater the impact of the technology. The study also found that the higher the penetration of fixed broadband services, the lower the negative impact associated with the pandemic.