2022.03.25 – Open Broadband News

New Broadband Forum specs allow ISPs to begin tapping 5G capabilities

The Broadband Forum wrapped Phase II of its Wireless-Wireline Convergence (WWC) effort, unveiling new specifications which will allow legacy residential wireline gateways to take advantage of certain 5G capabilities.

Its latest work builds on Phase I specifications completed in 2020 and includes two key updates: multi-access support for 5G residential gateways (5G-RGs) and multi-session enablement for fixed network residential gateways (FN-RGs).

Deutsche Telekom’s Manuel Paul, who is Vice President, Board Member and WWC Work Area Director at Broadband Forum, told Fierce Telecom that together these will allow fixed providers to begin exploiting a 5G toolkit including features like edge computing and network slicing that has hitherto either not been introduced or not made “as easily available to pure wireline core network or gateway functions to date.”

According to Paul, the advent of multi-access support means “now hybrid access is possible” for residential gateways.

LatAm international bandwidth consumption to skyrocket in next five years

Latin America is set for an international data traffic boom during the next five years, with ‘used bandwidth’ on network routes running in and out of the content set to grow more than threefold in the 2021-2026 period, according to forecasts from Telegeography, which has been tracking and reporting on such trends for decades.

First, the numbers: it is expected that international lit bandwidth will increase from 150 Tbit/s in 2021 to almost 700 Tbit/s in 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) during the period of 36 percent.

Telegeography notes that demand for capacity is “strong and continues to rise,” and while the international data backbone operators account for a majority of the used bandwidth, the “content providers” (Microsoft, Google, and Facebook in particular) are using more and more capacity.

All of this points to the likelihood of broader digital service usage and engagement across Latin America in the coming months, which can only be a positive sign for the region’s population and economies.

Vodafone chooses Nokia for SDN controller trials in fixed access network

First steps are proof-of-concept trials to progress massive automation and Network-as-a-Platform (NaaP). Vodafone has an exclusive agreement with Nokia to work on the evolution of software defined network manager and controller (SDN-M&C) services for multi-access, fixed network technology. The companies will conduct proof-of-concept trials in Europe. If they are successful, the plan is to deploy the technology more widely this year.

Last September, Vodafone announced it was testing a new Broadband Forum specification with Benu Networks, Casa Networks, Cisco and Nokia. The Broadband Network Gateway (BNG) was developed to connect multiple users to the internet using hardware and software from several vendors. The tests used the TR-459 Forum standard to run disaggregated BNG tests which separated the core control functions of the gateway – such as authenticating a user and increasing bandwidth to support streaming services – and managed them in the cloud while ensuring interoperability.

Vodafone established it can separately upgrade, scale and deploy new features and add more capacity, enabling greater agility and faster time to market when upgrading its pan-European broadband network, Broadband Forum said.

Global broadband prices rose during pandemic

For all the talk of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighting the need to close the broadband affordability gap, a new report suggests the world hasn’t successfully applied the lesson.

According to the policy brief, prepared by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI), broadband became more expensive for consumers worldwide in 2021 after “years of steady decline.”

And fewer economies than before meet the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development’s “affordable cost target,” which stipulates those entry-level broadband services should be available at a level corresponding to less than two percent of monthly gross national income (GNI) per capita in developing economies. According to the ITU and A4AI, fixed broadband prices rose to 3.5 percent of GNI capita globally in 2021, up from 2.9 percent.

“The affordability gap for Internet access between those living in low- and middle-income countries and those living in high income countries is inexcusably high,” said Sonia Jorge, executive director of A4AI, adding that “people in rural areas, and women everywhere, are disproportionately affected.”

Fiber surge drives record-breaking year for broadband access equipment market

According to a newly published report by Dell’Oro Group, a source for market information about the telecommunications, networks, and data center IT industries, total global revenue for the broadband access equipment market increased to US $16.3 billion in 2021, up 12 percent year-over-year.

Dell’Oro Group said that growth came once again from spending on both Passive Optical Network (PON) infrastructure and fixed wireless customer-premises equipment (CPE).

“2021 was a record year for PON equipment spending, with some of the highest growth coming from the North American market, where expansion projects and fiber overbuilds are picking up considerably,” said Dell’Oro Group vice president broadband access and home networking Jeff Heynen. “These fiber expansion projects show no signs of slowing heading into 2022.”

Broadband abound! Algeria eyeing 5G launches this year

Algeria is in the process of clearing and optimizing radio frequencies to be used for 5G as it prepares for a widespread launch of the technology “soon”, according to Telecoms Minister Karim Bibi Triki.

As reported by Agence Ecofin, the minister said that Algeria’s government has previously been focused on improving subpar 4G coverage and service quality, but in the face of increasing demand for broadband connectivity the launch of commercial 5G is now being seriously considered – possibly even before the end of 2022.

Traffic has surged in Algeria since 2020 as a result of the pandemic, prompting operators to boost capacity on their networks – in many cases by deploying 5G-ready technology. As reported by CommsUpdate, during 2021 Algeria’s operators pressured the government to lay out its 5G strategy so that they could plan their investments in the technology. The state owns 200,000km of fiber optic cables which will be used to facilitate the introduction of 5G in Algeria.